ok, let’s do this…

…but for real this time. If you’ve remembered me starting a newsletter some years ago, no you didn’t.

With respect to the truth that jokes aren’t funny when you explain them, I want everyone to be included so I’ll explain the name. It comes from a tweet format I’ve been doing for years in which I cut off a mild-to-spicy comment with ‘- {vaudevillian cane yanks me off stage}’. So the joke also doubles as a promise. That damn cane can’t find us here.

Now that that’s out of the way, WELCOME!

This newsletter will be 98.7% about women’s soccer/football/doesn’t matter don’t be that person, ever. The sport is immensely fun to me and my goal has always been to spread that joy through GIFs, writing, tweets, analysis, podcasts, etc. That’s what you can expect here.

I’m also deeply passionate because the sport sits at a crossroads of several important societal intersections. Sports are inherently political, and shying away from that is cowardice. So, on occasion, we’ll get really real here too.

As for the other 1.3%? Whomst can say! I get obsessed with TV shows or movies, and even sometimes music. If I get inspired to share, I will. You’re free to ignore those posts so long as you never tell me that’s what you’re doing. Deal? Deal.

why are you doing this and why are you doing it now

It took me a long time to finally do this, in part because I was still holding onto an irrational faith that the sports media landscape would, ya know, stop sucking. With the explosion of women’s sports I was hoping we could find a nice little bubble that operated in a throwback and familiar way. I love pitch meetings, story assignments, fact checkers and working with an editor, it’s a perfect and necessary formula which leads to the highest quality coverage.

Supporters seem to want it and the players deserve it, but that stopped mattering several venture capitalist takeovers ago. Ugh.

Also, there was never supposed to be a direct financial transaction between the writer and their audience. Unfortunately, apart from the handful of people who get to do this full time, this is the primary medium that exists now.

Given all that, plus Elon Musk making Twitter more unusable by the day (in addition to being a dangerous idiot), I’ve had to give up on holding out for that path. I enjoy this sport too much, love writing and talking about it too much, and appreciate everyone who interacts and engages with me too much to just quit.

alright so what now

So here’s what I’m gonna do: The majority of this newsletter will be free. Those tweets I used to send out with games of note for the week/weekend ahead will be a weekly Thursday or Friday post. I’ll also use that space to share anything dope that recently happened, whether in GIF form or extensive hyperbole. I may also weigh in on the latest #discourse, or talk about something silly I noticed.

In addition, I’m also committing to writing at least one article per week. It may be about a something of societal importance (like why it’s bad that white America has only given us one [1] Megan Rapinoe), match or player analysis, a continuation of the #GOTOGAMES campaign or one of my many crusades like abolishing all drafts or demanding a Club World Cup. Or maybe something else entirely, let’s find out together.

Of those pieces, two or three per month will be for paid subscribers, at $4/mo. In part because the good folks at StatsBomb have agreed to help me out with some data visuals, but it ain’t cheap (and shouldn’t be, it’s all very dope)!

The goal is not to quit my day job, it’s to hang out and share cool and/or important woso stuff with my friends. But I am hoping that if you are able, and enjoy the content, that you consider helping to support this endeavor. If you want to and can’t, don’t stress, stick around cause we’re still gonna have plenty of fun.

Ok that’s all. Thanks for being here. Here’s a GIF for making it to the end: