“An experiment about how we tell stories about the sport we love.”

To be honest, it’s presumptuous of me to be writing a forward at this point. Because I don’t entirely know what this will be in the end. (For those that followed my previous college basketball publication, OVC Ball, this should not be particularly surprising) Which actually means it’s a pretty poor experiment; by definition, I should at least have a hypothesis, something I’m testing and a specific way in which to test it.

I have none of those things.

I am, though, starting with a few simple assumptions: You know the score. You know the stat lines and you’ve seen the highlights. You watched the game from the arena, or if the Racers are on the road, streaming online.

You don’t need me to tell you what happened. You don’t need me to tell you what the coach or players said after. That’s already available — you can listen to postgame interviews on the radio, tune in to the weekly coaches show, or read a few written recaps with selectively chosen quotes.

And, even if you didn’t listen to a postgame interview, coaches rarely say anything actually interesting anyway.

When I decided to start this site, I started by looking at my own general sports media intake. I don’t watch ESPN any more, at least not outside of actual games. I don’t read the Athletic or ESPN.com much. I get newsletters. I have podcasts, some that I watch on YouTube, others that are audio only. And I love sports docs, especially when they’re about something obscure.

For me, it’s not a format. But there is a thoroughfare through them all: a permanence that outlives their timeliness. They’re interesting beyond their topicality; if I’m busy and I’m catching up a week or even more later, they’re still engrossing, even if the news they’re talking about isn’t up-to-the-social-media-post new.

And then I thought — I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve ever returned to a game recap to reread it. Game highlights maybe more, but even that’s rare. So why is this the predominant format that so much sports coverage still takes?

I know the answer to that question, actually. I’ve spent my entire career in newsrooms up until two years ago, and even now I still work with newsrooms. Journalism is one of the most risk-adverse, ‘this is how we’ve always done it’ industries that exist. It’s not without good reason; having standards is what makes real journalism and separates it from the ‘you can just say words’ news that exists today. But those standards doesn’t mean everything has to be so…standard.

That’s where this experiment begins. I’m writing about what I think would be interesting and hoping others agree. (Which, again, isn’t exactly new either) Today, a blazingly hot and humid afternoon in mid-July, I know more about what it won’t be than what it will be.

So, pull up a seat. It’ll be a ride.