What is Impersonal Foul?🏀

Impersonal Foul is a weekly sports gossip and culture newsletter from Madeline Hill and is one of Substack’s featured publications.

I’ve spent years working in media, covering The 2016 Election™, making Big Little Lies memes and smashing that RT (for now) on another viral Media Twitter tweet.

My first love is sports. If you know me, you know that I once tried to get out of a wedding that was being held on New Year’s Eve, so I could fly back to Los Angeles in time to watch Georgia (Go Dawgs) defeat Oklahoma in the Rose Bowl.

I did not get out of the wedding.

Impersonal Foul is a newsletter dedicated to the Personal Life section of your favorite athletes. Right now, I’m focusing on the NBA playoffs, because I spent way too much time watching JaVale McGee’s YouTube videos of the food they were served in The Bubble and I need to put those hours to good use.

I still think about LeBron yelling Taco Tuesday in a hotel ballroom that was converted into a practice court.

Okay, but literally why?

After being a child of divorced parents, my dad moved moved into a condo near downtown Atlanta. The sort of complex where a lot of White Men complained about how often the pool was getting cleaned and that we should change the gate code more often for “security purposes.”

Fun fact: When I was a senior in high school, the women’s basketball coach recruited me to play for one season basically because I was tall. It did not work out.

We spent most of our Thursdays and Every Other Weekends watching sports at his condo. Georgia playing Florida? We watched it. The Falcons blowing another lead? We watched it. A 30 For 30 documentary that he already showed us five Thursdays ago? We rewatched that, too.

More importantly, I watched SportsCenter. I’d wake up early to catch the end of the 6am broadcast and watch the Top 10 Plays. Then, I’d down a bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats and watch the beginning of the new 7am broadcast.

I love sports, but I hate sports commentary. Think of Impersonal Foul as the pre-game show that you can read while having a table of men argue about plays that haven’t even happened yet.

If deep dives into Zillow listings of McMansions that NBA first-round picks just purchased sounds like your jam, welcome to Impersonal Foul.

Become a Paying Subscriber

In addition to the free standard weekly gossip sesh in your inbox, paying subscribers will also receive a second newsletter every week. This newsletter may consist of an interview with an NFL expert, a deep dive into a trending sports gossip subject, or a conversation with a photographer for the NBA.

Paying subscribers will also gain access to a private Substack chat, where we can share immediate updates on Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s relationship…and other things *of course*.

Get more of me

I’ll be live-tweeting gossip during games on Twitter here, trying to get sponsored deals on Instagram here, and attempting to go viral on TikTok here.

For partnerships and everything else, you can shoot me a note to madeline at impersonalfoul dot com.

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If Bravo and ESPN had a baby.

People

If Bravo and ESPN had a baby, it would be my newsletter.