Here’s how to write an athlete’s profile: “Journeyman running back most famous for a college exploit, in which he sneaked into an ex-girlfriend’s dormitory and vengefully defecated in her closet.” You won’t find this in the encyclopaedia-length press handouts purveyed by American sports teams. Instead it’s from the new book* by Will Leitch, who, to stick with the hyperbole that we in the mainstream sports media (MSSM) favour, may be the world’s number one sports blogger.

The story of Leitch’s genesis starts at the Financial Times building in London circa 1995. Nick Denton was a young financial reporter who spent Friday nights at home, co-writing a book about the collapse of Barings bank that hardly anyone would ever read. Finally Denton got the FT to send him to San Francisco, where he defected to found a dotcom. He now lives in New York, is worth perhaps $290m (£147m) (Nick, give me a call), and runs a stable of blogs called Gawker.