Hot Take: Lindsay gets candid about the launch of her new newsletter, Power Plays

This week, our Lindsay Gibbs is launching Power Plays, a no-bullshit newsletter for those dedicated to ending sexism in sports. In this Hot Take, she opens up to co-host Jessica Luther about why she decided to go this route, her fears about the launch, and more.

Powerplays.news

Transcript

Jessica: Hello flamethrowers, Jessica here, and I have someone with me today who needs no introduction to the Burn It All Down crowd: reporter and author and our co-host, Lindsay Gibbs! Hi, Lindsay. 

Lindsay: Hi, Jess. Thanks so much for having me. [laughs]

Jessica: I'm so thrilled that you are here. So, we are here today to talk about your exciting new project called Power Plays. And I just want…Will you just start with the basics? What is this?

Lindsay: Hi. Yes. Okay. So, as most flamethrowers know, unfortunately ThinkProgress shut down about six weeks ago, and that had been the home for my full time writing on the intersection of sports and politics for four years. So, I did not know what was gonna come next. [laughs] We can kind of jump forward. You know, I do wanna talk a little bit about what happened over the past six weeks and what went into this decision making. But ultimately I landed here. So, Power Plays is gonna be the new full-time home for my writing, specifically about gender and sport. So, it is a newsletter, so it will come directly to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning. And I am calling it, you know, “a no-bullshit newsletter for people who care about sexism in sports.” If you want to see equality, I think this is the newsletter that's gonna not just look at that subject on the face value, but really look kind of behind the curtain at the – well, pardon in the pun – but the power players who are kind of keeping that inequality and allowing it to fester. So, yeah, it's a newsletter, I guess, is the short answer. [laughter]

Jessica: Well, I'm so excited about this. Can you explain, I mean, you kind of hinted at it there, and we are big pun fans here. So that's fine. Why Power Plays? Why that name? 

Lindsay: Yeah. Well, coming up with a name was incredibly difficult. 

Jessica: It's the worst, it's like the worst part of it, other than transitions.

Lindsay: It’s the worst, yeah. other than actually writing, it’s the worst part of writing. [laughter] 

Jessica: Yeah. There you go. 

Lindsay: But yeah. It came to me just kind of as I was going through a bunch of sports terms. I did not want to use an overly like “feminine,” [laughs] like, you know, term. I did not want it to be, because while I do talk, you know, it is broadly about women in sports, it is focusing on sexism, but it's also about gender, you know, and to me, what I liked about the name of Power Plays and what really stuck out to me when I thought of it is the fact that it just has that word power in it. And I know that's very basic, but to me, that is kind of the coalescing theme behind this. There are tons of resources…Well, not tons, because women sports. But you know, this isn't necessarily gonna be the place where you go just to find, you know, who won things that week. You know, we're really gonna be looking at the big structural issues that are at play. So, to me, it just ultimately, when I'm struggling, it comes down to that concept of power and who has it and who wants it and who's safeguarding it in sports. 

Jessica: Yeah, I think that's brilliant. I'm so excited for this. Why did you decide to do a newsletter, of all the things you could have done next? Why this?

Lindsay: Well, I've been going through a little bit of an existential crisis, as I think anyone does when layoffs come, you know? We kind of knew all summer that things at ThinkProgress didn't seem to have a long term future, but that was still stunning revelation for me. I found out the same day I got a book deal– [laughs]

Jessica: Yay, boo! 

Lindsay: So, the day I officially got the offer for my book deal from Beacon Press – and the book is about a female athlete, activism, this era of female athlete activism and the importance of women breaking through in sports and defying stereotypes. So, the day I got that offer was the day we found out that ThinkProgress was for sale. So it was a little bit of…It was a weird day, [laughs] I guess is how I can say it, because my plan had been to, you know, I never thought I was gonna be at ThinkProgress forever, but when the book deal was coming together, my plan was to spend the time when I was writing the book at ThinkProgress, because it would give me steady income and it would allow me to keep exploring these topics of female athlete activism and of gender in sports on a full-time basis while writing the book. And that's helpful, because it helps when your work goes together, right? Like, Burn It All Down is helpful. 

Jessica: Yeah, absolutely. 

Lindsay: I don't think I could do Burn It All Down if I was focused on something not even close to the subject area every single day of the week, you know? 

Jessica: Yeah. Agreed, agreed.

Lindsay: You have to be tuned in. So, I think that made it harder for me when I was losing my job. Everyone was like, oh, you have a book deal, so that's great, at least you have that. And I was like, yes, but first of all, that is not gonna pay my bills for a year. [laughs] That is not how book deals work. Or at least not for me, yet. But I didn't wanna have to switch beats, you know? I didn't wanna have to go in a different direction. And the more I looked around, the state of the media industry is horrible. I mean, to put it lightly, you know? Sports Illustrated just saw a round of layoffs. We're seeing ESPN said…You know, I know I had a lot of contacts at ESPN, but ultimately they've been told to stick to sports, as we know. Deadspin of all places were just told to stick to sports.

Jessica: Deadspin, of all places! Yes. [laughs]

Lindsay: So it just, I kind of saw the world around me, and I saw that I was going to be incredibly hard pressed to find a space, a dedicated space for my writing that would give me as much freedom to pursue these subjects, where the right to write about women in sports wouldn't be a daily fight, where I could instead use that energy and just put it towards the reporting, right? And not have to fight actually against same power barriers that I'm talking about in the newsletter on a regular basis. [laughs] So, I was lucky that I had some great connections to Substack. I have to give Judd Legum, who has a Substack newsletter, and he's who first hired me at ThinkProgress. He and one of my good friends, Emily Atkin. So, Judd's Substack newsletter is Popular Information. It is breaking political news on a daily basis. It's phenomenal. 

Jessica: Yeah. Big deal.

Lindsay: It's huge. And Emily Atkin, her climate newsletter is called Heated, and she just launched that a couple months ago. And I mean, I honestly wouldn't be doing this without their encouragement, their support, and seeing how they've been able to build these communities of readership. I also am working, doing some partnership stuff with Substack, that you all will be hearing about. I can't like break that news right now. But anyways, I'm working with Substack on some things. And so their support has meant a lot, and basically allowed me this time where I could take what feels to me like a huge risk and see if it's possible to start my own platform and get enough support. And the upside of that was ultimately too exciting to shy away from, even though, as my Burn It All Down co-hosts know, I tried to talk myself into not doing this for a good month or two. [laughter]

Jessica: Yeah. Well, I will say, I love your work and I've always loved your work for many years. I mean, I found you back during your Changeover days and your tennis sites. But it really has hit me since ThinkProgress shut down, when I'm prepping for Burn It All Down, there are certain places that I go to every single week to find, like, what have people been writing about? What are people talking about? What should we be talking about on Burn It All Down? And I have just…I still find myself putting in your author page for ThinkProgress, and then having to remember, oh, she's not there anymore. Because I relied on that so heavily over the last two and a half years as we were prepping, because your work is just so smart, and you have your finger on the pulse of things that other people totally miss in sports, and you just do such a good job with it. And so I'm just so thrilled that I will be saving all your emails so that on Fridays when I'm starting to prep for Burn It All Down for the weekend, I will be once again pulling all the thoughts from your head to put into our podcast. So I'm just so excited that you have a new space. How are you feeling about all this?

Lindsay: Whew. I am overwhelmed. I'm honestly terrified. Like, if I can just be frank. Like, I have not been sleeping well the past few days. I literally feel like vomiting. [laughs]  I am so nervous. This is scary. It is scary for me. Like, I feel really vulnerable right now. This is why I wanted to give my first interview to Burn It All Down about this, so I could kind of talk through my feelings and, you know, also maybe practice for hopefully there will be more media I can do. But it combines a lot of things that are scary for me. Mainly though, self-promotion, right? So, doing this is just gonna be…I mean, I'm self-employed now. That’s what this is. And I can't rely on anybody else to get my work out there. And you know, it's all gotta come from me. And I don't like that. [laughs] I don't like that at all. And so that's gonna be really tough for me. And I think especially this first week…So, the very first newsletter will launch tomorrow, so, I thought I had my subject already, and I was working on that. And then some news came up that I wanted to cover. So now I'm switching gears. But I have to do all that today while still doing promotions, because I just announced yesterday.

So I'm trying, you know…There’s so, so many people I have to reach out to, and all doing it while I'm realizing, like, this could not work, and what if it doesn’t? So, I go back and forth between being so excited about the possibility of this and so overwhelmed by the support, to doing that thing that humans do, which is compare. How many subscribers do I have compared to how many maybe X person had at this time? Do you know what I mean? Like, how fast am I growing? You know, who's responding? Who's not? So I'm really trying to not play that competitive game. I'm trying to remind myself that the work is gonna lead this. And I'm trying to remind myself that there's time, do you know what I mean? If I don't get all the promotional stuff out by tomorrow, that's okay, because the newsletter's gonna be three times a week, every single week. So there's plenty of time to do more. So I'll be honest, that's a lot.

But one thing, you know, I was really burned out after this summer, you know, I think anyone who's worked under looming layoffs kind of I think knows that it's really hard to go into work every single day and work under those conditions. And I think it's kind of uniquely interesting when it's not that you just know that a few people are gonna be laid off, but when you know that the whole site as it exists is probably shutting down. You know, that's weird. And you know, I really channeled a lot of energy into covering the Women's World Cup which was going on during all of this. But I think after the Women's World Cup ended, I had a really hard time kind of getting motivated for the rest of that summer, and I felt so burned out by the new cycle. And I didn't know…When ThinkProgress shut down, one of the first things that I wanted to watch and see for myself was if I missed weighing in on the regular news cycle, you know, through my writing, outside of Burn It All Down, did I miss it, or was I thrilled that I didn't have to do that anymore? [laughter] 

Jessica: So what was it? Did you miss it? 

Lindsay: I did a little bit. Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm excited that this platform is not as tied to Trump as my other platform was, you know? With ThinkProgress, I had to cover all of the Trump sports stories as well, and I'm really glad I don't have to do that anymore. But I have missed it. And that was important for me, because I knew if I was gonna do a newsletter like this, if I was gonna ask people to have me in their inbox every single day, that feels really personal. If I was going to do this level of self-promotion, if I was gonna…I mean, ultimately, friends, it's gonna be free for a couple months, but then there's gonna be a subscription plan. And this is how I'm hoping to fund my entire existence. You know what I mean? Like, this isn't a side project for me, you know? And who knows what the future will bring, but the goal is for this to replace my salary at ThinkProgress. I mean, let's be real. And that's big stakes. You know, I've loved every second at Burn It All Down, and I'm always motivated, but it's nice that that's not my main source of income. You know, it would be cool if it was, but it's just a different level of pressure.

Jessica: Yeah. That's true. That's a great point. 

Lindsay: It's a different level of pressure. It's a different level of kind of like nausea. And luckily I have a few months til I need to really worry about this. I have great support, and you know, right now I can just focus on building the subscriber list. And I'm excited to do that. But yeah. I wanted to make sure that if I did this, I was going to be all in, that I was gonna find a topic area, a name, and that passion, that passion to weigh in on a regular basis. So, I think this is gonna be…Let me try and do something really self-promo-y here before we wrap this up.

Jessica: Do it. We’re ready. Practice on us.

Lindsay: I think this is gonna be the best of me. I think this is gonna be the best of my work. I think this is going to be the best combination of my research skills, my voice, my knowledge, and kind of like my curiosity. And I think I'm gonna have the freedom to really pursue this topic in a way that I've never had before. And I'm so excited. Part of me doesn't even wanna give you teaser about what's to come, although led me say, in the next couple weeks, one of my pieces involves many trips to Target. So, stay tuned. [laughter]

Jessica: Well, as a Lindsay Gibbs super fan, I am so thrilled about this, and I can't wait to see what you're gonna do. So, please tell us, how can people sign up? 

Lindsay: Oh yeah. I was just realizing I hadn't done that yet, which, probably should do that earlier in the interview. But I'm learning, I'm learning. PowerPlays.news.

Jessica: Okay, flamethrowers. Pause this right now. Do it, sign up, get on the list.

Lindsay: I don't make many guarantees, but I can guarantee, if you like Burn It All Down, you will like Power Plays. [laughs] There will be a 100% overlap in that audience. [laughter] So, flamethrowers, I really need your support. All it takes is putting in your email address at PowerPlays.news, and you know, maybe put in the email addresses of a few other people who would pay to use this. [laughs]  

Jessica: Yeah. Little nudges. 

Lindsay: Yeah, little nudges. 

Jessica: Yeah. That's a great idea. I love it. Well, congratulations, Lindsay. We are all so excited for you, and we can't wait to see where you're gonna take Power Plays. And thank you, flamethrowers, for listening to this hot take.