Kelsey McKinney on the importance of sports gossip
The Sports Gossip Show
The Athletic
4.8 • 738 Ratings
🗓️ 13 March 2025
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Madeline and Charlotte are very excited to welcome Kelsey McKinney to the show! Kelsey is the foremost expert on gossip, having written The New York Times and USA Today bestseller You Didn’t Hear This From Me: (Mostly) True Notes on Gossip, a co-owner and features writer at Defector, and one of the co-creators of the hit podcast Normal Gossip.
Kelsey is also a die-hard Philadelphia sports fan and sports gossip enthusiast. She joins the show to talk about her great new book, and the importance of sports gossip. She helps the gals answer some very important questions, such as: Why does it matter how we talk about sports?
Are sports statistics actually just vibes? Is gossip actually the best way to bet on sports? Should you adopt the team of the city you live in if you didn’t grow up there? Are the Phillies cursed because they’re playing the wrong version of a Robyn song? Why do recreational and youth sports breed so much gossip? How is gossip about in-groups and out-groups? Is gossiping about one person actually the best way to make a sports team successful? Are there rules to gossip?
The episode ends with Kelsey telling the gals the most amazing pieces of gossip related to a Super Bowl they’ve ever heard.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Kelsey McKinney is the author of New York Times and USA Today bestseller. |
| 0:20.2 | You didn't hear this from me. |
| 0:21.9 | Mostly true notes on gossip. |
| 0:23.9 | We have the book right here. |
| 0:25.7 | Co-owner and Features Writer at DeFector and one of the co-creators of the hit podcast, |
| 0:30.4 | Normal Gossip. |
| 0:31.6 | Kelsey, thank you so much for joining us. |
| 0:33.4 | Oh, my God. |
| 0:33.8 | Thank you so much for having me. |
| 0:35.8 | I'm so excited to be here and Talk about sports gossip a little bit. It's thrilling to gossip. Gossip to gossip. It's a gossop to gossip. It's a beautiful. That's important. We're just like those three women on White Lotus. |
| 0:50.1 | Except none of us voted for Trump. And none of us are blonde. Correct. Yeah, correct. Correct. There you go. Yeah. It is what it is. Kelsey, we'll dive right in. Our first question is you write about the parisocial nature of celebrity gossip. How do you think sports gossip differs, if in any way? Or are there any ways that it's similar do you think oh that's a good question so something |
| 1:12.2 | i think about a lot with sports that's so interesting is that athletes do not have to have a parissocial |
| 1:17.5 | relationship with fans for them to do their careers right like taylor swift is posting on |
| 1:23.8 | instagram maybe not taylor because she's very famous now but like sabrina carpenter is posting on Instagram in a way that is like similar to the way that your |
| 1:30.6 | friends post on Instagram. Athletes are posting like images that I assume are given to them by |
| 1:35.5 | the marketing department. Like they are clearly branded. They are not like here is my personal |
| 1:41.6 | life. Most of them. Some of them are obviously doing some of that, |
| 1:44.9 | Bryce Harper. But I think it's really fascinating that they exist in this space where they are |
| 1:50.6 | celebrities and they are known, quote unquote, known, but they don't have to do as much of |
| 1:54.9 | the intimacy work as other kinds of artists do. Yeah. That's such a great way of putting it. |
| 1:59.7 | I mean, I think too, I wonder how traditional gender dynamics play into it. Yeah. That's such a great way of putting it. I mean, I think, too, I wonder how |
| 2:02.3 | traditional gender dynamics play into it. Absolutely. We always talk about here how sports has |
... |
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