please read
these mascots
are not ok.
someone
should
check on them.
are not ok.
someone
should
check on them.
dispatches from the sideline
Sad Mascots
Covering the Emotional Wreckage of American Sports, One Mascot at a Time
dispatches from the sideline
Covering the Emotional Wreckage of American Sports, One Mascot at a Time
About This Publication
Sad Mascots is America's only publication devoted entirely to documenting the psychological, emotional, and existential suffering of professional sports mascots whose teams are, frankly, not doing great right now.
Every year, billions of dollars change hands across professional sports leagues. Multi-year contracts are signed. Draft picks are traded. Coaches are hired, fired, and occasionally rehired at different franchises where they will be fired again. Entire offensive systems are scrapped and replaced. Analytics departments grow.
And through all of it, one constituency is never consulted. Never considered. Never given a seat at the table when the decisions are made.
The mascots.
They show up. They always show up. In the freezing cold. In the rain. In the fourth quarter of a game that is 34-3 and has been 34-3 since the second half started and the head coach has the look of a man who has mentally moved to a house somewhere far away from football. The mascots are there. They're doing the bit. They're high-fiving people. They are, professionally, required to be fine.
They are not fine.
We are here to tell their stories.
Every story we publish is thoroughly reported, rigorously fact-checked, and entirely made up. We hold ourselves to the highest standards of satirical journalism, which means we are very confident about things we have completely invented.
We are compassionate. We are fair. We have a genuine soft spot for every character we've covered. If anything, we are perhaps too emotionally invested in whether Chomps is doing okay.
(He is not doing okay. We've checked.)
Sports are absurd. The amount of human emotion poured into outcomes determined by large men in helmets colliding with each other — it's wild, when you think about it. And it is also one of the most meaningful things in a lot of people's lives, including ours.
We hold both of those things at once. The absurdity and the sincerity. The joke and the feeling behind the joke. We take the grief seriously. We just also think it's a little funny.
We are not accepting tips at this time because the tips are always about the Browns contract situation and we know about the Browns contract situation. We know.