The Business of $port Weekender for September 2, 2016
With college football kickoff in progress all weekend long and the NFL gearing up for its opening game on Thursday of next week, this inaugural installment of Weekend Reading is predictably going to skew pretty heavily football , so I hope you’re ready for some (and don’t worry, outside of the amazing meme above, I won’t wade into anything as heavy as the Kaepernick/anthem territory on the very first Bo$ Weekender).
First up, there’s Austin Murphy’s thought-provoking “What would happen if football died” for SI, which imagines a (hopefully alternate) timeline in which safety concerns and legal liabilities slowly bring the institution of American football to its knees:
Sports reporting and social media have had a challenged relationship for some time. The circuitous route that accurate reporting on Teddy Bridgewater’s injury took to reach the public is a reminder that, in an absence of clear information but abundance of microphones, conjecture will travel far and fast:
Vice Sports’ Eric Nusbaum made me reflect on just how much I will miss Vin Scully. As we head into the next phase of sports streaming, AR/VR and whatever else comes next, it’s safe to say Vin will go down as the greatest announcer in the TV era of sports:
One of the best parts of a new college football season (besides the sort of optimism that has me feeling like USC can really beat Alabama on Saturday)? A fresh canvas for EDSBS’s Spencer Hall to work with:
The notion of college athlete “brand building” as chronicled by Jack McCluskey in this profile of Deshaun Watson is fascinating to me. Young athletes are becoming impossibly savvy about both their on-field and off-field persona, and in the process they’re taking control of the narrative and empowering themselves–while being deprived the chance for near-term financial gain from their hard work–to extract additional value from their time as indentured servants to the NCAA:
On the topic of college athletics and financial compensation for those who participate: There is nothing depressing about mascot dogs getting more handsomely paid for their involvement with college football than the actual players. Nothing at all:
And finally, speaking of mascots, it’s the trailer for Christopher Guest’s latest mockumentary (do they still call them that?) of the same name, coming soon to a Netflix near you:
That’s it for this week. Enjoy the long weekend, campers.
-kb
