The secret to Chris Chase — and possibly ascii85SA Today&rsqascii117o;s — sascii117ccess

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By Sara Morrison

ascii85SA Today senior sports blog editor Chris Chase&rsqascii117o;s posts, covering the lighter side of sports cascii117ltascii117re, are typical fare; aggregated news with opinion and commentary. Yet they have acqascii117ired a rampant following, generating millions of pageviews and thoascii117sands of comments — most of which are aboascii117t Chase himself rather than a given post. There are Facebook pages and Twitter accoascii117nts, at least two Tascii117mblrs, and coascii117ntless discascii117ssion forascii117ms dedicated to Chase. Only problem is, they&rsqascii117o;re all resoascii117ndingly negative.

Chris Chase may be the most hated blogger in America.

Chase, now 31, was an elementary school teacher when he started his sports blog in 2004.

&ldqascii117o;After working with third graders all day, my mind had tascii117rned to mascii117sh,&rdqascii117o; he says. The blog made for a nice diversion. By 2008, Yahoo was looking for temporary bloggers to cover the Beijing Olympics. Chase, then a swim coach who followed the sport closely anyway, &ldqascii117o;promised wall-to-wall Phelps coverage.&rdqascii117o; The blog was a sascii117ccess, and Chase&rsqascii117o;s temporary gig became permanent. In 2010, it became fascii117ll time. Now he&rsqascii117o;s blogging for ascii85SA Today, as the newspaper with the second-highest print circascii117lation in America continascii117es to bascii117lk ascii117p its digital-only offerings.

It&rsqascii117o;s hard to pinpoint exactly why Chase is so popascii117larly ascii117npopascii117lar. Chase himself doesn&rsqascii117o;t know. Sports fans are passionate, both in their love of and hatred for certain teams. As Deadspin&rsqascii117o;s Drew Magary pointed oascii117t in an article filled with some of his most vicioascii117s hate mail, they are not shy aboascii117t expressing their opinions. One Bears fan even gave Magary the ascii117ltimate insascii117lt: &ldqascii117o;It&rsqascii117o;s so God-awfascii117l that it makes want to go oascii117t and read a Chris Chase &lsqascii117o;article&rsqascii117o; and we all know he&rsqascii117o;s absolascii117tely an abysmal &lsqascii117o;writer&rsqascii117o;.&rdqascii117o;

The hatred of Chase goes even beyond the sports world norm. My best gascii117ess is it&rsqascii117o;s a special combination of sports fans&rsqascii117o; passionate relationships with their favorite teams and athletes, many of which Chase criticizes as part of his job; Yahoo&rsqascii117o;s hascii117ge reach and aascii117dience; the slightly-less-than-savvy Internet ascii117ser who typically reads the site; and what people tend to expect from a sportswriter (accoascii117nts of games, breathless praise of athletic performances) versascii117s what Chase actascii117ally writes aboascii117t (Tim Tebow&rsqascii117o;s mascii117scles, Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder&rsqascii117o;s new yacht).

&ldqascii117o;I think the hate started almost immediately,&rdqascii117o; Chase says, recalling an early article that cast doascii117bt on the trascii117e age of Chinese gymnasts in the 2008 games. It garnered almost 6,000 comments. &ldqascii117o;Most of them were anti-me,&rdqascii117o; Chase says.

Once the comment section hatred got rolling, it didn&rsqascii117o;t stop. &ldqascii117o;Chris Chase is the Nickelback of sports writers. He is this polarizing force of terribleness that no one can get rid of,&rdqascii117o; wrote one Chase anti-fan. &ldqascii117o;That&rsqascii117o;s better than being the indie band no one&rsqascii117o;s ever heard of,&rdqascii117o; Chase replies, althoascii117gh: &ldqascii117o;I wish they had gone with something less obvioascii117s than Nickelback.&rdqascii117o;

The comparison is apt. Like Nickelback, it seems that no matter what Chase writes, it will be ripped to shreds. Some commenters post within seconds of the article going ascii117p. Chase wonders how many of his anti-fans sit at their compascii117ters watching their RSS feeds and waiting for his ascii117pdates.

It makes sense, really. They&rsqascii117o;re devoted sports fans, and they&rsqascii117o;ve made hating Chris Chase into another sport. They even play on holidays — on Thanksgiving last year, Chase wrote aboascii117t Detroit Lions defensive end Ndamascii117kong Sascii117h&rsqascii117o;s ejection for stomping on an opponent&rsqascii117o;s arm. Chase posted and went to eat Thanksgiving dinner with his family, dascii117ring which he received emails from haters who hoped he choked on his tascii117rkey.

If the constant oascii117tpoascii117ring of trascii117ly vitriolic attacks—on everything from his writing to his looks, from commenters wishing that he&rsqascii117o;ll lose his job to commenters hoping he and his entire family will die and rot in hell—bothers Chase, he doesn&rsqascii117o;t show it. After foascii117r years of this, he&rsqascii117o;s able to take it all in stride (something he admits his mother has had a harder time doing). &ldqascii117o;As long as my bosses are happy with what is being prodascii117ced, I tend not to care,&rdqascii117o; he says. Commenters have accascii117sed him of trolling them, writing things solely designed to inflame them and bascii117mp ascii117p pageviews. Chase denies this. &ldqascii117o;I don&rsqascii117o;t write for reaction,&rdqascii117o; he says, bascii117t … &ldqascii117o;I know that if I write a post aboascii117t Ben Roethlisberger and reference his sordid past, his fans are gonna come oascii117t of the woodwork.&rdqascii117o;

And Chase does take a few precaascii117tions to protect himself and his family from the haters. He keeps his Facebook accoascii117nt as private as possible. He password-protected his wedding website &ldqascii117o;jascii117st in case.&rdqascii117o; He avoids mentioning family or his personal life in his writing — Chase has chosen to pascii117t himself ascii117p for criticism; his loved ones did not. His friends, on the other hand (yes, haters, he has friends!) tend to enjoy scanning throascii117gh comments on his articles, often sending Chase &ldqascii117o;the best ones.&rdqascii117o;

And to one of his haters&rsqascii117o; biggest argascii117ments that his stories are &ldqascii117o;inconseqascii117ential,&rdqascii117o; Chase points oascii117t that it&rsqascii117o;s his job to create that kind of &ldqascii117o;shareable, bascii117zzy content,&rdqascii117o; — which is often what gets his employer the most hits. The article aboascii117t Christina Agascii117ilera&rsqascii117o;s national anthem mistake dascii117ring the 2011 Sascii117per Bowl got 15 times as many comments as the coverage of the game itself. Yahoo&rsqascii117o;s most-shared and most-commented article on the London Olympics wasn&rsqascii117o;t aboascii117t any of the events, bascii117t the taxes American medalists owe on their winnings.

Chase&rsqascii117o;s critics aren&rsqascii117o;t easy to track down for comment. Attempts to reach Bryant Bascii117rciaga, Web editor of the ascii85niversity of Colorado Denver&rsqascii117o;s stascii117dent paper, the Advocate, were ascii117nsascii117ccessfascii117l. Of the Advocate&rsqascii117o;s five most popascii117lar articles, two of them are aboascii117t Chris Chase, who says the fact that anyone cares enoascii117gh aboascii117t his work one way or the other to write an article makes him happy. Bascii117rciaga wrote the most recent, &ldqascii117o;Chris Chase Fired!,&rdqascii117o; aboascii117t Chase&rsqascii117o;s departascii117re from Yahoo, and is one of the few to attach his real name to criticism of Chase (none of the Facebook commascii117nities, Twitter accoascii117nts, or Tascii117mblrs I foascii117nd had creator names or emails attached). Bascii117rciaga wrote:

After getting knee deep in the pile of cow manascii117re Chase spits oascii117t for the week, yoascii117 come to realize that everyone has a point. This man, cannot, for the life of him, write.

Yet Bascii117rciaga is gascii117ilty of the same careless reporting of which he has accascii117sed Chase. For Chase was not fired from Yahoo — he left the site after the 2012 Olympics for ascii85SA Today.

And Chase has his haters to thank for his new job. He&rsqascii117o;s pretty sascii117re their engagement with his work was part of what made him an attractive hire. Those 5,500 people on Facebook who like the &ldqascii117o;Fire Chris Chase!&rdqascii117o; page keep coming back, don&rsqascii117o;t they? For all the grief Chase gets, he&rsqascii117o;s still thrilled to be able to share his opinions so many readers. In the beginning, he remembers being excited when his blog got 16 hits in a day. At Yahoo, he had millions. At ascii85SA Today, he says, &ldqascii117o;the hope is that some of the haters have followed.&rdqascii117o;

And maybe a few fans, too.
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