(Slate) What Happened to Deadspin, According to the People Who Were There

Deadspin was founded 14 years ago by Will Leitch, who cranked out 300-word blog posts in the first person plural, and it ended for all intents and purposes on Friday with a video of NCAA stooges lying about paying college athletes. In his first post, Leitch wrote, “there’s a whole side of sports that because of either corporate obligations or just plain laziness, never makes it into the public consciousness.” He was right about that. As much as any publication, Deadspin defined what sports journalism for smart people in the digital age should look like. For many readers, including me, it replaced legacy sports media as the first place to go for what happened, what mattered, what to think about, and what to talk about.

On the occasion of its demise, Josh Levin and I talked to three former Deadspinners for this week’s episode of Hang Up and Listen. They are Megan Greenwell, who edited the site for 18 months before resigning this summer and is now editor of Wired.com; Barry Petchesky, who joined Deadspin in 2009 and was the longest-serving staffer when he was fired last Wednesday; and Tom Ley, who wrote and edited for the site for seven years, and was among the 20 or so staffers who resigned last week.