The Undefeated debuts

Here is Kevin Merida's intro ...

A letter from our Editor-in-Chief

Today, we at The Undefeated begin chasing our dream. I am honored to lead, along with managing editor Raina Kelley, an amazing collection of talent:

Jerry Bembry, Karin Berry, Daniel Bohm, Danielle Cadet, Kelley L. Carter, Sabrina Clarke, Ryan Cortes, Cherisse Datu, Aaron Dodson, Kate Elazegui, Kelley Evans, Michael Fletcher, Domonique Foxworth, Kelsie Hartpence, Jill Hudson, Martenzie Johnson, Breana Jones, Maya Jones, Monis Khan, Brent Lewis, Marcus Matthews, Soraya McDonald, Ashley Melfi, John X. Miller, Morgan Moody, Lois Nam, Osman Noor, Lonnae O’Neal, Latoya Peterson, Jason Reid, Steve Reiss, Danyel Smith, Marc Spears, Brando Simeo Starkey, Vincent Thomas, Justin Tinsley, Rhiannon Walker, Jesse Washington, Caleb Wilkerson, Mike Wise, Mark Wright, and Clinton Yates.

We will never forget this day.

We are The Undefeated.

 

Sure, they're Undefeated, it's not even noon on the first day...

 

And for all this time I thought they were trying to stay undefeated by never playing.

 

I really like the ending of this piece.

36 Hours in Beast Mode

 

Interesting concept here. It's long, just getting into the meat of it. Had one really good line so far about "hoping God has come to collect" ...

The Waco Horror

 

What did you like about it?

It's an interesting story. In some ways, it's challenging to liberals. You have a major celebrity more or less doing good on his terms, yet also being a cultish bully whose cousin, an NFL player himself - is admoninishing/demanding the writer of the story - a woman - to do something she doesn't want to do. It's authentic, yes. But it's basically a bunch of men surrounding a woman and goading her into behavior she wouldn't otherwise engage in.

 

Jesse's going to win an award for this piece.

 

All of the things you mentioned are reasons I like it. It's both painting Lynch as a bully and someone who may have his heart in the right place. It acknowledges in a meta way the reality of the reporter/athlete dynamic. She gets to leave and Oakland gets to stay Dat Town. People are not villains or heroes. They are full of contridictions. We get to see warm and charming Lynch and also Lynch the d-bag here. That's honest. O'neal knows what she's doing.

 

I stopped reading when she used the word dope to describe the 24 shirt she was wearing for the occasion. Very difficult to want to continue.

 

Just an observation about the layout and design of The Undefeated. It's well-organized, easily navigable, not too cluttered. I like it, especially the 99 words section, which allows fans to write 99 words on stories to induce a conversation. The comments are moderated, but still it's a better forum than anything Grantland tried to do, which isn't surprising because Simmons never let people comment on his stuff at Page 2.

Are the Warriors in trouble?

Grantland always presented itself at a remove, like uttering its sports and pop culture pronouncements from on high. They weren't interested in having a conversation, they were interested in pontificating. Seems like the Undefeated is going another direction. Whether that bodes well for its long-term prospects, who knows. I still think the target demographic is too small and insular, but I'll be reading them with interest.

 

That's the danger in letting writers be so authentic. You don't need to say "dope" anymore than people need to write "fuck" or any other curse. Sure, people talk that way, but in writing it tends to lose readers as much (if not more) than it draws them in.

 

Just a guess here, but not sure you guys are the target audience. The Undefeated shouldn't be old Scoop Jackson, but it absolutely shouldn't try to be ESPN.com, pleasing older white dudes. That's the whole point.