In addition to covering sports, the site wrote about the media, pop culture, and politics, and published several non-sports sub-sections, including The Concourse[1] and the humor blog Adequate Man.

[2] Contrasting with traditional sports updates of other outlets,[3] Deadspin was known for its irreverent, conversational tone,[4] often injecting crude humor into its writing and taking a critical lens to the topics it covered.

[3] During October and November 2019, the website's entire writing and editorial staff resigned due to conflicts with G/O Media management over a directive to "stick to sports" content only.

[16] In late October 2019, the editorial staff across several G/O Media sites, including Deadspin, posted articles acknowledging complaints from readers about advertisements that were autoplaying with audio.

"[17] According to The Wall Street Journal, G/O Media enabled the autoplaying ads in an attempt to fulfill the terms of an advertising deal it agreed to with Farmers Insurance Group.

[17] That same week, G/O Media editorial director Paul Maidment ordered Deadspin employees in a memo to discontinue any content not related to sports.

"[20] The GMG union called the changes in the site's content "undermin[ing] the nearly two decades of work writers have put into building a profitable brand with an enormous, dedicated readership."

Among those who left were Ley,[21] writers Albert Burneko, Kelsey McKinney, Patrick Redford, Lauren Theisen, Chris Thompson, and Laura Wagner.

Senator Bernie Sanders expressed his support for the editorial staff, tweeting, "I stand with the former @Deadspin workers who decided not to bow to the greed of private equity vultures like @JimSpanfeller.

[26][27] On January 31, 2020, Ley and several other former writers established Unnamed Temporary Sports Blog, an interim site sponsored by Dashlane that operated exclusively over Super Bowl LIV weekend.

[30] The first new content posted to the Deadspin site following the resignations appeared on March 13, 2020, as new editor-in-chief Jim Rich announced that the website was building a new team.

[32][33] Deadspin also broke the story of Sarah Phillips, a reporter hired by ESPN who lied about her identity and credentials to staffers in order to gain employment.

[35][36] A 2022 documentary, Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn't Exist, features former staffers Timothy Burke and Jack Dickey speaking about the methods Deadspin used in exposing the hoax.

[38] On January 8, after the Hall of Fame voting was announced, Deadspin revealed that its voter was Miami Herald sportswriter Dan Le Batard.

[40] In 2014, Deadspin provided coverage of the Gamergate controversy, "expos[ing] a shocking view of sexism and harassment in the gaming industry to the wider public", according to Salon.

[41] On October 15, 2014, Deadspin published an article which alleged that Cory Gardner, the Republican who ran for the U.S. Senate in Colorado, had faked his high school football career.

"[48] In March 2018, The Concourse posted a video showcasing versions of a controversial "journalistic responsibility" promo being produced by television stations owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which helped bring mainstream attention to them.

[58] On November 27, 2023, Deadspin published an article written by Carron J. Phillips, centered on a photo of a boy, 9-year-old Holden Armenta, wearing a Native American war bonnet at the previous day's game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Las Vegas Raiders at Allegiant Stadium.

In the article, Phillips wrote that Armenta had "found a way to hate Black people and the Native Americans at the same time," and accused his parents of teaching him racism.

In the lawsuit, the Armentas described Phillips as "someone who makes his livelihood through vicious race-baiting," and said that the family had received "a barrage of hate," including threats against Holden's life, since the article's publication.

[67][68] On October 7, Delaware Superior Court Judge Sean Lugg denied a motion by Deadspin to dismiss the Armentas' lawsuit, ruling that the accusations in Phillips' article were "provable false assertions of fact and are therefore actionable.