I haven’t bought a pair of Nikes in a couple of years. I don’t need to be that cool anymore. | | | | This isn't a Spearmint gum commercial. It's the UCI Mountain Bike & Trials World Championships.
(David Ramos/Getty Images) | | | | | | “I haven’t bought a pair of Nikes in a couple of years. I don’t need to be that cool anymore.”
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| | rantnrave:// I don't know what digital sports media will look like in the future and the past few years have given us little clear indication. We've seen prestige sites tied to brand names born (THE MMQB), shuttered (GRANTLAND), and reborn (THE RINGER). There have been ESPN offshoots (THE UNDEFEATED) and burgeoning media companies (VOX's SB NATION). VICE SPORTS has grown. BLEACHER REPORT invested in content, while FOX SPORTS pulled a BLOCKBUSTER and went straight to video. No company has been safe from layoffs. 2017 is as murky as 2012. But THE ATHLETIC is an intriguing footnote. It has opened branches in four cities and is expanding while operating on a subscription model. Subscriptions have worked for the WSJ and NYT but has any sports media company done it well? Is ESPN's INSIDER a success? JOE FAVORITO interviewed founding editor JON GREENBERG about what's worked in CHICAGO and elsewhere. One unexpected nugget: Hockey fans will pay. Who knew? But that's also kind of the point. When nobody can crack the code, why should any assumptions be sacred? Will anyone follow this model and make it a trend?... What's the value of being average? In sports, there's room for debate. In the NBA, it might be the worst place to be. In the NFL, where everything is on the margins, 8-8 isn't far from 11-5 or 5-11. But is average tenable anymore? THE RINGER's CHRIS RYAN writes about the NBA's treadmill of mediocrity and appreciating the little victories that fall short of championships. As a 76ERS fan, that's all he's had lately. It isn't easy to be average in an era when many teams seem to operate with a binary choice: Chase a title or tank/rebuild. Even in the NFL, where bottoming out is no guarantee of future greatness, the BROWNS and JETS are ready to try. Does this stem from a media culture centered on which teams have rings and which ones are failures because they don't? Sports teams, like all organizations, need alignment and agreement on goals. If ownership, management and fans are on the same page, mediocrity is more palatable than it seems. You don't always need a home run; sometimes, a double just might do... Remember when POKÉMON GO was the big thing of summer 2016? And that it would spawn a whole new world of AR games to suck us in? A year later, its legacy is muted. It fizzled so quickly that people probably forgot to delete the app from their phones... I still geek out when I see NBA JAM at a bar. I didn't get to experience its arcade machine heyday but it's aged well. Video games now are so lifelike that comparing NBA 2K17 is like comparing two different species. But millennials like me are happy to lose a few quarters to play. This NBA JAM oral history is a fun read. So is the map that comes with it, which tells you where you can play across the US... Officially, it's esports. Not eSports. Or e-sports... For teammates, a love story. | | | - Mike Vorkunov, curator |
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| When Midway released NBA Jam, in April 1993, the game shattered arcade revenue records. Nearly a quarter century later, SI assembled the game’s makers and stars to recount how the phenomenon came to be. | | |
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| An argument echoed through the tidy home perched on a rise in the Windsor Hills neighborhood a half-dozen miles southwest of downtown L.A. Shouted threats gave way to screams. Then the thud of blows. | | |
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| A dwindling but tight-knit community gathers in Pennsylvania for the inaugural Keystone State Gay Rodeo. | | |
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| Tennis takes centre stage, but it’s not the only on-court action at the All England Club. Inside the fiercely competitive life of Wimbledon's ballboys and girls. | | |
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| Technology is shaking up the NFL, from how fans watch games to keeping players safe on the field. Veteran NFL reporter John Clayton sat down with Tod Leiweke, the former CEO of the Seattle Seahawks and Tampa Bay Lightning who became the NFL’s COO in 2015, to talk about everything from the league’s new streaming deal with Amazon to the declining TV ratings — which may be misleading after all, Leiweke noted. | | |
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| Bianca Sierra and Stephany Mayor played for Mexico in the 2015 Women’s World Cup. But after coming out as a couple, they have traveled far from home to find acceptance. | | |
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| A franchise marked by stops and starts is again selling off players - and the whole franchise - as MLB's All-Star Game comes to Miami. | | |
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| Sports Marketing & PR Roundup |
| An outlier of sorts, The Athletic launched in the mega-market of Chicago and has expanded to other cities, with a mobile and online offering of great storytelling; most of it paywalled. While many have tried the paywall and failed, The Athletic is thriving and expanding into other markets, with well-funded backers and a growing stable of household names. Click bait it is not. Great information for core fans it is. | | |
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| Groundbreaking advancements of women in the NFL have Samantha Rapoport feeling bullish about the progress made in her first year as the league's director of football development. | | |
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| Paul Rabil, the best lacrosse player in the world and the face of the sport, discusses how athletes can succeed in business off the field, and how Major League Lacrosse can grow bigger and attract more fans. | | |
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| ‘Tour de Pharmacy’ works very hard to be very silly. | | |
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| Want to know how analytics, technology, mediaand sports are converging? Ted Leonsis is your man. | | |
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| Matt Walker, a 40-year-old statistician at the ministry of justice, has taken a year off work to set off on an unusual journey with the aim of watching 55 matches in as many nations in one year. | | |
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| "We definitely have a ways to go," the silver medalist said. | | |
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| Freeman's batting-practice strategy is strange... but it works. | | |
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| For the 2017 Louis Vuitton 35th America’s Cup, 032c traveled to the subtropical island of Bermuda to explore the universe of boat racing. | | |
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| Butler's new coach isn't a big name, but neither were Brad Stevens, Thad Matta and Chris Holtmann. | | |
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| Chris Paul to the Rockets! Paul George to the Thunder! Nathaniel Friedman attempts to make sense of what's so far been a wacky offseason. | | |
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| Brandon Inge might tell you one thing and Josh Donaldson might tell you another. | | |
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