Let’s get straight to the point, shall we? I know you’re busy people.
Up The Thunder (@UpTheThunder) is changing its name to Boomtown Hoops.
Different name, same logo. Same three guys who started this mess in 2014 (+ new friends). Think of it like Ron Artest becoming Metta World Peace, or Prince legally changing his name to Ƭ̵̬̊.
It’s a mid-life crisis evolution.
Additionally, we’re excited to launch our new Discord server of the same name — you can find that right here. We have a lot of ideas for how to make it a place worth spending time in, but the outright goal is to create a community where Thunder fans (including us) can digitally congregate, socialize, watch games together, and chat in real-time. In a world suddenly void of community in most forms, we feel like it’s time we take our relationship to the next level.
Can we promise it won’t be the Wild West while we get our balance? Absolutely not. We’re simply committed to maintaining an environment where Thunder fans of all colors, shapes, and sizes are welcome to spew hot takes and find conversation. It’s an open invitation to Thunder fans everywhere — and that includes folks from other Thunder fan sites, podcasts, and media outlets. Most of us know each other on some level, right? I’ve probably done your pod, bro. Don’t make it awkward.
Speaking of Discord, you can access our public channel by clicking the icon in the right-hand corner of your screen here on the website. You don’t need an account to chat here, so you can use that as a real-time commenting system on any of our posts. Members of the full community will be able to access all our channels directly from the website, giving you the ability to change conversations or topics while enjoying content here. Kind of neat.
Moving on — and speaking of cooperation — we’re excited to announce that The Uncontested is the official podcast of Boomtown Hoops! If you aren’t familiar with them, they’re a great group of guys that take a tremendous amount of pride in the Thunder content they produce. We’ve had the opportunity to get to know them over the last few years, and have come to respect their ability to continue raising their game. Their content will be found here moving forward, and we’ll be popping in more frequently in future episodes.
Lastly, we’ve brought on an outstanding group of talented contributors that remind us a lot of ourselves when we were getting started. Dillon and I cooked up all of this because Chuck Chaney gave us an opportunity to write for Thunder Obsessed (now Thunder Digest) back in 2012. This place belongs to anyone that wants/needs/deserves their voice to be heard from a higher platform. If you want to be a part of this, reach out and be a part of this. We’ll make cool, creative shit and celebrate when you get hired by Bleacher Report to steal our content. Surely there’s a lot we can learn from one another.
In terms of the name change, it’s just something we felt needed to happen. Up The Thunder was an obvious copyright infringement, and it only took a couple of calls from the organization’s legal team to spook us a bit. After collectively having the same Sam Presti & Rumble on the Other Side of a Courtroom nightmare, we decided to pivot toward a new approach. I know I’ve said a lot of nice things, but we aren’t going to jail for you people.
On a personal note, there was a time in recent history when all of this got too serious for me (Weston). We really wanted to make media credentials happen for a few years, but never really got anywhere. I took over as Editor-in-Chief at DailyThunder.com from 2017-19, which was cool and an incredible opportunity (thanks, Royce). But an unreal workload during those two seasons (at least 1,000 writing credits if you count side bolts) left me unsure if I even enjoyed basketball as a sport anymore. I got tangled up in the weeds of amateur journalism and forgot why I started doing this.
When the coronavirus shut down the NBA, sports, and life in general — it was probably the time to walk away if we were ever going to do it. In the middle of Armageddon and an endless news cycle, we could have gotten to at least 2023 before someone asked: “Hey, where’s Up The Thunder?“
And we’re kinda getting old, on the low. DY has a beautiful daughter, Adam will be a first-time father soon, and I’m getting married in October if people would just wear a mask to my wonderful fiancée. We could have hung it up and chalked it all up as a success, right? We’re just some guys on their couches, we overachieved like five-and-a-half years ago. Our jersey would have been vaulted and forever immortalized in the rafters of “Thunder Twitter,” don’t get it twisted.
82 games. We do this.
But when life comes to a stop and you’re forced to stay inside for three months, eventually you take stock of what’s important in your life. I’m happy to report this project is not at the top of any of our lists, but it’s on the list! All of this is silly in the grand scheme of things — this website, our social media accounts, a goofy game grown men play in tank tops that was invented by a guy with some peach baskets. None of it matters.
But it does, right? It totally does — because it makes us happy. And we’ve been lucky enough to make other people happy in the process. Life was stripped of its normalcy, and we found ourselves missing this. Mostly because we finally had time to stop and look at the support we have from people like you. Not to romanticize the lockdown or anything. Sometimes you just have to make chicken salad out of chicken something else.
Ultimately, The Dark Knight Rises says everything I cannot properly eloquate about how we feel about our fellow Thunder fans:
Not everything. Not yet.
So, we’re going to get started making things for you to enjoy. That’s it. We don’t want to compete with anybody. We don’t care if we ever see the inside of the media room. We don’t care, we don’t care. It’s not about that. It never should have become about that. We’re comfortable in our role as the Thunder media’s weird cousin that grandma won’t talk about. Families are complicated. We’re different.
In closing — read BoomtownHoops.com to support our contributors, follow us on social media, and join us on Discord as we attempt to build a Thunder-themed Internet sports bar for all to enjoy. Let’s create something weird and wonderful together.
Your continued support means the world to us. Here’s to growing old with this thang.
-Weston, Dillon & Adam
The Artists Formerly Known as Up The Thunder
