Welcome to The Basement

When people ask me about my hobbies, I struggle to find an answer.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy myself – I love my life. But it’s hard for me to come up with a list of hobbies because what I really enjoy doing is spending time with people. And that’s what this website, The Basement, is all about.

The Basement is a sports- and culture-based commentary website, but it is truly meant to be a discussion. It is meant to be a discussion among friends, among peers and among people who share a common passion for the topic, but also share a passion for good discussion.

I have surrounded myself with just such people. The writers on The Basement are people who I respect and whose opinions matter to me. And The Basement is a platform from which we can share those opinions with our readers.

We are people who have a passion for the subjects we’ll set out to discuss – what would conversation be without a passion for the topic? We hope that we’ll show this passion through our writing, and that our readers can share in the passion as they enjoy the site.

In his welcome article for Grantland.com, sports writer Bill Simmons talked about his time working for Jimmy Kimmel and how much he enjoyed creating something with people he cared about, people he respected and people with whom he enjoyed talking. It was this article that sparked the idea for The Basement and still serves as the basic mantra for our site. We want to enjoy the creation of the site as much as the readers enjoy what we’ve created.

We seek to have real discussion, as the second line of the site’s header states. That means intelligent, well-thought-out discussion, not name-calling or arguments based on anything outside of the facts and how we perceive them. We are giving our opinions, but they are opinions based on a love and knowledge of the topic.

But most importantly, The Basement is about fun. It’s about providing a forum to talk about the things that we love to talk about with people who share that passion. It’s what The Basement is meant to be for us, but we also hope it’s what The Basement can be for our readers.

Now, an article-based website might not seem like the best way to hold a conversation, and perhaps it is not. But we are hopefully providing conversation starters along with our own thoughts on a topic. By writing, we’re joining the greater conversation which is going on all over the country. We hope that through our writing, you’ll join in the conversation too.

We urge you to interact with us in any way you’d like. If you’re a Twitter fan like me and many of our writers, then join the conversation that way. You can tweet @Dwn2TheBasement in general, or at individual writers – most have their Twitter handles at the bottom of their stories.

If 140 characters just isn’t enough to express your thoughts (which it certainly isn’t for us), then email us at Dwn2TheBasement@gmail.com. We’ll post mail bags from time to time on the site in order to keep the conversation from being one-sided.

And if you’d just prefer to sit, read and soak in our (hopefully) thought-provoking content, by all means do just that. We hope it can spark some discussion down the road.

Here at The Basement, we have just one request. Don’t be argumentative just for argument’s sake. Don’t insult us – we promise we won’t insult you. If you disagree with something we’ve said, then feel free to let us know, but do so in the same respectful manner in which we conduct ourselves. Our goal is conversation, and the best way to facilitate it is through a focus on the topic, not those giving the opinions.

So please, head down to The Basement and enjoy. Because in the end, what else is conversation for?