The Pulse Newsletter 📣 | This is The Athletic’s daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox.Good morning! Watch out for trap doors today. Coming up:
⁉️ A momentous scoreboard error
Spectrums: Feelings, everywhereAt its core, the true appeal of sports is shared emotion. Joy in success. Wonder at incredible feats of athleticism. Pain in loss, whether via blowout or nail-biter. Anger at a bad call. Etc. I couldn’t get the idea out of my head as I glanced across the sports landscape yesterday. A full Monday’s worth of feelings, spread across the emotional spectrum. Let’s start with the biggest talker. Exhaustion: The WNBA
I briefly mentioned this sentiment in a video yesterday, but the W has been a source of national conversation for the past two weeks. And as Candace Buckner wrote in a stellar column this morning, it’s becoming a source of extreme fatigue. It’s no simple matter, either. There is a complicated and tenuous nuance baked into a political tussle that feels binary in the spotlight. Here’s a quote: “Sports truly are supposed to be a diversion, something we consider fun, a reprieve from real life, but it feels like psychological warfare just to engage with the WNBA. It’s getting to the point where you have to brace for impact every time ‘WNBA’ pops up in the algorithm.” I agree with every word Candace wrote. Make time for her column today. Angst: The Bills
