Ex-Deadspin Writers Reunite Once Again, This Time for 4/20

Over a dozen of Deadspin’s former writers are reuniting once again, this time to mark the weed holiday 4/20.

Starting Monday, more than a dozen of Deadspin’s former writers and editors will reunite for a week to relaunch the pop-up Unnamed Temporary Sports Blog. The site, sponsored by CBD oil brand Sunsoil, will cover “latest in sports, culture and politics in the wake of coronavirus.”

“We love the Unnamed Temporary Sports Blog, don’t we, folks?” former Deadspin editor Tom Ley said in a Twitter direct message to The Daily Beast. “They don’t want me to say it, but it’s coming back this week, and it’s coming back very strongly. The blogs—they’ll be like you’ve never seen. So beautiful, and so perfect.”

Last year, writers and editors at the sports and culture outlet quit en masse after executives at the site’s new parent company G/O Media issued an edict to “stick to sports” and then fired an editor who refused to do so. G/O was intent on purging non-sports content from the website as a way to better package the outlet to potential advertisers.

But the move backfired: The resignations led to a wave of criticism and pull-outs from advertisers. The company’s editorial director departed after just a few months on the job, and the site went dark for months. G/O has attempted to revive the site, relaunching Deadspin earlier this year, but the publication has struggled to attract its former audience amid animosity toward the new writers and editors, and a downtick in sports news as the novel coronavirus has halted all professional and collegiate sports. 

“We need great voices to help us make sense of the world, especially now,” Bharat Ayyar, Sunsoil’s vice president of e-commerce said in a statement provided to The Daily Beast. “We’re honored to join a lineage of past, present, and future herbs in sponsoring these writers,” a reference to how, amid last year’s turmoil at Deadspin, G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller removed a post calling him an “herb.”

The week-long revival blog marks the second reunion of Deadspin’s former staff.

Many of the same writers launched the Unnamed Temporary Spots Blog earlier this year for Super Bowl weekend, in an effort sponsored by password-management tech company Dashlane. The blog recapped sports, politics, and media news over the preceding months and unsubtly needled higher-ups at G/O Media.

“Dashlane is proud to sponsor Unnamed Temporary Sports Blog Dot Com, because we’re tired of big companies ruining good websites,” an advertisement on the blog read.