Search Results for: sports

Why Watching ‘Survivor’ Is Like Watching Sports

The sense of participation is key, both in competition-based shows like Project Runway and programs like Dance Moms that don’t have a prize, but position players as teams in drama-filled social acrobatics. The format “invites the audience to participate, either directly (through voting) or indirectly (by imagining how they might behave in similar situations),” Papacharissi says.

Dawson suggests these shows are more closely related to sporting events than scripted dramas. In the case of Survivor, viewers get an experience similar to televised sports, Papacharissi explains: “You can root for your favorite castaway like you do for your favorite team, and vicariously experience her triumphs and setbacks from episode to episode.”

That unlikely alignment could explain why reality TV, mocked though it may be, is being watched—perhaps surreptitiously—heavily, and with consistency. “The core elements of Survivor are pretty much the same as they were when the show debuted in 2000,” Dawson says, an unusual feat for any series in the current TV climate. “It’s a pretty unexpected turn of events, that 15 years after its debut, the show that was responsible for starting the reality TV tidal wave that dramatically disrupted the status quo of the American TV industry has become a sort of year-in, year-out institution.”

Lizzie Schiffman Tufano, writing in Pacific Standard about how reality television conquered the airwaves, and “unseated the Rachels and Monicas of the world.” The new season of Survivor, which debuted last week, is the show’s 30th.

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The Sports Startup Being Sued for Nearly $500,000 by Its Former Employees

Longreads Pick

A sports startup called Sport195 hired workers at a rapid pace despite having no customers, revenue, users, or a clear business plan. When the paychecks stopped coming, its CEO told employees that he had two revenue sources lined up—none of which came to fruition.

Source: Vice Magazine
Published: Jan 19, 2015
Length: 11 minutes (2,850 words)

Longreads Best of 2014: Sports Writing

Longreads Pick

We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in specific categories. Here, the best in sports writing.

Source: Longreads
Published: Dec 16, 2014

Longreads Best of 2014: Sports Writing

We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in specific categories. Here, the best in sports writing.

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Eva Holland
Freelance writer based in Canada’s Yukon Territory.

Together We Make Football (Louisa Thomas, Grantland)

It’s been a bad year for football: Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, the lingering Jameis Winston saga. And a bad year for football means a big year for think pieces about violence and football—I couldn’t tell you how many of those I read this year. But one of them stood out. In “Together We Make Football,” Louisa Thomas reflects on the uncomfortable relationship between the NFL, masculinity, violence, and women. She takes her time, building a case slowly and methodically, before driving home her point: that violence is inherent to, and integral to, the NFL. That although the vast majority of football players don’t beat their wives, there may be no way to separate the bad violence—the off-field violence—from the on-field violence that we love. Here’s Thomas: Read more…

1964: A Sidelong View of Sports

Longreads Pick

New reading list by Daniel A. Gross: “Sports in the 1960s proved a rich arena for writers looking to flex their literary muscle, and Talese and Wolfe tried out unconventional sports writing while still kicking off their careers.”

Source: Longreads
Published: Nov 17, 2014

1964: A Sidelong View of Sports

Below is a guest reading list from Daniel A. Gross, a journalist and public radio producer who lives in Boston.

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Fifty years ago, a champion boxer picked up his son from school, a literary critic was tackled by NFL players, and a famed NASCAR racer tended to his chicken farm. Such was the sidelong view of sports presented by Gay Talese, George Plimpton, and Tom Wolfe. Sports in the 1960s proved a rich arena for writers looking to flex their literary muscle, and Talese and Wolfe tried out unconventional sports writing while still kicking off their careers. You won’t find much reference here to the sweeping political developments that tend to dominate our narratives of 1964. Instead, you’ll get some sense for the texture of the time. Read more…

Taking the Long View on Sports Reporting: Our College Pick

Longreads Pick

Our latest college pick, from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Source: Longreads
Published: Apr 30, 2014

Taking the Long View on Sports Reporting: Our College Pick

It’s been almost a month since the UConn Huskies won both NCAA basketball titles, but the pangs of withdrawal are evident on certain basketball-crazed campuses around the country. Without a good game, we turn instead to a good story. Cal Poly beat Texas Southern to secure a spot in the tournament and lost in the first round to Wichita State. It was Cal Poly’s first appearance in the NCAA Tournament, much thanks to forward Chris Eversley. In his profile of Eversley, writer J.J. Jenkins laces a narrative between the unlikely journey of the team and the personal triumph of one player. This is not a particularly unusual angle for a Cinderella sports story. But as a longtime sportswriter for Cal Poly’s Mustang News, Jenkins can write with the deep familiarity that comes with covering a team over time.

Eversley’s Ascent

J.J. Jenkins | Mustang News | April 2, 2014 | 18 minutes (4,389 words)

Five Stories About Sports for People Who Hate Sports

Longreads Pick

Not everyone is into sports, but as Michael Hobbes writes, “that doesn’t mean, as it turns out, that stories about sports can’t be fascinating. The economics! The moral gray areas! The egos! It’s like a reality show in there.”

Source: Longreads
Published: Jan 29, 2014

Five Stories About Sports for People Who Hate Sports

OK, “hate” is too strong a word. But I fundamentally do not get sports. Playing them, yes, fine. But knowing players’ names, arguing that this one guy is better than that other guy, keeping a little Excel sheet of strikes and yards and rebounds in my head? Baffling.

But that doesn’t mean, as it turns out, that stories about sports can’t be fascinating. The economics! The moral gray areas! The egos! It’s like a reality show in there.

I’m not going to start watching sports anytime soon, but thanks to these stories, I’m starting to see why other people do.

Does Football Have A Future? The N.F.L. and The Concussion Crisis

Ben McGrath | The New Yorker | Jan. 31, 2011

This story has moved on quite a bit since 2011—there is now a book, a movie and something called The Concussion Blog—but McGrath’s story is a good primer on the issue of football players suffering severe mental damage in old age, and foreshadows both the huge pressure on the NFL and its head-in-the-sand response.

Read more…