Independent Sports Journalist • Formerly: ESPN, B/R, WaPo • Born in Seoul 🇰🇷 Bred in Boston • [email protected]
📍New York City
Joon Lee
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/...
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.
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...
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...
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
Video
Video
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: 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?...
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
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?...
Joon Lee
Joon Lee
Joon Lee
Joon Lee
Video
The billions of dollars in advertising invested annually by sports betting companies have profoundly changed televised sports in the U.S., the analysis showed.
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/...
