It works because it’s true. If a team is winning, they’re keeping it interesting by winning. If they’re losing, they’re doing so in an interesting (and often epically pitiful) fashion.
Every team, one can argue, keeps it interesting. And that’s why so many of us idiots love sports so much. Because they all keep it interesting.
But if you’re looking to go beyond, “They always keep it interesting,” here are four sources to help you keep up to date:
The Big Lead: Let’s face it, to the uninitiated, the ESPN website looks like a mess of flashing lights, headlines that mean very little and scores that mean even less. I read The Big Lead every day because they tend to throw plenty of pop culture into the mix. Their daily roundup is a mix of actual (non-sports) news, top sports stories that often go beyond the score and YouTube videos you’ll want to pass around the office.
Frank Deford: As NPR’s Morning Edition commentator on all things sports, Deford, one of America’s most accomplished and respected sports journalists, is tasked with explaining to NPR’s audience why we sports fans care so much about the top stories. He does it in a way that’s at once incredibly informative and not-at-all condescending. Quite a rare feat for any sports enthusiast.
Huffington Post: If you’re looking for the top 5-10 stories in sports right now, the Huffington Post sports section is a great place to start. As with most of HuffPo’s content, it’s curated from other sources that did the original reporting, so you can click through if you’re looking to get more in-depth.
FiveThirtyEight.com and Grantland.com: If you’re not a sports guy, maybe you’re a data/analytics guy. If that’s the case, FiveThirtyEight is your venue. And the best part about it? It’s not just sport. Nate Silver runs FiveThirtyEight after a tenure at the New York Times, where he became famous for accurately predicting the outcomes of various elections. Grantland, meanwhile, is a wonderful sports/pop culture soup. ESPN owns both sites, but don’t hold it against the sites themselves—they’re fairly independent and will give you a much more interesting take on the sports scene than just wins and losses.
