As the Deadspin empire crumbles to the ground and fresh copy is hard to find on the site, sports talkers Jason Whitlock and Clay Travis delivered "eulogies" that weren't pretty. Many of the irreverent leftist writers and editors at Deadspin have quit or been fired for refusing new management's order to do straight sports.
Whitlock (seen in file photo, right), one of the hosts of FS1's Speak For Yourself, lambasted Deadspin in a series of Tweets. Travis, host of a Fox Sports Radio show and owner/operator of the Outkick The Coverage sports blog, showed the former Deadspin writers no mercy either.
For Whitlock, it was personal. In 2015, he was tasked with launching ESPN's black-themed blogsite, The Undefeated. Deadspin's Greg Howard wrote a scathing critique of that effort, calling Whitlock "a catastrophe as a manager—paranoid, demeaning, oblivious, vindictive, unbelievably self-regarding, and, in some cases, truly destructive.'' He also wrote, "Before it’s even launched, this site is already doomed."
So when the radical jig was up at Deadspin this week, Whitlock issued several Tweets against his nemesis:
Travis slammed the outgoing Deadspin staff for their defiance of management's decree to stick to sports:
"... (I)f you disagree with your boss, and if you believe that you should be able to do whatever you want under the sun, and that there's a marketplace for that, the great thing about being in a capitalistic universe is you can found your own business and do it. If Deadspin is wrong, and there is a huge market, which I don't believe there is, for why Donald Trump sucks, alongside of an analysis of the best team in the NFL, then start that website and run it and make tens of millions of dollars. Get yourself fabulously wealthy."
Travis advised those who are unemployed because they refused to obey their superiors to do what he did and start their own websites.
"If you are correct that you understand the marketplace better than your boss does, then do what I did and start a company to make yourself rich! Okay? Instead of whining because somebody won't pay you to do exactly what you want to do, prove that your boss is wrong by starting a company to do exactly what you want to do."
Travis said he doesn't have an ounce of sympathy for those who rebelled against Deadspin. "Stop bitching. Stop complaining. Stop moaning. And do it yourself. I did it. It can be done."
