Tell the story you want to hear." Maybe you love the brief, meteoric ascent (and decline) of Jeremy Lin. It's Babe Ruth calling his shot. Today, it's a potpourri.
Humans are storytellers. Kafka wrote, "everyone is necessarily the hero of their own imagination." Great stories capture our imagination. The last song Doug Collins heard in the locker room before the 1972 Olympic loss to the USSR was "What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted?" Did anyone consider making Collins an assistant on another Dream Team? The 1972 team refused their silver medals. Some team members included provisions in their wills that their family would never accept the medals.
Why do professional sports teams have salary caps? Salary floors keep greedy management from taking all the profits. Do leagues care more about fans and competitive balance or the inability of "principals" to lack restraint and spend too much and create an "Arms Race". Unfettered spending keeps billionaires from getting richer. We hear endlessly about greedy players and never about greedy management. "But the risk?" Where's the risk in buying an NFL team?
Data to 2017 shows that the New England Patriots captured nearly 600 million dollars of revenue in 2017.
NBA players aren't afraid of much. But they have a healthy fear of NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) like ibuprofen and naproxen. Anti-inflammatory medications are associated with high blood pressure, fluid retention, stomach distress, and rarely kidney disease. But widely-publicized kidney failure (Alonzo Mourning, Sean Elliott) raised red flags for athletes. Teams want players on the field as management seeks to extract maximum value from athletes. Players are commodities to management.
Wanna beer?
Five MLB teams charge more than eight dollars for the privilege.
Teams traffic on our loyalty to them. How often have they loved you back?
Lagniappe: Need a three? Via @HoopsSean
Staggered and elevator screens limit "easy" switching. Yesterday's LOOP and LOOP OPTION action (below) create multiple possibilities.LAC - Free Stagger Away pic.twitter.com/3Qs5v5EOyb— SeanBillermanHoops (@HoopsSean) July 24, 2019
