Blake Murphy is a sports writer, broadcaster, and host based out of Toronto currently working as co-host of The FAN Drive Time on Sportsnet 590 The Fan, color analyst for Blue Jays radio broadcasts, and as a Raptors and Blue Jays analyst for Sportsnet’s other television, radio, and digital properties.
Prior to landing at Sportsnet, Blake was a Raptors reporter and analyst for The Athletic and the managing editor of Raptors Republic. He was also the host of the Raptors Reasonablists podcast at The Athletic and co-host of the music podcast Columbia House Party. Blake was a freelance writer for a number of outlets and, before that, a news editor at theScore. He has contributed to TSN, ESPN, Vice, National Post, SB Nation, Post Media, Fangraphs and more.
Previously, Blake earned a Bachelor of Commerce from Queen’s University, and then spent several years working in Production Control for Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada. He also completed one year of a Masters of Journalism from the University of British Columbia and then never ended up finishing it.
Blake can be contacted at eblakemurphy1@gmail.com or @BlakeMurphyODC on Twitter.
Previously Contributed To…
The Athletic, where he served as a Toronto Raptors beat reporter/analyst and occasionally provides coverage of the Blue Jays, Wolfpack, and Canada Basketball. He was the host of the Raptors Reasonablists podcast at The Athletic, where he and Eric Koreen discussed all things Toronto Raptors each week.
Columbia House Party, where he and Jake Goldsbie took deep, forensic dives into some of their favorite albums.
Regular radio appearances on Sportsnet 590, TSN 1050, and TSN 1150, the audio from which gets posted at this site, and television appearances on Stadium, NBA TV Canada’s The Hangout, CP24, and whoever else will have him.
Raptors Republic, a basketball site providing Toronto Raptors content for ESPN’s True Hoop Network. Blake was the site’s Managing Editor and more or less a full-time employee, insomuch as blogs can have employees. He provided pre-game and post-game analysis, editorials and other analytic pieces. The ESPN affiliation saw Blake occasionally pop up on ESPN.com or on their Twitter feeds. In 2018, he transitioned into a consulting role for the site.
Vice Sports, where he provided unique feature stories across a number of different sports, including professional wrestling.
Dime Magazine/Uproxx Sports, where he wrote NBA features.
Raptors.com/Raptors905.com, where he helped explain some of the complexities of the CBA/roster rules/trades/etc and wrote occasional features.
Sportsnet, one of Canada’s two primary sports outlets, where he provides Toronto Raptors analysis.
theScore, a leading, mobile-first sports app, where he is a full-time NBA news editor who occasionally dabbled in MLB, MMA and NCAAB coverage. You’ll find more about his role at theScore on this site but for a full portfolio you can check out his theScore author page.
Fangraphs, a leading baseball analytics site, where he contributes regularly. He can primarily be found on the Rotographs side of the site, providing fantasy baseball analysis multiple times each week. Blake also contributed to Fangraphs+ for the 2014 and 2016 seasons, filling in 100-150 word capsules for roughly 50 players and providing additional analysis for subscribers.
Nylon Calculus, a basketball site on the FanSided network dedicated to exploring analytics through a mix of research, discussion, storytelling and education. Blake focuses on the storytelling, because they employ much smarter people for the research.
The Hardball Times, a baseball commentary and analysis site that is the sister-site of Fangraphs. Blake provides occasional analysis and commentary and has appeared in The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2014 in print.
Bylines Also Include…
The Leafs Nation, a Toronto Maple Leafs site, providing statistical analysis and editorial content.
Cageside Seats, SB Nation’s pro wrestling blog, providing occasional commentary.
UBC Thunderbirds, the University of British Columbia Athletic Department site. Blake was a Sports Information Assistant and wrote post-game recaps and feature articles. He also occasionally filled in doing play-by-play commentary for basketball games and color commentary for hockey games.
The Edmonton Journal, a Post Media newspaper in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, where he did a short between-semesters internship in the sports department.
Beyond the Boxscore, a preeminent sabermetric baseball analytics site on Vox Media’s SB Nation platform. Blake provides stat-based baseball analysis, using advanced statistics to highlight interesting stories that may go unnoticed by traditional stats.
The On Deck Circle, his own personal sports blog for anything that didn’t fit on one of these previous sites.
Bluebird Banter, a Toronto Blue Jays site, providing statistical analysis and editorial content.
Canucks Army, a Vancouver Canucks site, providing statistical analysis and editorial content.
Hoopdata, a preeminent statistical basketball analytics site and member of ESPN’s True Hoop Network. Blake provided stat-based basketball analysis aimed to make advanced stats more accessible to the everyday fan.
Hoops Addict, a basketball analysis site, providing editorials and analytic articles.
PWInsider, the internet’s elite wrestling news and analysis site. Blake provides occasional editorials for the PWInsider Xtra section of the site.
Brief cameos at Low Culture, High Concept, ‘Nucks Misconduct, Full Spectrum Baseball, About.com Basketball, The Good Point, Beergraphs, Drunk Jays Fans, and more.
Blake Murphy Sports Writing 