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This is Defector, a new sports blog and media company. We made this place together, we own it together, we run it together. Without access, without favor, without discretion, and without interference.

Defector

Annie Berke

Arts And Culture

‘Imperfect Women’ Is The Latest Entry In A Fittingly Flawed Genre

A hand holding a phone with a tapeworm coming out of it

Gambling

Why I Got Out Of The Gambling Business

<p>Nicholas Russell is a writer from Las Vegas.</p>


Nicholas Russell

Interviews

Namwali Serpell On Understanding Toni Morrison The Author, Not The Icon

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<p>Charles P. Pierce is a writer at <em>Esquire</em> and the author of four books, most recently <em>Idiot America</em>, and has been a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston with his wife but no longer his three children.</p>
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Charles P. Pierce

A tightly cropped image of a player releasing a jump shot

Elder Wisdom

I Miss My Jump Shot

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<div>Abigail Segel is a contributing writer at Defector. She is also an editor for The IX Soccer and the Equalizer. Her work has been published in the Guardian and the Montreal Gazette.</div>
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Abigail Segel

Laura Harvey looks perplexed while receiving a yellow card

Soccer

The Cascadia Rivalry Was Totally Bonkers

Eleanor Russell

The New Evangelists

Jonah Walters

Stephen Fishbach’s Reality-TV Novel Is More Reality TV Than Novel


<p><a href="https://twitter.com/kenpomeroy" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Ken</a> has been cranking out college basketball statistics at <a href="http://kenpom.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">kenpom.com</a> since 2004. He’s written at The Athletic, Slate, the late <em>ESPN The Magazine</em>, and the late Basketball Prospectus. He hopes to live long enough to see the men&#8217;s game start using quarters, like every other basketball league in the world.</p>


Ken Pomeroy

Braden Smith of the Purdue Boilermakers celebrates with his teammates after being named outstanding player of the tournament after winning the championship game of the Big Ten Men's Basketball Championships on March 15, 2026.

College Basketball

March Madness’s Phony Rules Were Made To Be Broken

Jaya Saxena

Fair Pay Feels Good In A Place Like This

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<p>Robert Rubsam writes fiction and nonfiction. His work has appeared in the NYT Magazine, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, the Baffler, and Liberties. He is a contributing writer for Commonweal Magazine.</p>
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Robert Rubsam

Lewis Pullman and Danielle Brooks announce the nominees for Original Score

The Academy Missed Some Of 2025’s Best Film Scores

<p>Former Defector intern, now freelancer.</p>
<p>For professional inquiries or tips please write lucybl00m@protonmail.com or yuck.20 on Signal.</p>
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Lucy Bloom

Politics

A Helpful Explainer Of Kansas’s Lunatic Anti-Trans Law

<p>Owen Lewis is a former Defector intern and has written for The Guardian, The Second Serve, The Athletic, and other publications.</p>


Owen Lewis

A view of the court at the Australian Open

Tennis

How I Became A Target For Right-Wing Freaks At The Australian Open

<p>Flatbush Local, Culture Writer, Former Mayor of New York City.</p>


Abe Beame

Lost Recipes


<p><a href="https://twitter.com/petesegall?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Pete Segall</a> lives in Chicago. His fiction has appeared in <em>The Bennington Review</em>, <em>Conjunctions</em>, <em>The Drift</em>, and elsewhere.</p>


Pete Segall

A collage featuring three of the different paperback covers for "Cleo Birdwell"'s 1980 novel Amazons.

Don DeLillo’s Funniest Novel Is A 1980 Hockey Sex Romp He Won’t Acknowledge

The NWSL Offseason Put Important New Faces In New Places

<p>Erin Somers is the author of the novel <i>The Ten Year Affair</i>.</p>


Erin Somers

Talking To A. Natasha Joukovsky About Men, Myths, And March Madness

Nate Rogers

Jason Lee at Netflix and Shondaland's "The Residence" Los Angeles Premiere at The Egyptian Theatre

A Complimentary Profile Of Jason Lee That Was Surprisingly Difficult To Publish

<p>The author can be reached at postpostdoc@protonmail.com.</p>


Post-Postdoc

Mech Mind automatic vending robot gives a thumbs-up after fetching beverages from a shelf at the exhibition area of the 2025 World AI Conference (WAIC) and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance on July 27, 2025 in Shanghai, China.

The Machines

Something Of Moderate Size And Importance Is Happening

Hannah Seo

What Should Recorded Musicals Do?

<p>Maya Goldberg-Safir writes about women’s basketball and splits her time between Chicago and Oakland, where she was born and raised. She is the creator of <a href="https://wnbaroughnotes.substack.com/">Rough Notes</a>, a newsletter chronicling women’s basketball from the court, the road, and the heart.</p>


Maya Goldberg-Safir

Women's Basketball

Cardte Hicks Played Above The Rim And Ahead Of Her Time

<p>Harry Krinsky is a producer and media consultant living in Brooklyn. He is the cohost of <em><a href="https://defector.com/tag/nothing-but-respect">Nothing But Respect</a></em>.</p>


Harry Krinsky

Rich Paul stands in front of a white board

Media Meltdowns

Rich Paul’s Podcast Was Built To Be Useless

Veronica de Souza

Make It Nice

Make It Nice: Curtains, Linens, And How To Figure Out What You Like

<p>Lesley Ryder is a writer and a host covering the Chicago Red Stars. She co-created <a href="https://galpalsports.com/">Gal Pal Sports</a>, a platform that lives to make women’s sports fun for everyone.</p>


Lesley Ryder

Kendall Coyne #26 of Team United States controls the puck against in the second period during the Women's Playoffs Semifinal match between United States and Sweden on Day 10 of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic games at Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena on February 16, 2026 in Milan, Italy.

Olympics

All I Want Is A Women’s Hockey Broadcast That Talks About The Hockey

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<div dir="ltr">Georgia Cloepfil is the author of <i>The Striker and the Clock</i> (Riverhead, 2024). Her other writing can be found in <i>The Yale Review</i>, The New York <i>Times</i> Magazine, <i>n+1 </i>and elsewhere.</div>
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