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...

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. ⬇️

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. ⬇️

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...

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/...

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/...

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...

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...

NEW VIDEO: “Sports are rigged” used to sound crazy. Now it’s just … normal discourse. What changed? youtu.be/kzREwFhpCHU

If Wemby can’t defend a shot, it can’t be defended

Started my YouTube channel one year ago today. Today, we’re at 42K subscribers and the channel is a self-sustaining business. Thank you to everyone who has ever watched a video. You’ve proven it’s possible to do independent sports journalism with no gambling sponsors.

NEW VIDEO: Every sports fan has heard it. "Sources say..." But what does that actually mean? I talked to Jeff Passan -- one of the most trusted insiders in sports -- to break down how reporting really works -- and why it can be so confusing. www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_EX...

New video with @moreperfectunion.bsky.social: It's now more lucrative to have a losing sports team than a championship team. We examined the Boston Red Sox to see how private equity and cost cutting invaded sports. www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLtn...

Gambling companies are tweeting lies as if it's legitimate news because it brings more attention to them. Facts matter. Slippery slope when gambling companies that leagues and media outlets are partnered with are lying to fans. It undermines all of sports.

Three-quarters of Americans now view sports betting as socially acceptable, but two-thirds are concerned corruption in sports is rising alongside the growth of legalized wagering, according to a new poll from Sacred Heart University www.sacredheart.edu/media/shu-me...

NEW VIDEO: The rise of private equity, gambling, ticket prices and sports team valuations is no coincidence. It's leagues realizing sports has a ceiling in the US, and they need to everything possible to make the leagues go global: www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8aL...

Prediction Markets claim you’re betting against other users, but you’re really betting against Wall Street investors Prediction markets are sports gambling with a better PR strategy

NEW VIDEO: What started in sports is spreading everywhere. Over the past year, I've been reporting on how gambling became embedded in sports -- and how it's changing the way we experience the world far beyond the games themselves. www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBBn...

Surreal hearing the GOAT Bob Costas say this about my independent sports journalism on YouTube. He's a huge inspiration for what we're building.

For @bostonglobe.com: I wrote about why Boston loves Derrick White, and what it says about the future of the city www.bostonglobe.com/2026/03/08/o...

NEW VIDEO: Sports logos used to be chaotic, colorful and weird. They used to look like this 🦖 Now they look like this ⭕️ That didn't happen by accident, and I tried to figure out why: youtu.be/pOj5gTodXeU

NEW VIDEO: Why are sports owners suddenly so comfortable losing? Some blame tanking, some blame analytics. But an answer increasingly is private equity. www.youtube.com/watch?v=taaj...

NEW VIDEO: Kevin Durant has two Finals MVPS, is a 16-time All-Star and one of the greatest basketball players ever. He's still arguing with strangers on the internet. Why? www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3ui...

Why I don't take sports gambling sponsorships substack.com/home/post/p-...

One day after I tweeted this clip criticizing Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour on Squawk Box, a Kalshi rep reached out asking to sponsor my YouTube channel. I don’t take sports gambling sponsorships. I’m building a sports journalism YouTube channel with no gambling sponsors. Subscribe: t.co/h2mczPM1U0

The thing I like about a full-length @joon.bsky.social video is that it's just a narrated magazine article. You know, from back when those were a thing. The articles that were interesting even if you didn't care about the subject.

NEW VIDEO: LeBron is still too good to retire. But the Lakers can't fully build their future around Luka Doncic while he's still there. Why watching sports legends age can be so complicated: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgsb...

A player in massive trade rumors owning part of a prediction market where people can bet on whether he gets traded is a MASSIVE conflict of interest. This is so far beyond players doing sportsbook ads.

Bill Belichick is the greatest coach ever … and didn’t go first ballot Hall of Fame. It's not just Jordon Hudson drama, but what happened when he stopped controlling the story. With the Patriots in the Super Bowl, time to revisit what his legacy means www.youtube.com/watch?v=21nX...