NEW VIDEO; The WNBA is growing faster than ever—and facing a seemingly never-ending series of crises. To understand why, I talked to @seeratsohi.bsky.social and traced how the league got here. The story starts long before Caitlin Clark turned pro. youtu.be/HLigdWCKK_s?...

NEW VIDEO: A German tourist discovering Waffle House. A President personally calling FIFA to overturn a red card. Same six weeks, same tournament. The story of the World Cup is fans building the event of a lifetime, despite how much DC & FIFA tried to get in the way www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7my...

No matter how many times I mention that I do not work with sports gambling sponsors on my YouTube channel, I always hear from a prediction market at least once a month.

NEW VIDEO: I was prepared for Backyard Sports to become another nostalgia cash grab. So I flew to Pittsburgh to find out who bought it, why they brought it back and whether it’s actually possible to revive a childhood classic without ruining it. youtu.be/DTcxmaThMFs

NEW VIDEO: For 30 years, American soccer waited for a savior. Freddy Adu. Christian Pulisic. The next one. The USMNT finally got good the moment it stopped needing one. New video on how that happened — and why we spent two decades looking at the wrong thing. youtu.be/B1dViSxlzAU?...

NEW VIDEO: I went down a rabbit hole trying to answer one question: How did Chinese basketball brands go from being dismissed as knockoffs to signing Steph Curry? youtu.be/L37JdjeU39I?...

I made this video last year, but it feels even more relevant now. In 2018, Kylian Mbappé told me about his dream of playing for Real Madrid. Now he’s there. But somewhere between becoming the future of football and living the dream, the conversation around him changed youtu.be/SKxpArcyJMY?...

Thank you to @awfulannouncing.bsky.social for covering my journey on YouTube. We talked about getting laid off from ESPN, not taking gambling sponsors and building a YouTube business from scratch. awfulannouncing.com/youtube/joon...

Joon Lee: going independent has ‘been the most fun I've ever had’

Three years after being laid off from ESPN, Joon Lee has found success with his YouTube channel and making it on his own.

awfulannouncing.com

Three years ago I got laid off from ESPN. Now I'm running a YouTube channel: profitable, 175K views a video, closing in on 60K subs. Goal: 100K by end of summer. If you believe sports journalism can be more — with no gambling ads — I'd love to take this journey together. ⬇️

Joon Lee

Independent Sports Journalist • Formerly: ESPN, B/R, The Washington Post • Born in Seoul 🇰🇷 Bred in Boston • workwith@joon.me New York City via Boston & Seoul My bio: I'm an award-winning sports j...

youtube.com

Three years ago I got laid off from ESPN. Now I'm running a YouTube channel: profitable, 175K views a video, closing in on 60K subs. Goal: 100K by end of summer. If you believe sports journalism can be more — with no gambling ads — I'd love to take this journey together. ⬇️

Joon Lee

Independent Sports Journalist • Formerly: ESPN, B/R, The Washington Post • Born in Seoul 🇰🇷 Bred in Boston • workwith@joon.me New York City via Boston & Seoul My bio: I'm an award-winning sports j...

youtube.com

Members of the Knicks front office partially credit James Dolan "getting distracted" by the Sphere for the team's success in recent years, according to team sources Inside the transformation of the Knicks from dysfunctional to champions: youtu.be/wElpzYbWtgs

NEW VIDEO: The Knicks won a championship, but they also made New York feel like New York again. I talked to fans who almost gave up, dug into one of the most dysfunctional franchises in sports, and tried to understand why this team means so much to this city. youtu.be/wElpzYbWtgs

NEW VIDEO with @rogbennett.bsky.social: The World Cup is the biggest event in human history. It’s also a political weapon, a billion-dollar business and one of the most corrupt institutions in sports. So how did billions of people end up caring so deeply about it? www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB_8...

The World Cup broadcasters keep trying to normalize the extra commercials by talking on and on about how necessary the hydration breaks are. RESIST

NEW VIDEO: For decades, America treated soccer like a joke. Then something changed. For Americans under 35, soccer is as popular as the NBA, and more popular than MLB. So how did a country that spent decades mocking soccer suddenly embrace it? youtu.be/uyY9J_KY-u8?...

Will pay a lot of money to watch a live camera at MSG / Penn Station to watch World Cup tourists crash into hoards of rabid Knicks fans trying to get on Sidetalk

Why did Taylor Swift become one of the biggest figures in sports? Why did fans start acting like detectives over Mike Vrabel & Dianna Russini? And why does sports suddenly feel more like Hollywood than Hollywood? Feat. @thewilderthings.bsky.social + @madelinehill.bsky.social youtu.be/og_v3EyxPe4

Gambling ads were shown every four minutes in 50 football, basketball and hockey games, according to a Washington Post analysis www.washingtonpost.com/investigatio...

We had AI analyze 50 hours of sports on TV. It detected gambling ads everywhere.

The billions of dollars in advertising invested annually by sports betting companies have profoundly changed televised sports in the U.S., the analysis showed.

washingtonpost.com

NEW VIDEO: Sports video games used to feel like the future. Every year they looked better. Felt bigger. More ambitious. Then somewhere along the way, they stopped trying to become better games. To find out why, I talked to @kofie.bsky.social youtu.be/G7gDTy9o7t0?...

NEW VIDEO: 15 years ago, a pitcher throwing 100 MPH felt almost superhuman. Now the best pitcher in baseball throws 100. The closer throws 100. The random reliever in a blowout throws 100. So how did baseball learn to manufacture velocity? www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxA7...

Youth sports is getting more expensive, more intense and less accessible. So what can a city actually do about it? I’ll be talking with Boston mayor Michelle Wu at the Aspen Institute’s Project Play Summit next Wednesday. Livestream registration: projectplay.org/summit/2026/...

NEW VIDEO: A decade ago, people were rioting for Jordans. Now the coolest shoes in the world look like something your dad wore to Costco. How did that happen? www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJwx...

Sportsbooks and prediction markets continue to reach out about sponsoring my YouTube channel and Substack. I don’t take gambling or prediction market sponsorships. The channel is already profitable without sports betting, and I plan to keep it that way.

The Red Sox didn’t lose their way overnight. Their incentives shifted. When private equity enters sports, the questions change — and so do the answers. Inside the organization, some describe the culture as “toxic positivity.” The story behind it: open.substack.com/pub/joonlee/...

Inside The Red Sox's Credibility Crisis

The franchise is defined by mixed signals, shifting priorities — and what some inside call “toxic positivity.”

open.substack.com

The Red Sox fired Alex Cora. Inside the team, some describe the culture as “toxic positivity" When I asked Sam Kennedy about that, he said: “If the accusation is that I’m… overly positive, guilty as charged.” Inside the Red Sox’s credibility crisis: open.substack.com/pub/joonlee/...

Inside The Red Sox's Crisis of Credibility

The franchise is defined by mixed signals, shifting priorities — and what some inside call “toxic positivity.”

open.substack.com

That's what we explore this week on Question Everything. I learned a ton from this conversation with Kate Knibbs of @wired.com, @dannyfunt.bsky.social, and @joon.bsky.social about the rise of betting in sports, news, and life. Listen 🎧: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/q...

Question Everything

News Commentary Podcast · Updated Biweekly · Propagandist? Truth teller? Influencer? Question Everything unravels the contested work of journalists and the moral complexities surrounding the stories t...

podcasts.apple.com

NEW VIDEO: For a decade, people thought baseball was dying. And then … it wasn’t. How that happened, with @cespedesbbq.bsky.social, and how it's about more than just a few rule changes and Shohei Ohtani www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F6L...

NEW VIDEO: How did sports debate shows turn into the way we talk about everything? I went inside the rise of hot take culture, talked to the people who built it and traced how hot takes took over media. In collaboration with Vice Sports: youtu.be/ndGUBh3EjJw?...

Trust in sports leagues to protect competitive integrity is all over the place, according to a Sacred Heart poll. The NFL is both the most trusted and one of the least trusted leagues. The NBA is the least trusted league. What happens when gambling becomes central to sports.

List of athletes invested in Kalshi, per Front Office Sports. This many active athletes — including a union president — investing in a sportsbook is a massive conflict of interest. frontofficesports.com/kalshi-athle...