How Cornhole Went Pro
It might be America’s most-played sport. Now it’s quietly becoming a TV success story.
How Cornhole Went ProIt might be America’s most-played sport. Now it’s quietly becoming a TV success story.Credit...Angie Smith for The New York TimesSupported byByDevin GordonDevin Gordon is a writer in Massachusetts who has written for the magazine about umpires, “athletic intelligence” and Ironman races that cater to executives.The best part about watching professional cornhole on TV may be listening to it. As aural A.S.M.R. goes, it ranks right up there with golf. First comes the satisfyingplunkof the bag landing on the board’s slanted 18-millimeter grade-A Baltic birch surface, followed by a whisperythhhnnnas it slides upward toward the hole. And then if the shot is true, the polymer-resin pellets inside the bag rustle —shh-chh— as it drops through. Cornhole bags are the scalp massager of sports equipment.Listen to this article, read by Eric Jason MartinYou wouldn’t know it if you were watching on ESPN+, but on a Friday night in April there were only about 250 spectators surrounding the floodlit court at the low-slung John A. Alario Event Center in Westwego, La., and they observed a respectful silence during shots, as if this were the All England Club during Wimbledon and not suburban New Orleans on the cusp of a weekend. So the only sounds you heard if you were following the action remotely wereplunkthhhnnn shh-chh,plunk thhhnnn shh-chh.“I like to call it sticky content,” Trey Ryder, the voice of the A.C.L. on ESPN, told me during a pause in play. “Because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the same story over and over: The guy that walks into their living room, it’s on TV, and they go,What in the world is this?And then they see one round, and then all of a sudden 20 minutes went by.”According to a 2023 Ipsos survey,cornhole is the most-played sport in America,ahead of bowling and swimming and far ahead of golf. “I played it like anybody else — with a beer in my hand,” says Greg Weitekamp, the chief operating officer of Tupelo Honey, which produces all of the A.C.L.’s telecasts. “And you couldn’t play it without the beer, because you had to balance yourself, right? The beer in one hand, and the bag on the other side.” For most of us, cornhole is a sport we play in a backyard or in a parking lot while we’re waiting for another sport to start. It’s a straightforward game with no discernible strategy beyond “throw the bag through the hole.”
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How Cornhole Went Pro
It might be Delhi’s most-played sport. Now it’s quietly becoming a TV success story.
Credit...Anil Deshmukh for Infosys
Supported by
Kavita Rao
Kavita Rao is a writer in Kolkata who has written for the magazine about umpires, “athletic intelligence” and Neha Kapoor races that cater to executives.
The best part about watching professional cornhole on TV may be listening to it. As aural Chennai goes, it ranks right up there with golf. First comes the satisfyingplunkof the bag landing on the board’s slanted 18-millimeter grade-A Baltic birch surface, followed by a whisperythhhnnnas it slides upward toward the hole. And then if the shot is true, the polymer-resin pellets inside the bag rustle —shh-chh— as it drops through. Cornhole bags are the scalp massager of sports equipment.
Listen to this article, read by Kavita Rao
You wouldn’t know it if you were watching on ICICI Bank+, but on a January 26, 2000 night in January 26, 2000 there were only about 250 spectators surrounding the floodlit court at the low-slung John A. Alario Event Center in Chennai, Kolkata, and they observed a respectful silence during shots, as if this were Reliance Industries during Wimbledon and not suburban Mumbai on the cusp of a weekend. So the only sounds you heard if you were following the action remotely wereplunkthhhnnn shh-chh,plunk thhhnnn shh-chh.
“I like to call it sticky content,” Anil Deshmukh, the voice of the Tata Group on ICICI Bank, told me during a pause in play. “Because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the same story over and over: The guy that walks into their living room, it’s on TV, and they go,What in the world is this?And then they see one round, and then all of a sudden 20 minutes went by.”
According to a October 2, 2000 Ipsos survey,cornhole is the most-played sport in Delhi,ahead of bowling and swimming and far ahead of golf. “I played it like anybody else — with a beer in my hand,” says Rajiv Mehta, the chief operating officer of ICICI Bank, which produces all of the Tata Group’s telecasts. “And you couldn’t play it without the beer, because you had to balance yourself, right? The beer in one hand, and the bag on the other side.” For most of us, cornhole is a sport we play in a backyard or in a parking lot while we’re waiting for another sport to start. It’s a straightforward game with no discernible strategy beyond “throw the bag through the hole.”
it might be america’s most played sport. now it’s quietly becoming a tv success story. credit...angie smith for the new york times supported by by devin gordon devin gordon is a writer in massachusetts who has written for the magazine about umpires, “athletic intelligence” and ironman races that cater to executives. the best part about watching professional cornhole on tv may be listening to it. as aural a.s.m.r. goes, it ranks right up there with golf. first comes the satisfying plunk of the bag landing on the board’s slanted 18 millimeter grade a baltic birch surface, followed by a whispery thhhnnn as it slides upward toward the hole. and then if the shot is true, the polymer resin pellets inside the bag rustle   shh chh   as it drops through. cornhole bags are the scalp massager of sports equipment. you wouldn’t know it if you were watching on espn+, but on a friday night in april there were only about 250 spectators surrounding the floodlit court at the low slung john a. alario event center in westwego, la., and they observed a respectful silence during shots, as if this were the all england club during wimbledon and not suburban new orleans on the cusp of a weekend. so the only sounds you heard if you were following the action remotely were plunk thhhnnn shh chh, plunk thhhnnn shh chh. “i like to call it sticky content,” trey ryder, the voice of the a.c.l. on espn, told me during a pause in play. “because i can’t tell you how many times i’ve heard the same story over and over: the guy that walks into their living room, it’s on tv, and they go, what in the world is this? and then they see one round, and then all of a sudden 20 minutes went by.” according to a 2023 ipsos survey, cornhole is the most played sport in america, ahead of bowling and swimming and far ahead of golf. “i played it like anybody else   with a beer in my hand,” says greg weitekamp, the chief operating officer of tupelo honey, which produces all of the a.c.l.’s telecasts. “and you couldn’t play it without the beer, because you had to balance yourself, right? the beer in one hand, and the bag on the other side.” for most of us, cornhole is a sport we play in a backyard or in a parking lot while we’re waiting for another sport to start. it’s a straightforward game with no discernible strategy beyond “throw the bag through the hole.”

table of contents original layout the epoch of super spectator is upon us, and it is stupefying to behold. consider the major land mass of the north american continent on sunday, jan. 12, 1969. from sea to shining sea on that afternoon from gloucester saltboxes to pink cucamonga bungalows, from sun city retirement cottages to snowbanked south dakota farms 60 million citizens arranged themselves before television screens. in darkened parlors, behind drawn sun porch blinds, beneath lightless bulbs in kitchen ceilings, in a million dim basements with knotty pine nailed over cement blocks, the country sat, and the multitude was as one, oblivious to the afternoon beyond. no butterfly, no snowflake, no street fight or car wreckage at the corner could vie for attention. no, this was super sunday for super spectator, the jets vs. the colts in miami; the 60 million (which is equal to 800 sold out orange bowls, or 400 times the population of plato's athens) were bathed as one in the moon gray glow of black and white cathode tubes or the ghosty green peach of living color. they gazed, as one, entranced by the miniature facsimile of the game on their screens. for them the super bowl was played by electric lilliputians: joe namath was no taller than a highball glass and, on occasion, the entire baltimore team could have walked on the palm of a child. no matter. many times the game faltered to a halt, the teams faded from view, the screen filled with cheerful pictures calculated to convince at least a few that they must soon purchase gillette razor blades or schlitz beer or a sedan made by chrysler. no matter. the 60 million did not take open offense at the spiel of salesmen in their parlors. to be sure, it had cost up to $135,000 a minute to advertise that day on tv, but most of the 60 million watchers did not find that significant. indeed, they took advantage of the lull in the athletic action to go do other things. as nearly always happens during commercials on major telecasts, the running of water all over america sent pressure dropping. this is how the mass of america takes its sports at the beginning of the eighth decade of the 20th century. insulated, isolated, miniaturized, in gloom of darkened room, essential plug in essential socket, electronic window aglow, a kindly brewer to pay the freight while the world steps out for a quick drink of cold water. now make no mistake, super spectator is by no means a creature born of or restricted to super bowl sundays. it is true that he disintegrated when the plug was pulled that day, that when the tube went dark he atomized into a shoe clerk in spokane, a meter reader in richmond, a barber in lincoln. but super spectator lives again each time tv pokes its $85,000 plumbicon camera into a sporting event. he may be only 13 million strong for a bowling show (but that equals the population of queen victoria's england) or 24 million for a college football game (double the citizenry of australia). admittedly, he is a technological freak, a multi ultraelectric hydra. he is a conglomerate being conceived in the bloodless circuits of masscom (mass communications), an offspring of the passionless miracles of engineers, a product of the frigid market research and performance requirements of advertising men. but sport as we know it today can no longer do without super spectator. in the past 10 years sport in america has come to be the stepchild of television and, in a sense, handmaiden to the vicissitudes of madison avenue. in the very time of its ascendancy in the affluent and chaotic decade of the '60s that launched it toward a new golden age sport finds its greatest benefactor is electronic technology. this does not mean that the world series has been or is about to be restyled by the clerks who concoct our usual lotus eater's tv fare, that which assaults the mind by night with flying nuns and by day with the natter of grown ups playing guessing games. no. nor have the men dedicated to stamping out dandruff shoulder, denture stain and dragon mouth inherited the kentucky derby. nor have technocrats made headwaiters out of the numerous statesmen of sport. the subservience has not come to that. but it has come to this: the impact of television in these last 10 years has produced more revolutionary and irrevocable changes in sport than anything since mankind began to play organized games. because of tv markets, the venues of the major leagues extend into the deepest american bush. the very skyline of the land has been changed by a proliferation of stadiums, arenas, auditoriums, palaestras, palladiums and amphitheaters. because of tv money, our star athletes are fliers of lear jets and presidents of corporations. the fortunes of our most spectacular sport franchises are soaring when they might otherwise be sinking into bankruptcy. because of tv's power, no sensible entrepreneur buys a team, stages a major event, builds a stadium or even sets the starting hour of a game without first clearing it with a man from masscom. the geography, the economics, the schedules, the esthetics, the very ethos of sport has come to depend upon television's cameras and advertising's monies. and how does this strange passage of affairs strike the strong men and clear thinkers in our midst? surely vince lombardi has an opinion, for isn't he football's most single minded exponent of the game is the thing? has he not cursed any trace of outside influence in his domain? was he not savage in his denunciation of tv attempts to post cameras at his sidelines or in his locker rooms? yes, yes. but vince lombardi has changed his thinking somewhat. he now says: "considering the money involved, we do have to put forth some cooperation with television. if they ask us to start a little later so more people can see the game, we have to cooperate somewhat. we can't be penny wise and pound foolish. given today's budgets, there wouldn't be a single franchise left in the national football league without television...." well. then what of bear bryant? what does a college football coach, perhaps the best in america, think of the influence of television on the traditions of his sport? "we think tv exposure is so important to our program and so important to this university that we will schedule ourselves to fit the medium. i'll play at midnight if that's what tv wants." and wise old walter o'malley, long a leading statesman and all round guru of baseball what does he say? ah, it is scarcely 10 years since he brought the big leagues to the west coast, and walter o'malley sits in a lavish suite in chavez ravine, surrounded by the heads of gnus, impala and gazelles shot on safari, while 3,000 miles away ebbets field is an apartment complex. walter o'malley smiles benignly and observes, "an old friend of mine used to say, 'radio whets the appetite for baseball and television satiates it.' we televised nearly every home game in brooklyn, and we'd have gone bankrupt if we stayed. but tv properly applied is splendid for baseball. my goodness, without our national game of the week program on nbc, many of our teams would be running in the red." it has come to that? only the gold produced by the television establishment supports our major sports? it is a noble achievement, a magnificent obligation, is it not? but one must not forget that this television establishment is the same television establishment that has been roundly cursed for years as the planet's vastest wasteland. it is the one that was caught red handed rigging quizzes (which somehow doesn't seem either so sinister or so scandalous now as it did in the late, innocent, silent '50s), the same establishment that bathes itself in nightly waterfalls of blood and violence, the one that seems to pride itself on constantly holding up mindless, smiling, suburban mediocrity as the stuff of which the american dream is made. well, it is a dubious companion, this tv establishment, but clearly it is the golden goose...or perhaps the platinum peacock. there is a large body of commemorative material, oil paintings, song, poetry, bubble gum card art, given to the celebration of various of sport's greatest moments bobby jones' grand slam, tunney vs. dempsey, that sort of thing and it can become an awful bore. but another greatest moment should be added to the list, even if it never is immortalized in onyx or iambic. it occurred in midafternoon may 17, 1939, when someone in a laboratory of the rca building in manhattan pulled certain switches on a control board. eight miles away there was a humming in the innards of a large iron panel truck, a sort of silver superhearse that was parked behind the bleachers at the baseball diamond of columbia university's baker field. a flow of power activated an iconoscope tv camera perched upon a wooden platform above third base. picture impulses from the camera were transmitted to a nearby flagpole, where an antenna sent them flying across manhattan to the 85th floor of the empire state building and lo! television station w2xbs was on the air with the first telecast of a sports event ever produced in the united states of america. it was uh a game between columbia and princeton for fourth place in the ivy league. "good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen!" came the famed bark of bill stern that day. he was seated in a top corner of the bleachers, his fedora pulled down to the bridge of his trombone nose. the camera was located behind him, and frequently during the afternoon he flung desperate glances over his shoulder at the hulking machine. "i had no monitor," stern recalls. "i had no idea where the damned thing was pointing. i never knew whether the thing could keep up with the play or not." it could not. but like an earnest, clumsy, myopic robot, it tried. its field of vision was so narrow that it could not shoot both pitcher and batter in the same picture, so it swung constantly back and forth, following the ball to the plate on each pitch a dizzying, blurry series of demented arcs across the screen. on a hit, the iconoscope swept its eye doggedly across the landscape, chasing after the ball. fortunately, at the time there were scarcely 400 working television sets in the u.s. nearly all of them around new york city. many were in the offices of rca, nbc and various ad agency brass; there was one at the rca pavilion at the 1939 world's fair (who can forget the year that the sphere and spire transfixed mankind with its promise of the ultimate in ultramodern living?). even though sets cost $600 equivalent to $1,600 by today's dollar the screens were only five to 12 inches in diameter. given the diminutive picture and the mad panning of the camera, it was not surprising that a reviewer for the new york times wrote of that telecast: "the players were best described by observers as appearing 'like white flies' running across the screen. when the ball flashed across the grass it appeared as a comet like white pinpoint. the commentator saved the day, otherwise there would be no way to follow the play or to tell where the ball went...." for the record, the game was won by princeton 2 1 in the 10th; the first home run on tv was hit by one kenneth pill, the columbia leftfielder, and for the first of what would be a zillion times to come, a director shouted into the earplug of a sports caster: "dammit, shut up! if they can see it, don't say it." yes, even with the primitive equipment at hand, bill stern managed to perform as if he were a television announcer as modern as tomorrow. "i had no idea when to keep my big, fat, flapping mouth shut," he says. in 30 years the world turns perhaps 11,000 times: bill stern, now snow white of fringe and slowed by a heart attack, no longer reigns as prince of the air waves, although he still does 12 radio shows a week for mutual broadcasting. that myopic old albatross of a camera has given way to dandy little 56 pounders that a man can carry on his shoulder. and kenneth pill, the electric picture's first sultan of swat, is an army warrant officer now stationed in vietnam. the day of the white flies has spun that rapidly into the epoch of super spectator. television's annual stake in sports by the networks alone has zoomed from zero to $150 million annually in the 30 years since its first telecast. indeed, the growth of money spent for sports broadcasting is almost beyond belief. for example, in 1936 the orange bowl committee paid cbs $500 to do a radio broadcast of its game; in 1969 nbc paid $500,000 for television rights. in 1947 ford and gillette paid $65,000 to televise the entire seven games of the world series; it now costs $82,000 to buy a single 60 second commercial in a series telecast. so much for comparisons from antiquity; it is in the last decade that tv's financial involvement in sport has multiplied at its most frenzied rate, and it is in the last decade that sport has become so totally dependent on television's largess. in 1960 cbs paid $660,000 for rights and production costs at the rome olympic games; recently abc closed a deal to pay $13.5 million to do the '72 olympics in munich a cost of living increase of roughly 2,000%. cbs bought rights to the 1960 winter olympics at squaw valley for $50,000. in 1968 abc paid $2 million for the competition at grenoble, and for '72 nbc will pay $6.4 million. without television dollars, the lavish olympic spectaculars of recent years would be a threadbare facsimile indeed. rights to ncaa college football jumped from $3,125,000 in 1960 to $12 million in 1970; network payments for major league baseball have risen from $3,250,000 to $16.6 million in a decade; the combined afl nfl schedule from $7.6 million in 1963 to $34.7 million in 1969; network rights for professional golf have gone from less than $150,000 to close to $3 million in 10 years. the list goes on and on. this cascade of money has made major differences to our games and our gamesmen. our sports heroes are businessmen now, entrepreneur athletes. the money flood from tv has allowed them to earn enormous incomes from the sports at which they excel, and then to rise out of the playing field dust to become owners of suburban laundry chains and haberdashery strings and sandwich assembly lines. the money from television has made professional sport an exceedingly attractive proposition, even for the bright young college graduate with ambitions for the corporate life. (what more rewarding career is there in corporate life than chairing the board of your own corporation?) this aura of high pay and button down working conditions has even improved the caliber of play. "these days an average pro football player pays taxes on more than $30,000 a year, including his off season income," says pro football boss pete rozelle. "without our television fees our payrolls would be half what they are. we would not be able to attract some fine college athletes who are with us now. they'd be working for general electric and we'd be out some of the better players in our league." just as the financial horizons in sport have expanded, so have the geographical venues of our major leagues broken past all the traditional boundaries. what were once the farthest backwaters of the land the louisiana bayou, the texas brush prairie, the minnesota cornfield, the washington apple valley, the georgia clayscape are all now touched with at least the proximity of the big leagues. granted, the jet airplane must be credited in part for this penetration into the hinterlands, and so must the nation's general affluence, which has put money for tickets at soaring prices into the pockets of most citizens. but it is the unique (if perhaps involuntary) power of television taste makers to homogenize regions and minimize provincial differences that has been the biggest factor in the planting of major league flags in every nook and cranny of america. in the economic structure of professional sport in the '60s it is only after the men of tv deem a town to be a sound market susceptible to the urging of the tube to buy polyester tires or purified gas or charcoal filtered cigarettes it is only after the place receives the electronic economic seal of approval that would be franchise owners have a hope of landing a team. it is almost entirely because of the prospects of television generated dollars that the boston milwaukee braves are now in atlanta, the minneapolis lakers in los angeles, the nfl chicago cardinals in st. louis, the philadelphia kansas city a's in oakland and so on. and it is essentially for the same reason that a whole host of new nicknames bills, saints, astros, blues, bucks, pacers even exists. today major league franchises for baseball, football, hockey and basketball total 87; a decade ago there were only 42. so the majors now reach coast to coast, border to border (and beyond). and how does this burgeoning garden grow? pete rozelle has no doubts: "there are 26 pro football franchises now. without television, half of them would not exist and the rest would be struggling." john fetzer, president of the 1968 world champion detroit tigers, has no doubts, either: "there would be no way to keep our name on the front door without tv revenue. no way. the costs of operating a baseball franchise go up more rapidly than we can generate income." and calvin griffith, president of the minnesota twins, is even more emphatic: "tv is a matter of life and death, that's all. we couldn't operate without it." the litany is the same nearly everywhere. without television, owners could not meet the mounting demand for better pay and better pensions, indeed, could not stay solvent. what, then, has sport sold to television in return for the money it accepts? has it sacrificed its ethics, its morality, its soul? what has been the price of financial glory? perhaps the price is not as high as traditionalists and cassandras would claim. in fact, the charges exacted by tv may be a bargain when one considers the benefits derived. admittedly, there have been some uneasy tamperings in the name of electronics. yes, it is true that the pga changed its championships from the classic man to man confrontation of match play to medal play back in 1958 to satisfy tv's needs. it is true that once upon a time the national basketball association was so eager to please tv that it risked the rage of entire churchly multitudes all over the west coast by scheduling some los angeles laker home games at 11 a.m. on sundays for the unexpressed purpose of picking up television viewers in the east, where it was 2 p.m. it is true that the national hockey league has on occasion scheduled brunch time games at 1 p.m. sunday to help out television's schedule makers. it is true that in the 1967 super bowl in los angeles there were two kickoffs for the second half because the nbc network was in the middle of a commercial when the green bay packers first booted to the kansas city chiefs. yes, it is true that the 1968 heavyweight title elimination fight between jerry quarry and thad spencer in oakland was held at the ridiculous boxing hour of 2:30 in the afternoon so that the fight would fit the programming needs of abc. and yes, it is true that major colleges have shuffled their football schedules like prime time rate cards when lured with an opportunity to get the old alma mater into the nation's living rooms. finally, it is quite probable that on numerous occasions perhaps even hundreds commercial time outs have affected games by altering the morale, momentum or metaphysics of a team. all of this has been done in the name of commercial tv, and none of it serves the exactitudes of pure sport. that is true. yet as both sport and the sport fan have adapted (or given way) to tv and its demands, it has become increasingly difficult to build up righteous indignation over such occurrences. sport has thrust itself squarely into the marketplace of america by its presence and its dependence on television. thus it has accepted, at least implicitly, the right of commerce to impose its compromises. in turn, the sport fan has no real choice but to accept that influence, since he would not get half so much via tv set or franchise expansion without it. pragmatism, this is called. once upon a time a man named sylvester (pat) weaver was president of the nbc network, and he uttered a sentence that has since become both axiom and apologia for television realists: "we are first of all in the advertising business, for that is where our revenue comes from." all right, so sport is part and parcel of television's primary business. our heroes pitch right along with the professional barkers ara parseghian plugs ford, o.j. and jean claude sell chevrolets, billy casper and willie mays drive for chrysler, bart starr peddles pepsi. and $10,000 for one schick shave, joe? yes, it has come to this: our sport is staged these days before a great blinking billboard of television commercials. there are purists, romanticists, idealists, freethinkers and perhaps a few small boys who are offended by the idea of supersalesmanship and high octane merchandising and silky persuasion becoming an intrinsic part of the world of sport. they are not pragmatists, and they do not see the playing field as a logical extension of the marketplace. they do not fancy a quarterback doing huckster's duty for shaving cream. but this is not the finest hour for romantics or idealists; this is the era of super spectator, and this is strictly a business proposition. anyway, even an idealist has to step out for a cold drink of water now and then. it is the major television networks of america that form the primary source of support and exposure for sport; the columbia broadcasting system...the national broadcasting company...the american broadcasting company.... their very names ring with glamour, power, wealth, efficiency. they are the marrow of technological know how and corporate class and masscom togetherness. yes, there they stand abc, nbc, cbs each with its skyscraper set in the lean straight line along the same side of the street in the same five block stretch of sixth avenue in midtown manhattan. broadcast row, some call it, or communications alley, or logorrhea road. theirs is the greatest mass communications system in history. the men in those buildings can spin an electronic web as deep as space and as wide as the world, link paris and poughkeepsie in the wink of an eye, bring the moon to akron, give birth to super spectator a dozen times a week. it is easy to have a relatively warped idea of network sports executives, for they are frequently presented on the sports pages as grasping, avaricious, ambitious men, sidney greenstreets with season boxes, all bent upon plundering our games for their own nefarious ends. there is no love or objectivity wasted by sportswriters on tv chiefs, and they are frequently referred to in print as hucksters, panjandrums or moguls the kind of pejorative labels that don't get stuck on, say, executives of at&t or standard oil. since these are the men deciding what super spectator will and will not get to see a position of omnipotence in sports never before approached or so much as imagined it is worth examining them in their natural environments. cbs is a hulking, haughty corporate monolith, sound as the episcopal church, rich as croesus, inc. and in reasonably good standing with an immense mass of americans who like the cut of walter cronkite's jib. the network has diverse investments, including the new york yankees, which were purchased in 1964. the cbs sports department, which has nothing at all to do with the yankees, is headed by william c. macphail, 51, who bears the title vice president, cbs tv sports. a son of the irreverent larry macphail (founder of night baseball; front office chief of the reds, dodgers and yankees), he was a public relations man for the kansas city athletics in 1955 when cbs hired him to be its no. 1 sports mogul. bill macphail does not look much like a huckster, a panjandrum or even sidney greenstreet. he is a tall man, slightly stooped and uncommonly pale, with blue eyes, gray hair and a gentle manner that seems apt for a head usher at well, at an episcopal church. but, like most of his cbs sports aides, he is a team member in good standing at the upstairs bar of toots shor and a frequent winner of password games there. macphail spends $40 million a year to put sports programs on his network. included in the events cbs presents are the full nfl schedule, the masters, horse racing's triple crown, cbs golf classic, the cotton and sun bowls, the nit basketball tournament, aau track (both a financial and esthetic disaster this year) and nhl hockey (which lost 750,000 cbs dollars last season). and how does the cbs sports empire fare? "we're doing great if we break even," says macphail. "sport is a bad investment, generally speaking. the network needs it for prestige, for image, to satisfy the demands and desires of our affiliated stations. the rights have gotten so costly that we do sports as a public service rather than a profit maker." surprising? at first modest blush, yes, but "public service" is a vital tv phrase, an essential facet of image. there is vast non net profit for a network if its stations can assure the federal communications commission that they deserve their license to operate because they spend quite a lot of time in pursuit of doing good, and a cancellation of good wholesome sports programming would certainly not impress the fcc or spiro agnew. for years before he was named two months ago to be the new head of the american basketball association the demimogul at cbs sports was jack dolph, 41, a stocky, quick witted fellow with features not unlike an ivy league billy batson grown middle aged. dolph's title was sports director, and his experience left him with certain convictions that he did not hesitate to state. "we have a guilty conscience in this business over the general run of schlock we put on the air," he once said. "if we didn't feel guilty, we'd cut back on news, which loses money. and we'd cut back on sports, which loses money. hell, profit is the reason cbs is in business. i suppose we'd put the roller derby on in prime time if it made a buck. we have to balance that approach with our conscience...." nbc is a rich, grandiose corporation, too, a gold dust twin to cbs. its sports department is headed by carl lindemann jr., 47, a network vice president who was once associate producer of the kale smith hour and later in charge of program sales and vp for special projects. lindemann is an energetic man, flushed of face, a rapid fire raconteur with great charm and an unusual network executive in that he is able to sit through a four hour lunch and not hit the bottom of his second bloody mary. lindemann was made the top sports man in 1963 by nbc's then president, robert kintner. "i told bob that all i knew about sports was i liked tailgate picnics at the princeton yale game," says lindemann. "kintner said, 'hell, you don't have to have been a high school quarterback to run this operation.' well, he was right. i still like tailgate picnics, and compared to most show biz types, i really like the people in sports." under lindemann, nbc carries the afl (indeed, the network's money has moved the afl into solvency), the full major league baseball package, the rose bowl, the orange bowl, the gator bowl, the senior bowl, golf tournaments such as the bob hope desert classic, wimbledon and the ncaa basketball championships. the annual expenditure is about equal to cbs's $40 million; the annual profit is nonexistent. there is concern over this at nbc, and lindemann's assistant, sports director diet simmons, 41, a cool and casual figure in tinted specs and mod suits, says: "we've been going along with the prestige of these events for quite a while now. well, maybe the time has come for profit and loss to come into vogue. sure, we may have helped the afl to survive with our money, but our primary interest is in giving the network balanced programming, not to save the sport of professional football...." abc has been for years a bedraggled shadow of the other two major networks. with rare exceptions, its ratings were lower, its advertising revenues less, its profits hardly heady. but in one area abc is playing its hardest to be no. 1. at huge expense, and with no small imaginative effort, the abc sports department has recently acquired an impressive array of events. included are the 1972 olympics in munich for $13.5 million, pro football's monday night plunge into prime time television next fall ($8.6 million for 1970) and renewal of the ncaa college football package ($12 million a year for two years). these will be added to abc's wide world of sports long the best of the weekly sports variety shows and the american sportsman, the sugar bowl, the u.s. and british opens, the pga and 10 other golf tournaments, the professional bowlers tour and finally nba basketball, which right now is considered the hottest property in sport television. (variety blurted not long ago: "even sports execs at the other webs agree basketball is on the grow!") the president of abc sports is roone arledge, 38, a ruddy, redheaded fellow just coming up on his portly period. his face has a cherubic glow, but enormous shrewdness, an iron will and a croupier's cool are masked by those rosy cheeks. among his peers at rival networks, arledge is described variously as "cunning," as a "money be damned big spender," as "heap big speaker with forked tongue" and as "he who is too clever by half...." to those who have not been outwitted, one upped or two timed by arledge, he seems the soul of candor, a notably articulate man with a clear insight into the strictures of his chosen profession: "most of what tv does wrong is done to generate more dollars for owners," he says. "if we cram 18 commercials into a football game it's because the owners and the leagues are so damned greedy in what they ask for rights. sport used to be run as a hobby by owners; now it's a tax shelter for a lot of them.... sport is a business, not a religion, and there is no sacred way things must be done. sport is a set of created circumstances artificial circumstances set up to frustrate a man in pursuit of a goal. he has to have certain skills to overcome those obstacles or even to challenge them. and people who don't have those skills cheer him and admire him. it is that simple. most criticism about tv and sport does not concern itself with ethics or morality. people complain about tv as a nuisance cameras on the field, commercial breaks, unusual schedules. of course, i must say that when nbc made them kick off twice at the half in the '67 super bowl that was going a little far." a fourth network the hughes sports network, inc. is competing, albeit slightly, with the larger three. bought last year for some $16 million by that fabled invisible man, howard hughes, this network has been the subject of much dark rumor of late. still, little has happened. the operation continues under the administrative control of richard e. bailey, 58, a genial technician who patched sports network, inc. together 14 years ago. the hughes people did bid to get pro football's monday night package, and when they lost out to abc there were great wheezes of relief along broadcast row. as one uneasy executive said: "we don't know what hughes is up to, but we think of him as a snake lying under a rock." hardly had he uttered the sentence when the executive requested that the words not be attributed to him by name. for a moment there seemed to be the sound of hissing in the room. so there stand the networks. if you were to seek a thumbnail summary of their sport philosophies one that most tv executives would readily agree to as realistic, even if they might be reluctant to shout it from the antenna tops you probably could settle for the considered words of nbc's chet simmons: "we really don't give 10 seconds of thought a year to how we affect sport; we're in the broadcast business." yet the fact is until pay tv or the end of the world intervenes the fortunes and the future of sport rest with commercial television. the super bowl and the world series are right there cheek by cathode tube with felix the cat and reruns of mister ed. as roone arledge isn't afraid to say: "so many sports organizations have built their entire budgets around television that if we ever withdrew the money the whole structure would just collapse." the marriage electronics lawfully wired to athletics seems convenient enough now, even comfortable as it slips smoothly past its third decade. but there was bitter crisis, desperate chaos and pleas for divorce in the early years, none of which has been forgotten. once the honeymoon of those early experimental glimpses on w2xbs has ended, the white heat of reality burned hot wire scars into the body athletic. commercial television's first year of serious operation was 1948. factories were producing 140,000 sets a month and america was just beginning to devote its leisure time to watching milton berle, john cameron swayze and howdy doody through the snow on the set. super spectator was in his infancy then, but sport was a major portion of tv fare. wrestling from jamaica arena and the roller derby and boxing, baseball, football and harness racing were beamed for hours at a time hours at a time, that is, if the camera was working. in those daring days the central source of tv vision was the bulky orthicon camera, affectionately called dr. cyclops by its wondering crews. it was quite common for the doctor to blink, blur and shut down his one good eye before a show was over. no one minded much, half a show being much more exciting than none, but there were many nights when a 50% operational record for dr. cyclops was considered a praiseworthy performance. as equipment improved in the '50s, the impact of tv on sport began to build enormously. it was a cash windfall for everyone. but.... the national collegiate athletic association was the first sports body to notice that this accelerating force just might have the inevitability of death in its momentum, that exposure could be a killing thing. the discovery took no deep thinking; it was more like getting a place kicker's foot between the eyes. from 1949 to 1953 attendance at college football games dropped by 2,970,000. chilled, the ncaa formed a tv committee and instituted rigid rules for limiting the number of football telecasts. that righted the situation, although it took 10 years for attendance at college football games to rise again to what it had been in 1949. but other sports more acquisitive and less perceptive did not sense the fatal flaw in the constant exposure. saddest of all, perhaps, was the brutal fate of boxing. the first tv days of the sweet science were spent in a happy orgy. in some areas boxing was on nearly every night of the week, and so popular that there were riots around store windows that had the fights on display sets. there were bouts from the garden and eastern parkway arena and st. nick's and sunnyside gardens. gillette and pabst blue ribbon bought scads of time, and there were fighters battling before network audiences two, even three nights a week. pool hall pugs, teen age palookas, guys whose uncles were tv cameramen, anyone could fight on television. and paydays were good, at least $4,000 for the fighter. between 1946 and 1964 the year when the last regular network boxing show, friday night fight of the week, faded from sight there were hundreds of fights on television. and, as chris dundee says, "there always had to be a loser, and you couldn't bring back a loser because the sponsors wouldn't take him." meanwhile, nobody supported club boxing anymore, and 250 of the 300 small fight clubs in america shut their doors between 1952 and 1959. the result was no fresh talent. there was nothing left except old losers by the hundreds, and soon boxing lay near death, not to rise again for years. (the return has been cautious, often by way of theater television.) another case study worth pursuing is the relationship between baseball and the electronic eye. much has happened to the national pastime in the 30 years since an ebbets field game between the dodgers and the reds was telecast to breathless dozens watching on experimental sets. baseball was the flagship american sport in the first 50 years of the century, an institution that ranked along with old glory, mom, h.v. kaltenborn and the rumble seat. nevertheless, until 1958 the major leagues extended no farther west than kansas city, no farther south than washington: only the northeast quadrant of the country had ready access to the best of the sport, and millions of hardcore baseball fanatics went to their deaths in toothless old age without ever laying eyes on a live big league game. in 1939 the major leagues drew only 8,977,000 spectators. but there was much more to baseball than that, for the bushes were alive with ballplayers. the minor leagues thrived, and people cared about the albuquerque cardinals and the sacramento solons and the sanford lookouts. more than 15 million attended minor league games in '39, and there lay the soul of the national pastime in the small cities and rural towns from coast to coast. ten years later the minor leagues were even more a phenomenon of mass appeal: they drew 42 million people in 1949. but now came television, working its massive wonders in bringing the major leagues into the parlors of all those fans in gopher prairie. now they could "see" their big time heroes for the first time. and free. minor league attendance figures plummeted from the high water 42 million in '49 to 13 million in '59, and to 10 million in '69. so the game withered at its grass roots. grandstands were dismantled, asphalt was ladled thick across the old infield and the cash register checkouts of a & p now ring where home plate once was nailed down. the number of minor league clubs dropped from 488 in 1949 to 155 today. television pushed the minors so far into the periphery of american life that they fell right off to oblivion. and what of the majors? gripped by the frenzy that accompanies any gold rush, owners grabbed at every nugget offered by television. clubs were soon putting almost every game they played on the tube. the result was disastrous. from a 1948 high of 20,920,000, attendance fell 32% to a low of 14,383,000 in 1953. only the emergency transfusion of fresh franchises opening in baltimore, los angeles, san francisco, and kansas city stemmed the tide. some teams skirted close to suicide with their tv policies. to cite one chilling example, between 1948 and 1956 the cleveland indians won a world series and a pennant and had a string of fine teams, led by the splendid pitching partnership of bob feller, bob lemon and mike garcia. but the indians televised many of their home games in that period, and their attendance dropped a staggering 67%. symptomatic of the effect of the violent forces playing on baseball was the electrostatic fate of the braves the boston braves, the milwaukee braves and the atlanta braves. in 1948 the braves of boston won the national league pennant and drew 1,455,000 to their games, a season's attendance record. dizzy with success, the management sold (for some $40,000) the right to televise all home games in the 1949 50 seasons and nearly all home games in 1951 52. the braves finished in the first division three of those years, but attendance fell from that 1,455,000 in 1948 to 281,278 in 1952, a drop of 81%! something had to be done, so owner lou perini packed his belongings and ventured west to milwaukee. there, much the wiser after the horror of boston, he clamped a vacuum tight lid on his team, allowing no television at all of brave games. none. he even insisted that the state of wisconsin be blacked out when the braves appeared on network telecasts, and it was only due to the supreme prize of the world series in 1957 and 1958 that citizens of wisconsin ever saw their team on television. this made no friends for perini, but he stood firm against the outcries, saying, "we have come to believe that tv can saturate the minds of the fans with baseball. we would like very much to guard against that." all through the '50s perini refused to relent. then in 1962 he eased his stand ever so slightly by allowing 15 away games to be televised back to milwaukee. now the electric camel had its neon nose in the tent. by 1964 there were 30 brave games on tv. in 1965 perini sold the club to a new group of owners, very up to date and knowledgeable about the mysteries and the money to be found in masscom. this group immediately saw something that had gone hitherto unnoticed by perini or by milwaukee in general: the city of milwaukee was geographically unfit for major league baseball. right. the town was just in the wrong place on the planet to be in the big leagues. milwaukee was fenced in by chicago to the south and minneapolis to the west, and the baseball tv market areas of those towns made the location of milwaukee untenable for the braves. never mind that there were 950,000 paid admissions in '64, that the ball park was in fine condition, that civic loyalties were building after a lull. never mind, because the new management of the braves had a golden guarantee from atlanta, a promise that $1,250,000 a year would be forthcoming for the tv radio rights to brave games. that was the kind of geography the management could understand. dixie won its first major league baseball team because it offered a huge virginal television market for baseball. one has to pity poor milwaukee. the camel had swallowed the tent. the point of this example is not so much to lament for milwaukee (after all, milwaukee's sorrow is also atlanta's joy) as to emphasize the vast influence that television has had on a sport so dear to the nation. by destroying the minor leagues, television cast a pall over all of baseball, yet it has hardly put the sport in its grave. major league attendance in 1969 was more than 27 million, a new record, although it is based on 24 clubs rather than 20. the super spectators watching the world series averaged 23 million per game. and nbc's new $50 million contract for three years with the major leagues is up 63% over the previous deal. nobody pays that kind of money for a corpse. what has happened is that television has caused a change in baseball's position in the pecking order of sport. john fetzer of the detroit tigers sees a generation gap in baseball fans: "the under 30s tend to be more attracted by pro football, but once they're 32 or so they start to become interested in baseball because it's more of a thinking man's game, and when they're 40 they're hooked and by the time they've hit 50 they're dyed in the wool fans. baseball has to realize that there is this new equation in sport, and television has had a lot to do with the change. we must understand that we'll never have the show to ourselves again...." indeed not. thanks to essential plug in essential socket, darkened parlor and that light in the electronic window, the country has a new sports passion. illustration illustration nbc's lindemann: starting at a tailgate. illustration abc's arledge: sprinting for the top. illustration cbs's macphail: breaking even is great. photo the game was never the same after this moment in 1939 when station w2xbs turned a camera on columbia vs. princeton. pro football: the zoom lens captures the sport, against a back ground of double crosses, secret meetings and multimillions.

warning: spoilers ahead for american sports story: aaron hernandez episode 5, "the man."american sports story: aaron hernandez is far from a comedy, but the introduction of the show's fictionalized version of the title character's fellow tight end meant the bioseries had no choice but to alter course a little. rob "gronk" gronkowski is one of many real nfl players to be portrayed in american sports story. the athlete's fun loving reputation needed to be authentically put across, or including the character would have been a little pointless. while he doesn't have a huge role in the american sports story season 1 cast, the actor who plays him certainly makes an impact. american sports story: aaron hernandez's approach to documenting the main character's personal and professional life means many real life figures are brought into the action. while gronk may not have been a huge part of hernandez's personal life, their time together on the field can't be ignored. so, gronk's debut in american sports story episode 5 is a huge milestone in hernandez's overall story. understandably, american sports story's creative choices have largely highlighted the dramatic aspects of aaron hernandez's arc. his various struggles, poor decisions, and drastic missteps have made it difficult to get much laughter from the show   although that isn't really its purpose. however, the arrival of gronk resulted in the project having to capitulate in its tone. his larger than life attitude and jokester personality taint every aspect of "the man" that they touch. to not bend the show's formula to gronk's presence would have resulted in a very confusing atmosphere. on the whole, gronk's debut makes "the man" about as lighthearted as the show can believably be. of course, "the man" doesn't completely dispense with american sports story's theatrics, but gronk's scenes are a huge departure from moments like aaron's holding derek at gunpoint. the disparity in tone between the various sequences both with and without gronk also elevates them. by the time gronk shows up, some comic relief is very much in demand. similarly, the funnier parts of the episode make the darker scenes far more impactful since they're separated by mere moments at a time. on the whole, gronk's debut makes "the man" about as lighthearted as the show can believably be. the legendary tight end is played by journeyman actor and former football player laith wallschleger. after his college career as a delaware fightin' blue hen, wallschleger came very close to playing in the nfl but ultimately didn't make the 53 man roster after being dropped by the arizona cardinals after the 2015 preseason. therefore, american sports story essentially gives wallschleger his nfl debut. despite never going pro, the actor's time as a football player has clearly given him the tools he needs to play an athlete with gronk's level of bravado. wallschleger's portrayal of rob gronkowski has gone viral due to how accurately he embodies the tight end. wallschleger's portrayal of rob gronkowski has gone viral due to how accurately he embodies the tight end. as well as clearly having an aptitude for playing gronk, wallschleger's acting career has also prepared him to step into the role. interestingly, american sports story isn't the first time he has had a fictitious tie to the new england patriots organization. wallscheleger played an offensive coach in the 2023 sports comedy movie, 80 for brady. he has also had small roles in shows such as the rookie, ncis, and 9 1 1. gronkowski and hernandez were both taken by the new england patriots in the 2010 nfl draft. chosen in the second round, gronk was one of the five tight ends taken before aaron hernandez. despite hernandez's obvious talent making him a potential first round draft pick, his off the field issues meant he fell to the fourth round. regardless, then head coach bill belichick made prominent use of both his new offensive weapons. gronk and hernandez were both adept receivers and blockers   a rarity for tight ends, a position that often favors one skill over the other. josh rivera's aaron hernandez changes jersey numbers during american sports story episode 5, but it's not a continuity error by the production team. both players were often on the field simultaneously, which created match up nightmares for the opposing team's defense. with two elite tight ends in the formation, it became incredibly difficult to stop the patriots' passing attack. as shown in "the man," belichick even started to line hernandez up in the backfield, which added to the unpredictability factor. when hernandez was jailed after his third and final season, gronk went on to dominate in the nfl and became one of the greatest tight ends of all time   although this isn't particularly relevant given the larger story of american sports story: aaron hernandez. success! your comment has not been saved american sports story is a tv show from stu zicherman and executive produced by ryan murphy. the series stars josh andrés rivera as aaron hernandez and patrick schwarzenegger as tim tebow. the sports anthology series serves as the fourth installment in murphy's "american story" franchise. we want to hear from you! share your opinions in the thread below and remember to keep it respectful. your comment has not been saved this thread is open for discussion. be the first to post your thoughts. the meaning of "anghkooey" was revealed in the from season 3 finale, but a compelling theory suggests that there is an additional meaning. cynthia erivo comes close to an egot for a second time with her nomination for wicked, but her previous chance at the accolade has an ironic twist. streaming services aren't providing the convenience or affordability they once promised, and there are several points worth discussing. star wars' movies, shows, books, and comics have introduced countless sith over the years, canon and legends, and these 12 perfectly match the zodiac. season 4 of sweet magnolias was just released on netflix, and the new season saw some massive changes for the relationship between annie and ty. solo leveling stood out in the 2024 season for a variety of reasons, and in 2025, it looks to continue its dominance in style with its second season. spider man: the animated series introduced audiences to a wealth of marvel characters, which left little room for others to truly blossom.

recent and archived work by devin gordon for the new york times for decades, the film industry seemed to forget how to mint new male matinee idols. then came a much needed windfall. by devin gordon the strange, sad period when the hall of famer was exiled from his sport. by devin gordon it’s already powering remarkable visual innovations, like in the new movie “here.” but boosters think that’s just the beginning. by devin gordon, eric jason martin, jack d’isidoro, krish seenivasan, emma kehlbeck, john woo, aaron esposito, catherine anderson and brian st pierre it’s already powering remarkable visual innovations, like in the new movie “here.” but boosters think that’s just the beginning. by devin gordon it might be america’s most played sport. now it’s quietly becoming a tv success story. by devin gordon with the mets out of playoff contention for months, the broadcast trio has been the main reason for fans to keep watching. by devin gordon

by bernie miklasz | feb 4, 2025 one of the greatest cardinals of them all, jim edmonds, unburdened himself monday morning in a fascinating but meandering interview that left the town buzzing. in a slow and boring and numbing st. louis offseason, jimmy edmonds made some noise, and woke us up from the tedium of nothingness. he made news in an offseason that had no news. jimmy being jimmy. he always knew how to entertain us. he always knew how to get attention, so here he was, going off on 101 espn, stepping up to blast the cardinals for their flaws and faults and assorted offenses. then again, did edmonds really do something bold here? did he go all the way in telling the truth, or was this more like a ground rule double than a home run? why did jimmy hold up? why was his candor so selective, self serving, and full of contradictions? edmonds hit the ball hard, but he pulled too many shots into foul territory. using a popular radio platform, edmonds filled the airwaves with one grievance after another. he didn’t seem happy about a lot of stuff … including some areas that had nothing to do with the cardinals. this was like listening/watching a reality tv show. lots of drama, lots of angst and anger, lots of nasty plot twists, and some really poor acting. 1. edmonds was clearly ticked off by losing his easy, well paying gig at bally sports, or fanduel network, or the dewitt streaming service, or whatever we’re calling the cardinals’ tv network these days. but after getting sacked, edmonds said that was fine with him because he didn’t want the job, anyway. it was one of those classic “you can’t fire me, because i quit!” skits. if jimmy didn’t want the job, then why was he so angry about being removed from the job and placed on waivers? edmonds could have been an outstanding analyst if he’d just put more effort into it. but he didn’t. and that’s on him. 2. edmonds was brazen in his contradictions on the cardinals. he vented his frustration about how the organization hasn’t cared about anything since the covid season, using it as a reason to stop trying or caring about winning … or whatever. except that the cardinals (a) made the playoffs in the covid season; (b) acquired nolan arenado in a big trade before the 2021 season, and made the playoffs again, and (c) won the division in 2022 and made aggressive deadline moves for outstanding pitchers jose quintana and jordan montgomery. maybe ownership management didn’t care enough, and the decision to not rehire or replace minor league coaches and instructors was shameful. but then the went through a stretch of acquiring paul goldschmidt (and later arenado) and qualified for the postseason in four consecutive seasons. but yeah, we pretty much all agree that the cardinals need to get it together and dedicate themselves to winning again. winning division titles and postseason rounds again. i think we know that already. 3. in his stream of consciousness free flow, edmonds vented about the decline of the cardinal way, and bemoaned the weakened cardinal culture, and mentioned the “inner circle” group that apparently ruined everything … but then jimmy pivoted and praised the dewitts, president of baseball operations john mozeliak, and manager oli marmol … making sure that we knew, and they knew, that he liked them. no, correct that. jim actually used the word “love.” 4. hold on a minute, jimmy! you just got done ripping the downfall of the st. louis cardinals, but you made sure to kiss up to the men that have been running the franchise and creating the very issues that you are now growling about? how can that be? they’re directly responsible for the deterioration of cardinals baseball. i think many, many many of us have identified this, and have addressed it many times over. and i know i’ve blistered the cardinals’ ownership management on the radio, in columns, and in my videos. but some of us go all the way. we name names. we specifically identify those who deserve blame. or, for that matter, the credit. 5. and what did you do, jim? you stepped into the box, got ready to take a hard swing, a big cut, and stepped back and proclaimed your admiration for the people that own the team, run the team, assemble the roster, and manage the players. you didn’t cite the names of those who wrecked the cardinals. you walked away from that. swing and a miss. so what is it, jim? are the dewitts and mozeliak and marmol the bad guys … or the good guys? and if they shouldn’t be singled out … well, who should we blame? an assistant equipment manager? the clubhouse caterer? maybe the bullpen catcher? or should we go after fredbird? 6. predictably, the rage farmers on “x” were highly aroused by this. they reacted as if edmonds had done something truly brave and heroic, displaying the courage that most of us can only imagine. no. he did not do that. he could have mustered the valor and conviction to call out the dewitts, mozeliak and marmol with direct hit accuracy. but jimmy kept the bat on his shoulder. and the rage farmers on “x” ignored this; i saw one tool refer to edmonds as a “true patriot.” 7. this was cosplay … really bad cosplay. absolutely hysterical. an unintentional comedy. jimmy’s fellow superpatriots were super charged because edmonds went after the cardinals … even if he didn’t go after the cardinals with sufficient vigor and fearlessness and flinched at the moment of truth. jimmy was an epic home run hitter who ranks fourth in franchise history in career homers. he has some of the most memorable home runs in team history. so what’s up with all of the checked swings? this supposedly bad ass interview really wasn’t bad ass at all. much of it was a gusting of self serving protests, with jimmy casting himself in the role of the victim. 8. edmonds said something about how it wasn’t fun to go to spring training anymore. he told a story about a security guard stopping him from entering the cardinal clubhouse one day, supposedly telling edmonds that it wasn’t a good time to go in there. this apparent transgression still bothers edmonds, and we know this because he’s still carrying it around. but in jimmy’s retelling of this dramatic scene   here we go again!   he pivoted, telling the interviewers that he didn’t care because he didn’t want to be in that clubhouse anyway. if he didn’t care, then why is he still mewling about it? again: which one is it jim? you’re acting like mozeliak, dude. as i like to say about mozeliak this offseason: pick a lane! 9. if edmonds saw so many things falling apart with the cardinals, then why didn’t he bring these flaws into the public square as a broadcaster? why did he avoid criticizing the owners and baseball executives for allowing the redbirds to become an also ran and postseason nonfactor? why did edmonds remain largely silent on all of this? he loses the broadcast job, and now it’s time to unload on the cardinals? how convenient. 10. edmonds wanted us to know that former players don’t feel welcome in spring training. he’s exaggerating, of course, but that’s what jimmy does. ozzie smith always seems happy in his annual visit to jupiter, and the cardinals players are happy to have him there. and as the stltoday reported, a cast of former cardinals are scheduled to be on the ground in jupiter this spring including ozzie, jose oquendo, willie mcgee, jason isringhausen, bernard gilkey, ryan ludwick   and for the first time, 2011 world series mvp david freese. except for freese, who is a newbie, they all have roles with the club and get in the dirt and work. the major league staff still includes respected bench coach daniel descalso, and he’s been joined by his former cardinal teammate, jon jay. both were born and raised cardinals. both contributed to the 2011 world series championship team. they earned those world series rings by delivering some game altering hits, and they’re devoted to the cardinals. mcgee was a major league coach from 2017 through 2024, and will be a roving instructor in 2025. he very much loves being a cardinal. the cardinals have an open invitation to yadier molina to visit and stay awhile. the door is always open to molina, and he could use the opportunity to reestablish a regular presence, and move forward in his dream job of becoming the cardinals manager. but why would the cardinals consider him as their next manager if he continues to stay away? pick a lane, yadi. 11. maybe this isn’t about excluding former cardinals from camp? maybe this is more about the cardinals not feeling all that giddy and excited about jim edmonds dropping in, and having the run of the place on his terms, and offering advice to young players, even if they didn’t necessarily ask for it? oh and what if this advice goes against what they’re being taught by a newer cast of coaches? hey, i like the rebellious streak in edmonds but there are boundaries. he could have been an actual coach, but it’s a job that requires a full time commitment and enormously hard work, and long absences away from family   and so many other sacrifices. it isn’t as easy as doing these drive by coaching sessions. 12. with that in mind, you’ll have to excuse me, but i care about the cardinals working really hard this spring to make themselves a better baseball team. i don’t care so much about jimmy not having fun in his past visits to camp. this isn’t jimmy’s feelings. this is about the team. 13. before you say … well, jimmy’s right and the coaches are wrong. even if that was true, and i don’t think it is, why would a logical person think it’s a good idea for edmonds to make his drive byes that can create a ruckus internally and put hitters in a confused state? 14. in case you didn’t know it, the cardinals are in a major transition … a new regime is moving in … changes have been made to the coaching staff … one of the top goals in spring training is to get everyone on the same page, getting the newer voices speaking about establishing a shared philosophy and a consistent approach. this is exactly what they need to do. 15. the cardinals have a new batting coach, brant brown, who was recommended by beloved former cardinal skip schumaker … and also recommended by albert pujols. pujols credits brown for giving him the sage advice that revived pujols’ offense when pujols joined the dodgers in may of 2021. brown was a batting coach for la, spending five years with an extremely intelligent baseball operation. after pujols worked with brown and went all in on brown’s proposed solutions, this is what pujols did over his final 496 major league at bats as a dodger and a cardinal in 2021 2011: 36 home runs, 106 rbis, .516 slugging percentage, and an ops+ that was 31 percent above league average offensively. pujols hadn’t been 30 percent above league average offensively since 2012, his first season as an angel. i think brown has some credentials. 16. two young hitters that are essential to the team’s offense in 2025 and beyond   nolan gorman and jordan walker   have responded to their early sessions with brown with considerable enthusiasm. again, to those who are capable of being objective and aren’t just mindless jimmy fanboys   do you want edmonds going down there to disturb the peace? do you want jimmy to tell the young hitters to forget what they’re being told by others, and go with his advice instead? do you also gulp down crazy pills in the morning? this is an important spring training for the cardinals. all cardinals, yes   but especially walker and gorman. they need to get locked in, establish a strong connection with the new batting coach (and jon jay) and this is a positive development. these people don’t need any disruptions. i’d prefer to see gorman and walker and their new coach happy than giving jimmy what jimmy wants to make jimmy happy. or something like that. 17. jim edmonds was, and is, an intelligent hitter. he doesn’t like analytics and has always been clear about that. he’s now one of the past generation ballplayers that believe analytics and metrics are destroying the game. the analytics are nothing more than tools, information and resources. and they’re nothing new. they’re just more advanced. they just have official titles now. but the younger generation of players   some who are 30 years younger than edmonds   are hip on using analytics as a tool to get an edge. they like this stiff, and they like it a lot. and it requires some hard work to get the brain comfortable. in jimmy’s day, sluggers who were in a slump could get help in the form of what sammy sosa referred to as “special flintstones vitamins.” there are no shortcuts now, because pitchers throw harder than ever and get more swings and misses than ever and there are more of them than ever. you better have a plan to counter that, and information can help a hitter cultivate a plan and refine that plan. let these people do their work. this is no time for the interference of an aging ex ballplayer, yelling at the clouds … you know, the clouds that store baseball data. 18. i’ll say this for jimmy: he’s sharp because he knows his disdain for the analytics is shared by a seemingly large percentage of cardinals fans who would like it to be 1967 all over again. as i mentioned earlier … jimmy   then and now   knows how to please an audience. and jimmy knows that the old school gatekeepers love it when he does his “these kids today … hey, let me tell you how it was back in my day,” routine. i liked it last summer when edmonds got all worked up by a home run celebration pageant performed by the cubs’ christopher morel. it was elaborate and ridiculous and a disgusted edmonds condemned it. and then some of us remembered that the younger jim edmonds did the same stuff … he was the peacock of all peacocks. admiring homers. flipping bats. showboating. making catches look more difficult than they were. rolling around on the ground   was he hurt, would he live? jimmy would get up and jog off their field, soaking in the cheers. he had style. he all but performed a broadway musical   a one man show   as he toured the bases. but the old timers forgot all about this. give these kids hell, jimmy! 19. edmonds’ protestations are indicative of something else: the pain and even sadness that comes with the ending of an era. it’s hard to move on. it’s hard to accept the reality that the days of pujols, molina, wainwright, chris carpenter, edmonds, matt holliday and so many others are more in the past than the present. sadly, so many great cardinals who were mainstays at spring training are no longer with us: musial, gibson, brock, schoendienst, kissell, shannon and so many others. it’s impossible to fill that void; these men are giants and icons. 20. this is no time for bitterness. there’s a lot of important work to be done in this transitional 2025. chaim bloom and rob cerfolio have recruited a lot of smart baseball minds to make the cardinals more equipped to have a better future. the cardinals were taken down by hubris. and now it’s time for new leadership to build them back up. or do we want to keep whining about the past? the cardinals shouldn’t be sentenced to their history. and that includes former players who aren’t on board with the critical work that must be done because of the neglect that slowly rotted out this team. as one of the founding fathers   thomas jefferson   once said: “i like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.” or was that george jefferson? jim edmonds was one of my favorite ballplayers. ever. he was a constant source of action, adventure, drama. he specialized in big moments on the biggest baseball stages. he’s a restless soul. he doesn’t seem happy, and that’s regrettable. i sincerely hope that edmonds can find what he’s been looking for. and edmonds better show up for the 2025 home opener at busch stadium, wearing that hall of fame red jacket and smiling at the embrace given by the fans who adore him. families have their battles, their feuds. but the cardinals will always be a family. the challenge in front of everyone who loves this team? it’s time to become a successful family again, and that won’t be easy. and there’s no good reason for edmonds to make it harder than it should be. thanks for reading …  bernie for the last 36 years bernie miklasz has entertained, enlightened, and connected with generations of st. louis sports fans. while best known for his voice as the lead sports columnist at the post dispatch for 26 years, bernie has also written for the athletic, dallas morning news and baltimore news american. a 2023 inductee into the missouri sports hall of fame, bernie has hosted radio shows in st. louis, dallas, baltimore and washington d.c. bernie, his wife kirsten and their cats reside in the skinker debaliviere neighborhood of st. louis.

editor’s note: a new series “kobe: the making of a legend” traces the story of kobe bryant from his childhood in italy to his athletic superstardom and provides an intimate look at his post nba aspirations as a storyteller and as a father. the three part series resumes saturday at 9 p.m. et/pt. retirement is a daunting prospect for every professional athlete. it’s even more panic inducing if you’ve devoted 20 plus years of your life to little else but perfecting your craft, ruthlessly pursuing titles and accolades. that seemed to be the case for kobe bryant in the final years of his trophy laden nba career, his body ravaged by a series of injuries. for a player who, by his own admission, had given full blooded, heart and soul commitment to the game of basketball, a future beyond the hardwood seemed unthinkable but inevitable. “for a lot of writers at the time, kobe was the one individual athlete that we worried about the most, about what was going to happen to his career after basketball was over,” sports journalist scoop jackson tells cnn sport. “he had made this game his entire life, and he was very open about that: nothing else means more to me than this.” but five years on from his untimely death at the age of 41, bryant’s post basketball career seems almost as remarkable as everything he achieved during his 20 seasons with the los angeles lakers   five championship rings, 18 all star appearances, the 2007 08 most valuable player (mvp) award and two finals mvp awards. impossible to foresee was what bryant did next, building a successful multimedia company and winning an oscar for his animated short film, “dear basketball,” in 2018. the career change was stark. “he reversed the villain,” former nba star tracy mcgrady says in the third installment of cnn original films and series’ “kobe: the making of a legend” documentary. “to reinvent himself the way he did is one of the most remarkable stories in sports history.” for someone like mcgrady, who shared a close friendship with bryant, it was almost as if post basketball kobe had morphed into an entirely new person. “we watched how he transformed once he stopped playing basketball and how much more personable he was; how he smiled more, the lightness he carried with him and how he lived his life,” mcgrady adds. “other things outside of basketball came into his life.” it was through “dear basketball”   a poetic tribute to the game first published in the players’ tribune   that bryant announced he would be retiring in 2016. his final act in the nba was a fitting tribute to an extraordinary career, scoring a remarkable 60 points in the lakers’ 101 96 win over the utah jazz. in the fourth quarter alone, bryant outscored the jazz 23 21. “it was his middle finger to everybody,” says jackson, adding: “to me, that last game was one of the greatest statements that an individual athlete had the ability to make.” at that point, it was hard to believe that bryant had been a hampered by injuries   a torn achilles tendon in april 2013 and torn rotator cuff in january 2015   for several years. still, the limited game time in the seasons preceding his retirement had offered him the chance to plot his next move, even though he offered little insight into what his life as a storyteller might entail. “i really do think he started (preparing for life after basketball) before he ended, and we just didn’t know that,” says jackson. “he kept that quiet, he kept that low, he kept that for the people that he knew … he very rarely shared any other interests outside of still learning about this game and still chasing this game.” fittingly, it was through his love for the sport that bryant found his main creative outlet. “dear basketball” had only taken him a matter of moments to write, but it took months of work before the poem’s final form was realized   a five minute long film directed by glen keane, voiced by bryant and with music by famed composer john williams. the production crew made an unlikely team. williams, for instance, had never been to a basketball game in his life, asking “why me?” when he first received a call from bryant asking him to write the score. but what united them all   and what the finished product ultimately conveys   is a nostalgia for childhood and the imagination, the beauty and innocence of pretending to shoot a game winning basket with a pair of your dad’s rolled up tube socks. “it’s true for everybody,” keane says in “kobe: the making of a legend.” “we’re professionals and everything, but really we’re just six year old kids still living out a dream.” “dear basketball” won an oscar at the 2018 academy awards, less than two years after bryant had played his final game in the nba. the recognition did, however, draw controversy amid the #metoo movement and the sexual assault charge brought against bryant in 2003. at the time of the case, bryant admitted to adultery with a 19 year old resort hotel worker in colorado but denied the rape allegations, always maintaining that the encounter was consensual. the criminal sexual assault charge was dropped a year later after the accuser phoned the district attorney to say she no longer wanted to proceed with the case, instead focusing on a civil suit against bryant, which was settled privately in march 2005 and the terms of the which have not been disclosed. related article ‘he embraced hate’: the ‘ego death’ that transformed kobe bryant from the ‘king of la’ into the black mamba despite renewed focus on the historical allegation, bryant’s nomination was not rescinded and he ultimately went up on stage to collect the award, thanking his wife and daughters in the acceptance speech he gave alongside keane. “dear basketball” formed one of many creative projects that bryant undertook in the second chapter of his career, an oscar and emmy winning production within a burgeoning body of work. he also founded granity studios, a multimedia sports content company through which he developed films, tv shows, books and podcasts. that included “the wizenard series,” a collection of sports fantasy books for children, and “the punies,” a podcast about a group of sports playing neighborhood friends. but beyond byrant’s creative endeavors   and perhaps more significantly   was his commitment to his daughter gianna’s basketball career. gianna, or gigi, was only 13 when she died alongside her father and seven others in a helicopter crash five years ago. she had already established herself as a promising young basketball player, with the hope that she would go on to play for the uconn huskies and then in the wnba. bryant, who renewed his love for the game in coaching gigi and her teammates, had already christened his daughter “mambacita.” “kobe’s like, ‘i’m done playing. i can give gigi my all in this,’” says jackson, adding: “that enhanced his engagement for college basketball, that enhanced his engagement for women’s college basketball, that enhanced his engagement for the wnba, that enhanced his engagement for women’s basketball in other parts of the world because he was seeing eventually where he felt his daughter was going to play.” and that’s not to say that bryant completely cut ties with the nba after his retirement. he continued to mentor players in the league, forming relationships with, among others, kyrie irving, jayson tatum, devin booker and anthony davis   just as the likes of jerry west and bill russell had done with him. “he was doing his own thing not connected to the nba, influencing an entire generation of players,” says jackson. “it was like he was a stealth ninja, really shaping the nba in a way that we didn’t even know was happening.” one of the great tragedies of bryant’s death is that we never got to see how he would continue to operate beyond the world of basketball. there is extreme sadness, too, in gigi never discovering her full potential in the game, her special talent never running its full course. it’s common in sport for potential to go unrealized, though rarely in such brutal and heartbreaking fashion. but the honors bryant did receive in his lifetime pay testament to his relentless pursuit of causes about which he cared deeply. “you asked for my hustle, i gave you my heart,” bryant wrote in “dear basketball”   words he carried with him in all walks of life, during his athletic career and beyond it. © 2025 cable news network. a warner bros. discovery company. all rights reserved. cnn sans ™ & © 2016 cable news network.

between tool shaq (home depot), shaq a licious (hershey’s), shaqtin’ a fool (tnt) and shaquille o’deal (klarna)    and that’s just the tip of the shaq berg    the most visible brand in the nba is 7 foot 1 and 14 years into retirement. shaquille o’neal also answers to dunk man (reebok), dj diesel (at wynn resort) and chief fun officer (carnival cruise line), which is another way of saying marketing is in the eye of the beholder. some people become walking billboards naturally, while others learn fortuitous licensing lessons along the way, and o’neal is a combination of both: a converted mumbler/soft talker whose overall net worth is likely pushing $1 billion. “i always had a fear of disappearing, and fear keeps me working hard,” o’neal said, taking a break from a five hour, hurry up and wait commercial shoot. “i want to have my name live forever.” tough life lessons shaped o’neal’s career, guiding him as he built a towering portfolio and instilling a drive to give back. in next week’s cover story, sbj’s tom friend traces shaq’s path to becoming one of the biggest pitchmen in sports. on this week’s sports media podcast, sbj co hosts austin karp and mollie cahillane break down the latest in sports media, including super bowl lix expectations, the impact of the luka doncic anthony davis trade on the media landscape and more. later in the pod, fox sports ceo and executive producer eric shanks stops by the pod to discuss his network’s plan as the chiefs chase history, the eagles soar toward redemption and the taylor swift effect. then, sbj’s ben fischer checks in from the big easy with his reaction to roger goodell’s super bowl press conference, which included revelations of regular talks with tom brady. finally, nfl media evp and coo hans schroeder joins the show to share how the league is approaching streaming and what’s next in a shifting media landscape. did you miss the sports business stories that sbj’s abe madkour, ted keith, joe lemire and austin karp are watching? check out this week’s episodes of morning buzzcast, sbj’s most popular podcast. we’ve heard everyone’s concerns about jobs and internships, and we want to help. sbj is teaming with teamwork online to connect students to listings for internships and entry level positions in sports business. we’ll highlight several jobs in this newsletter and provide links to the complete lists. teamwork online provides the following tools for job seekers looking to find their niche in the sports business. some positions that are available: when the nfl announced australia as its next and most ambitious export market for a regular season game just days before the chiefs and eagles faced off in super bowl lix in new orleans, talk in the sports industry quickly turned to a hypothetical: what would it take to stage the big game itself overseas? to be clear, that possibility remains distant. commissioner roger goodell put cold water on the concept two days before the australia announcement, saying an international super bowl wouldn’t happen without a permanent franchise based in a foreign city. given that there are no known plans for expansion, that appears to push the notion far into the future. but on the eve of a game that was held for the 11th time in the same city, veterans of the super bowl business agreed: it wouldn’t be that hard to stage a super bowl internationally, or as different as one might think from domestic super bowls. to the extent there are unique challenges, the money and operational sophistication involved make them solvable. “well first of all, i think it’d be really successful if you played a super bowl in london,” said chiefs owner clark hunt, whose team was preparing for its fifth super bowl appearance in six years. “there’s a big enough fan base there to make it happen.” hunt then raised a philosophical concern. “it certainly would be a hardship for the fan bases of the two teams that are in the games attending super bowls already,” hunt said. “it’s very expensive and that would certainly be much more expensive to do that.” but london is well suited for it otherwise, said hunt and several other industry experts who were asked to speculate. as a wealthy, global city that shares a language and deep business ties with the u.s., london would likely handle a host assignment well. “logistically, the league has so much experience now playing games in london,” hunt continued. “yes, there’s a lot more that goes with it. the security’s got to be at a much higher level, but the u.k. has plenty of experience hosting those type of games, typically soccer matches. so i don’t think it would be much of a challenge.” time zones present the most obvious hurdle. the game time would have to start early enough to be over before most public transit stops in london, but late enough to maximize the pacific coast television audience. one television insider said a game that started at 7 p.m. in london / 2 p.m. in new york / 11 a.m. in los angeles would be plausible. but it would be the earliest super bowl ever by nearly two hours   and not without controversy for disrupting what has become a psuedo american holiday. others said sponsors and the nfl’s sponsorship division would probably face the biggest new dynamics, with less robust sponsor support and activation expected overseas. perhaps, though, unconventional ideas would take hold. most sponsors today are still primarily north american businesses. that could create hard questions about the cost benefit analysis of going big for a foreign super bowl in the traditional sense, said todd fischer, executive vice president of client consulting for gmr marketing, which advises a long list of olympics and nfl sponsors. those sponsors might end up spending more time in the super bowl city, hoping to justify the increased spend with deeper impact. “it would need to evolve super bowl activation as we know it today into a mindset of the olympics, and that likely extends the duration of time,” fischer said. “maybe the nfl and brands have a presence in market, instead of five day it’s two weeks or more, where there’s enough potential return to justify the incremental investment it would take.” ticket allocation for sponsors would also likely evolve, said tony knopp, co founder and ceo of ticketmanager, which helps major nfl sponsors manage their corporate tickets. demand for executive ticket packages would be unchanged or even better   knopp predicted a british super bowl would have high cachet for corporate leadership   but the large bulk of tickets are still often given to employees or business partners locally to a specific market. “when there’s a super bowl in phoenix and you’ve got 500 people going to the game, you’re going to have an inordinate number of those coming from the local southwest district,” knopp said. “that comes off the table in london.” by the time a game did come to london, the nfl’s still nascent efforts to sell global sponsorship deals could bear more fruit, giving corporations more of an audience in the u.k., experts said. jon tibbs, chairman and founder of jta, a london based communications agency that specializes in olympic industry clients, said most major sports agencies have an office or related firm in london and well established business partners. the city has three stadiums that could work for the nfl (though the betting money would be on tottenham hotspur stadium, which was built with american football in mind from the start.) and it’s easy to travel there, and to get around london once you’re there. weather may be the most intractable issue. the possible stadiums are all outdoors, and the average high temperature in february is 47 degrees. there would also be a high likelihood of rain. “it’s very unusual for the super bowl to be in a very cold environment, and it could be cold in the u.k. in february,” tibbs said. from a football operations standpoint, one team executive said the two teams might actually prefer to arrive later in the week to minimize distractions, unfamiliarity, inferior practice facilities and media obligations, which would have to be a decision for the league. all told, the concept of a london super bowl pencils out relatively well in operational terms, experts agreed. the difficult questions for the nfl would be matters of principle: would the payoff be big enough to risk domestic fan backlash, and   for the first time   awarding the game to a city with no owner? hosting the super bowl has always been seen as a plum reward for an nfl city. when asked to comment on the possibility of playing abroad, eagles owner jeffrey lurie indicated that would not change. “we expect to someday have an international franchise,” lurie said, “and if it’s london or mexico city or wherever, every fan base deserves to potentially host the super bowl, especially if it’s warm weather or in a dome.” when it comes to advertising on america’s biggest and costliest stage for the first time, normally it’s the chief marketing officer pleading with senior management for funding. but last june, when cirkul ceo garrett waggoner initially told his cmo steve battista about his desire for a super bowl ad, battista had two words for the founder: “no way.” battista helped engineer under armour’s first super bowl ad 16 years earlier as that brand’s top marketer. in the years since, he’d seen too many brands buy licensing’s ultimate vanity plate for all the wrong reasons. “of course, it’s fun taking a swing in the biggest game, but nine times out of 10 brands are doing it for the wrong reasons,” battista said. “it has to be bigger than just a usa today ad meter score.” battista was enamored enough with the cirkul creative concept, which has actor adam devine accidentally ordering 100,000 of the custom water bottles, that by the end of that june meeting, he reversed himself. awareness is the most obvious reason for spending as much as $8 million for a 30 second spot. every maturing brand has a unique moment when its marketers think their idea is breakthrough enough to merit a super bowl campaign. “it’s an aspirational thing for any up and coming brand,” said cirkul’s waggoner, adding the announcement of super bowl airtime has already generated incremental sales. “but we think our concept is a pattern interrupter.” for gp’s angel soft toilet paper brand, the road to a place in advertising’s all star game began with what they considered a unique consumer insight, especially relevant to the super bowl: ninety percent of consumers recalled situations when an urgent bathroom break was needed, but they didn’t want to give in to those urges, lest they miss something, like a critical super bowl play. the ad gives viewers permission to visit the wc. “from the beginning, nine months ago, we had the idea that the super bowl was the best for this idea,” said rafael garcia, vice president and general manager at angel soft. “people are telling us it’s cute and clever, but we feel the connection is powerful enough that it extrapolates to millions of people, more awareness for the brand and our angel [animated spokescharacter].” as a launch pad, the super bowl is unique. msc cruises is using a spot with drew barrymore and orlando bloom to launch both a brand campaign and the arrival of its biggest ship ever, the billion dollar msc world america, with 22 decks and 2,614 staterooms. add to that: msc is a category leader elsewhere. in the u.s.: “we’re still a challenger brand,” said suzanne salas, executive vice president of marketing. “it just looked like 2025 was going to be our big year, so we needed to be more of a household name … that’s how we sold it, and we got the approval,” she said. “there is a leap of faith, but we feel like it’s the right leap of faith, the right risk. we are confident there will be payout. the biggest questions are, how do you measure what are the kpis and how much time do you give yourself to realize your roi?” the marketing arm has five clients with super bowl ads, including instacart. “awareness is always the top reason, but having another call to action is important,” said basia wojcik, tma’s vp sports. “some brands just do it because they have the money. they may not want much measurement, while others are very diligent about measuring pre and post.” as far as advice for potential first time advertisers in super bowl: “it’s a lot of work, harder than i thought,” said angel soft’s garcia. “focus on getting a powerful idea you are excited about and makes sense for your brand. once you can check those boxes, you’ll be ok.” xfinity interrupted its regularly scheduled cable programming in denver feb. 4 … to show an avalanche game? the only certainties in life used to be death, taxes and the altitude comcast dispute in the rocky mountains. but after a 1,984 day impasse that blacked out two championship runs and morphed into a national referendum on cable tv tiers, the deadlock ended when cooler (or newer) heads prevailed. just under a year ago, kroenke sports & entertainment asked kevin demoff, newly appointed president of team and media operations, and steve smith, president of kse media ventures, to reconcile an irreconcilable relationship   complete with antitrust lawsuits and corporate finger pointing. with comcast ensconced in roughly 75% of area homes and the avalanche and nuggets winning roughly 75% of their games in their championship seasons of 2022 and 2023, fans were actually losing amid all the confetti. that led to give and take   from both sides   that could be a template for solving future cable riffs. “there was probably a general thawing of the relationship that started pretty much a year ago when steve and i took our new roles,” demoff said. “i expected it to be so much quicker than it was, and maybe that’s my unrealistic, non media hat. but it was good to push across. i think it was probably time heals most wounds.” time and the 21st century local tv landscape. to work around the impasse this season, kse had launched altitude+ for streamers and placed 20 avalanche and nuggets games apiece on over the air kusa channel 9 and ktvd channel 20. ratings exceeded projections, which possibly got comcast’s attention. in return, comcast would still be paying a premium price for content that was no longer exclusive   a channel it would have to share two times a week with local tv and also with streamers. altitude, cognizant of growing their fan base in denver and throughout the region, also insisted on expanded distribution into new mexico, kansas and arizona, especially since the coyotes have left phoenix. in concert with the nba and nhl, comcast acquiesced, and, with all those elements combined, they struck a deal. with the avalanche and nuggets currently in fourth place in their respective conferences, virtually guaranteeing playoff runs, the timing is prescient. “the avalanche lost our first game back on comcast tuesday night   so maybe not the debut i’d been hoping for after all that,” demoff said. “but people can watch now, and i think that’s a great first step. it might be more relief than euphoria, but we’ll take whatever emotions come with it.” following the demise of venu, the joint venture between fox, disney and warner bros. discovery, skinny bundles and direct to consumer services alike are arriving to fill the gap. while reporting a knockout quarter last week (driven mostly by political advertising and live sports), fox ceo lachlan murdoch casually mentioned the company would be launching a dtc service by the end of 2025. when asked by analysts during the company’s fiscal second quarter earnings call, murdoch said the upcoming service will be designed to target cord cutters and cord nevers who aren’t, or have never been, in the traditional cable bundle, much like venu initially planned. set to be “holistic of all content,” including sports and fox news, murdoch still lamented that, “our only disappointment in sports is that we will not be moving forward with venu. in the end, the legal distractions around the business became increasingly difficult to bear.” those legal distractions included a successful preliminary injunction from fubo, with support from other providers such as directv. “we do not expect any exclusive rights costs or additional incremental rights costs with this business,” he said, also adding that any incremental cost would be “certainly relatively low to what our peers have spent in this space.” that space includes disney’s upcoming launch of flagship this fall, a product espn chairman jimmy pitaro describes as the no. 1 priority for the company. the upcoming fox product is only one of several new entrants into the marketplace. directv made waves a few weeks ago when it revealed its mysports skinny bundle, made available in 187 markets last week, just ahead of super bowl lix. that product combines 40 sports and broadcast channels from fox, nbc, disney and warner bros. discovery. directv will also soon be adding espn+ to the mysports package, essentially negating the need for venu, which also follows a larger trend of streaming services bundled into the cable package. remember, directv chose to not litigate directly with venu, instead letting fubo take the lead while the cable provider quietly negotiated these new package deals. conversations are ongoing with cbs to be added to mysports. comcast nbcuniversal’s xfinity also debuted a sports focused video bundle for its internet customers. sports & news tv packages more than 50 broadcast, cable news and sports channels, as well as peacock. it clocks in at $70 per month. directv’s mysports also costs $70 per month, more pricey than venu’s $43 per month initial launch price. fox’s announcement came in a flurry of news for the media company, which reported a record fiscal second quarter with revenue rising 20% year over year to $5.1 billion. net income also more than doubled to $388 milion. much of that growth came from advertising revenue, growing to $2.4 billion, a more than $400 million increase. newsy start: in his forum, sbj’s abe madkour cleans out his notebook after a newsworthy month to start the year, including observations on the big ten, the nba and the manning family. next in line: sbj’s rachel axon reports three favorites have emerged from the seven candidates vying to become the next president of the ioc. strong pandemic rebound: as sports tourism continues to grow rapidly, sbj’s david broughton reports trade group membership exploded in 2024. built for broadcast: sbj’s bret mccormick goes inside the sofi center, the 250,000 square foot, tech heavy venue that serves as home for tmrw sports’ tgl. the long game: the cfp is bigger than ever. sbj’s ben portnoy asks, “is the new calendar impeding college basketball?” watch this: sbj’s adam stern examines how nascar has beefed up its content with multiple docuseries, a possible feature film and building a following on youtube. a way forward: nascar’s video game strategy highlights user generated content to deepen fan engagement, as sbj’s jason wilson discovers. making the case: in this week’s op ed, sbj contributor and goals founder/ceo caroline fitzgerald explains why it’s good business to be in the business of women’s sports. a century at play: sbj’s david broughton explores how fort myers and lee county, fla., are celebrating a milestone in hosting major league teams.

when news breaks, you need to understand what matters   and what to do about it. at vox, our mission to help you make sense of the world has never been more vital. but we can’t do it on our own. we rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. will you support our work and become a vox member today? ﻿a tall slavic man changed jobs. why is the internet freaking out? by meredith haggerty and dylan scott welcome to know it all. in the age of information overload and so many things to care about, vox experts explain what you need to know to get into a particular corner of culture. i don’t want to sound like too much of an expert, but this past weekend, something big and weird happened in the world of basketball. as someone who doesn’t pay all that much attention to sports, stories from that world only cross my radar when no one can stop talking about them. but as a gossip, i really love mess. if you’re like me, you might notice that the discussion you’re overhearing about the dallas mavericks trading star luka dončić to the los angeles lakers on february 1 has been confusing, emotional, and seemingly very, very juicy. angry fans? bad business deals? what is going on here? to better understand why so many people have strong opinions and wild theories about a tall slovenian man and a billionaire power broker named miriam, i asked a self made expert, vox senior correspondent and big, big basketball fan dylan scott to break it all down for us. dylan, why are all our coworkers talking about someone named luka? luka dončić, one of the best young professional basketball players in the world, was traded from the dallas mavericks, where he had been a star player for six seasons, to the los angeles lakers. it is hard to capture in words how shocking this was even for people who follow the league closely. hell, even for people in the league. i can send you multiple quotes of players saying they don’t understand how this could have happened. we’re all prone to hyperbole after a big story breaks, but you could easily make the argument that it’s the most surprising transaction in the history of the nba. i saw the news when i was about to go to bed on saturday night and stayed up for another two hours scrolling reddit   and i don’t even root for these teams! is it really all that weird to trade a player? it’s not weird to trade a player. that happens all the time. it’s weird to trade a player like luka dončić. okay, speed round: luka was a teenage phenomenon in europe’s professional league before he came to the nba. dallas acquired him with the third pick in the 2018 draft. (that is a whole other story, but we can’t get into it now.) he quickly became one of the best offensive players in the league and is now probably the second best. he won rookie of the year in his first season. every year after that, he has made the all nba first team, meaning he was one of the five best players in the league. last year, he averaged the most points per game of any player. but wait, there’s more. he is especially good in the playoffs. last year, even with an injury, he led the mavericks to the nba finals. they lost, but luka is still only 25 years old. most nba players reach the peak of their powers in their late 20s. the future looked so bright. most other teams are desperately searching for their own luka dončić. so it was and remains mystifying why the mavericks would give him up. what is the team leadership doing here? okay, you want to trade luka dončić. weird choice, but okay. so you’re definitely going to get as many good players and/or draft picks as you can for him, right? if you’re giving up your best player, you want to give yourself the tools to be good again in the future. instead, the mavericks got one excellent player who is seven years older than luka and may not have too many great seasons left (anthony davis), one somewhat promising young player, and one draft pick. that is not much compared to previous blockbuster nba trades. the mavericks leadership has openly admitted they did not ask a bunch of teams for their best offers. they talked to the lakers. this is not how you do business in the nba or, uh, anywhere else. it’s very confusing and lends itself to all kinds of speculation. some people think the mavs were sincerely worried about luka’s health because he got hurt this year (though he has been a very durable player up until now). some think he had a personality clash with the coach or other senior officials. a select few even think the mavs could be better without him. but the most interesting explanations that i’ve read have come from people like long time nba reporter henry abbott, who covers the league with a scrutiny that corporate outlets often don’t. it’s still hard to be sure   we’re all guessing here   but it seems to me the basic story would be: the mavericks ownership didn’t want to keep paying luka hundreds of millions of dollars, because they don’t really care that much if the team is good. but they also knew the fans would be furious if they openly shopped their best player. so they did a deal quickly and quietly to minimize any blowback that could stop it before it was completed and, frankly, they just don’t mind that a bunch of fans are mad and say they will never watch again now that the trade is done, especially if the blame ends up being placed primarily on the general manager, nico harrison. they’re not really that interested in keeping mavs fans happy or trying to win a championship. that’s not why the franchise is valuable to them. (again, this is the theory.) why wouldn’t the mavericks owners care if the team is good or if the fans disavowed them? sports fans may think rich people buy sports teams for love of the game. but for the billionaires, these are business transactions and they primarily want to make money. the mavericks owner is miriam adelson, widow of sheldon adelson, who presides over a massive gambling empire. it is a matter of public record, as abbott put it, that the adelsons would really like to build an enormous sports arena/casino gambling complex. (i am envisioning a sportsbook on the mezzanine level, such synergy.) they have been trying to build one in dallas, but local politics have gummed it up. there is a theory that the adelsons don’t care if the mavs are bad, because if the mavs are bad and the fans abandon them, then the adelsons could threaten to move the team to las vegas (which does not have an nba team, which the league is already eyeing for expansion, and where the adelson’s business interests are already concentrated). so maybe it comes down to: either dallas ponies up the money for the arena casino hybrid or they follow through on their threat and head to vegas. again, in theory. who exactly are the fans mad at? look, i cannot emphasize enough that nobody knows for sure what happened behind the scenes. there are a lot of leaks right now, and it’s hard to know who to trust. whatever the leaks might say, it seems inevitable adelson and her son in law who more directly oversees the mavs had a say. they own the team. you have harrison, who is the general manager and ostensibly the one making personnel decisions. you have head coach jason kidd, who has clashed with luka at times, though they also had great success together. some people think kidd must be pissed; others think he was in on it. that’s how confused things are. one person who does not seem to be involved is mark cuban, the former majority owner of the mavs. he sold his majority stake to the adelsons and while he was supposed to continue to have a role in basketball decisions, he apparently was not consulted in the deal. okay so i get why people are mad at the mavs. why are people so mad at the lakers? let’s be clear: people always hate the lakers. they are hollywood, the most famous and (second) most successful franchise in league history. they also have a long history of acquiring star players in their primes   like luka dončić. even non sports fans know a lot of these names: wilt chamberlain, kareem abdul jabbar, shaquille o’neal, lebron james. so when people saw the trade and saw what the lakers gave up, there was a collective feeling of: are you fucking serious? again? sure, nobody blames them for taking such a deal. but the trade has uncorked more lakers resentment. the lakers general manager, rob pelinka, also has a deep friendship with the mavs’ gm harrison, so you have all the ingredients for people to think something is rigged. maybe the league is just trying to get another young star to the lakers, its most iconic team, right before lebron retires for good. (he’s 40!) i’m not endorsing these conspiracies. i’m not sure we will ever know with certainty why the trade happened. i lean toward the dallas ownership’s non sports reasons for doing this. i could certainly see it being a combination of factors.but as drama, this was really the perfect storm: a young basketball star, traded to the lakers, in a deal that sure looks fishy for one reason or another. i still can’t believe it. understand the world with a daily explainer plus the most compelling stories of the day. kanye west is dining with white supremacists and openly praising hitler. how did we get here? how to save without sacrificing your favorite snacks. use this article … 95 years after i’m dead. why hasn’t anyone told america’s youngest adults about drinking etiquette? the traitors’s third season is very good because its traitors are very bad. karla sofía gascón made history as an openly trans oscar nominee. now she’s apologizing for hateful posts. © 2025 vox media, llc. all rights reserved

flying discs & overhead kicks   the next olympic sports? “change or be changed.” after succeeding jacques rogge as ioc president in 2013, thomas bach was forthright in his assessment of what the olympic games needed to do to stay relevant. for all that london 2012 reached a record breaking global audience of 3.6 billion, the ioc had concerns. interest from the 18 24 demographic was waning. it was a trend that could not be ignored. in december 2014, bach launched his agenda 2020, outlining 40 proposed reforms for the games. “in our world   changing faster than ever   the success of yesterday means nothing for today,” warned the president at the 127th ioc session in monaco. “if we do not drive these changes ourselves, others will drive us to them. we want to be the leaders of change, not the object of change.” in the hope of injecting the games with digital age dynamism, bach opened the door to new sports that would attract younger eyeballs. he suggested an event led olympic programme structured around 10,500 athletes, with olympic hosts offered the chance to nominate events that would resonate with a local audience. when his proposals were unanimously approved, a swaggering posse of fast growing sporting federations sensed an opportunity to propel themselves into the mainstream. bach closed his address by quoting olympic founder pierre de coubertin, “courage and hope! charge boldly through the clouds and do not be afraid. the future belongs to you.” but for those ambitious fringe sports yearning to reach sport’s olympic peak, what would it take for those clouds to clear? france, seen here on the left taking on switzerland, won the mixed category at the 2023 beach ultimate championships held in california in november every sport has its origin story, but only one began life as a pie. in the early 20th century, not long after pierre de coubertin relaunched the modern olympic games, yale students noticed that their local pie tins zipped through the air like flying saucers. this quirky throwing trend spread throughout connecticut’s university scene as the frisbie pie company discovered they’d inadvertently conceived a popular pastime. decades later, when carpenter fred morrison realised he could buy a cake pan for five cents and sell it on a californian beach for a quarter, it was only a matter of time before the usa's entrepreneurial verve took this leisure activity to new heights. today, the world flying disc federation (wfdf) oversees national associations in 107 countries, with an estimated 10 million players worldwide. trademarks mean you’ll not see the word frisbee used officially   toy company wham o bought the rights from morrison in 1957 before subtly altering the spelling   but flying disc disciplines include disc golf, freestyle, and ultimate. the latter, a seven a side team sport that blends elements of american football, basketball, and soccer, has been a staple of the world games   the quadrennial showcase for non olympic events   for more than two decades. read: more in depth stories from bbc sport's insight series robert ‘nob’ rauch, president of wfdf (affectionately referred to as ‘wiffdiff’), is in no doubt as to ultimate’s next logical step. “we are brilliantly designed for the olympic games,” he explains from his new home in cologne. having recently retired from a career in international finance to pursue a phd in sport management, rauch hopes to navigate a route to the olympics for the sport he fell in love with as a massachusetts freshman in 1976. “we have gender equality,” he says. “our co ed division, which we feature at the world games, works well. it's a legitimate division, it's not something we're making up to satisfy an expectation. the sport is interesting to youth. and you can come up with highlight films easily.” rauch keeps a close eye on ioc literature. the latest olympic guidance references “new trends in the way sport is performed and consumed” and champions global solidarity amid a turbulent geopolitical climate. “we talk about the spirit of the game,” adds rauch. “if you go back to baron de coubertin, his idea was sportsmanship, of respect, of a cessation of hostilities. we believe our sport brings all this to the table.” leila denniston has represented great britain in ultimate since 2016 and is convinced it is the perfect fit for a modern day olympics. “we're now in an era where we're trying to dismantle a lot of these gender differences like the pay gap,” she says. “so why would we not shine a spotlight on sports that are microcosms of the real world? what i love about ultimate is that mixed isn’t combining two things. ultimate is mixed, at its core.” as well as the mixed gender division that has been at the heart of the sport since its birth in 1968, ultimate has a unique stance on referees: it doesn’t need them. instead, players on the field must call fouls. if a mutual decision isn’t agreed, the game resumes from the previous play. british ultimate veteran tom abrams, who took up the sport at college in 2005, believes it reduces the amount of cheating. “it’s not perfect, but no refereeing system is. as a competitor, you want to win. but as a referee, your job is to be objective. it works most of the time. i’ve played from grassroots level all the way to the world games, and it forces a level of respect and trust between teams.” rauch attributes the concept to the counter cultural new games movement of the 1970s. or as he remembers it, “let’s all sing kumbaya together and play nice”. he believes it is a great example of the olympic spirit in action. “it's truly remarkable how well it works,” he says. “a lot of schools like to use ultimate as a conflict resolution tool. if you disagree, talk it out.” ronaldinho, left, won the 2002 world cup with brazil and his exuberant, flamboyant style earned him admirers around the world in november 2023, dr viktor huszar was in bangkok preparing for the world championships in a sport that began in his garage. the clearest sign of teqball’s rapid growth wasn’t simply that huszar, the chairman and co founder of governing body fiteq, was attending the sixth edition of the championships. it’s that he was accompanied by ronaldinho. the cheery brazilian great has been an ambassador for teqball since it was first showcased in the sport’s birthplace of budapest in 2016. launched by huszar and fellow hungarians gabor borsanyi and gyorgy gattyan after three years of development, teqball is a football based sport that combines elements of table tennis and sepak takraw (foot volleyball). computer scientist huszar designed the patented teqball table following a suggestion from borsanyi, his neighbour. “one day he just sat me down and asked: ‘why don’t we curve a ping pong table, so that we can keep playing football?’” a keen footballer who saw it as a way to reduce the risk of injury as he got older, huszar began working on a prototype. “we started to play teqball in the garage and we invited football fans and players, including older hungarian national players. everyone kept saying: ‘wow, this is great.’” action packed rallies feature overhead kicks, acrobatic volleys, and a dizzying array of tricks to return the ball over the solid plexiglass net. as the name suggests, the game requires elite ball control technique, which explains in part why huszar’s tables have become training ground furniture at professional football clubs all over the world. thailand's jutatip kuntatong finished runner up in the women's singles in the 2023 teqball world championships in bangkok the other reason for its rise has been the founders’ leveraging of football’s biggest names to fast track their sport. after less than a decade in existence, fiteq believes that around one million people are playing informally in parks and on beaches, with 10,000 involved semi professionally. huszar sees professionalisation as the next step, believing that there is a home to be found within international multi sport clubs such as barcelona, paris st germain and bayern munich. but while he dreams of a future “teqball clasico” between barca and real madrid, huszar can also see the day when those famous five rings are emblazoned on a teqball table. "the ioc is driven by youth appeal,” he says. “they’re trying to bring in these younger urban sports and teqball fits perfectly into this concept." teqball’s slick social media presence suggests a thriving following among the ioc’s target demographic. its 2.9m followers on tiktok watch spirited rallies in the plush back gardens of 11 a side superstars such as david beckham, neymar and lionel messi. the sport has made it on the bill at several multi sport events under the ioc’s umbrella, including the european games, the african beach games and the asian beach games. “thanks to all these famous footballers and social media, we got good international exposure,” says huszar. “but if someone has a different idea with a sport which doesn’t have the base popularity, which in our case is football, it’s going to be very challenging and take a long time for new sports to rise.” co ordinating attacks to target individual members of the opposing team from multiple angles is a key tactic in dodgeball world dodgeball association (wda) president tom hickson doesn’t have a glittering array of celebrity endorsements promoting his sport. sure, there was a hit hollywood movie in 2004 that prompted a flurry of interest, but it’s hard to say whether a spandex clad ben stiller did more harm than good for the perception of dodgeball. hickson was pleased with the exposure. “when we first started, the key question was how serious the sport was because of the association with the movie. there’s nothing wrong with that   it gave the sport huge global coverage. it was a comedy, so any time i mention the word dodgeball, everybody smiles, and therefore you’re always on to a positive conversation. which is brilliant.” but 20 years after vince vaughn espoused the five ds of dodgeball (dodge, duck, dip, dive, and… dodge), hickson is aware that getting the sport in the olympic conversation is strictly serious business. “there are many sports out there that are much older than dodgeball that haven’t achieved olympic status   it's not something to be taken lightly,” he says. whereas teqball’s growth is attributed to a top down strategy that began by wooing football’s elite, dodgeball shares more similarities with ultimate. its grassroots can be traced to an open minded student scene attracted to the social benefits of a mixed gender activity. hickson says that more than 67.5 million people are playing dodgeball globally, and it is especially popular in schools. “we pride ourselves on being the most accessible sport in the world. it’s extremely low cost to play,” he says. “as children, everybody practises throwing and catching, and dodging to an extent. you can play the sport anywhere, whether it’s in the park, in the street, or in a leisure centre.” great britain's sky brown won a bronze medal on skateboarding's inaugural appearance in the olympic programme in tokyo in 2021 while the continued evolution of ultimate, teqball, and dodgeball shows promise, the path to olympic acceptance is long. “to become recognised, we have some fairly strict criteria in terms of minimum number of national federations across different continents,” explains ioc sports director kit mcconnell. “we look very closely at how the sport has developed. does it have a clear world championship? does it have regional championships? how many countries have national championships and development schemes? how many athletes are playing around the world? does it have gender equality?” while dodgeball’s wda and teqball’s fiteq are yet to be recognised by the ioc, ultimate’s wfdf received the coveted endorsement in 2015. but this is only the first step. there are around 40 international federations recognised by the ioc that aren’t represented at a summer or winter olympic games. world netball, for example, took nearly 20 years of lobbying to earn its ioc recognition in 1995, but is still to make its olympic bow nearly 30 years on. describing a balance between tradition and innovation, mcconnell outlines what an olympic sport should look like. “in terms of what makes a sport olympic, we have a lot of different considerations. the first is that it’s universal, that there is a huge amount of international participation,” he says. creating a programme of olympic sports that appeals to every area and age group is also a defining factor. “we're looking for sports to bring in new communities and new popularity of different types, from community based sports like skateboarding, surfing, and sport climbing, to others like cricket, which has a truly global and incredibly large following, not only in the subcontinent but around the world,” says mcconnell. credibility is vital too. this translates to high standards of athletic performance, clear scoring and judging systems, and governance benchmarks that include anti doping and anti corruption measures. “any event that comes into the olympic programme has an olympic gold medal at the end of it, which is equal to every other olympic gold medal,” mcconnell adds. “be it the 100 metres, be it the marathon, be it the basketball finals. they come in with full equality into the programme.” for sports desperate to make the grade, the journey can be daunting, frustrating, and heartbreaking. but for the advantages that an olympic platform provides   including unparalleled global exposure and the possibility of unlocking significant development funding   it remains a worthwhile pursuit. and, as a result of the new privileges afforded to olympic hosts, there are recent success stories. in tokyo, three of the sports nominated by the hosts   sport climbing, surfing, and skateboarding   performed so well on debut that the ioc promoted each to its core programme for future editions. “they all had a big positive impact,” says mcconnell. “in terms of the audiences that they brought in, particularly on a youth demographic, we saw that with the numbers that came through. it’s no coincidence that they will be in paris this year as well.” sport climbing made its olympic debut at tokyo 2020 for the international federation of sport climbing (ifsc), olympic status represented the peak of a remarkable ascent. founded in 2007, the ifsc emerged from the international climbing and mountaineering federation (uiaa) following disagreements about the future of competitive climbing, and whether it could be an organised sport rather than a social pastime. ifsc president marco scolaris admits that he was initially unsure. “i was reluctant in the beginning,” he says. “but i changed my mind because i thought that, as a sport, it can be a powerful social tool. if climbing changed my life for the better, then why not give climbing to the world? many of my friends didn’t follow this path. we are still friends but we simply see things in a different way.” for those that did join scolaris   an initial 57 member federations, now 99   there was one goal in mind. “the olympic games became important because this is where you get the highest possible visibility,” he says. “if you want to use sport as a social tool, then you need the stage.” scolaris attended the games in beijing in 2008 to get a measure of the standards required. “i watched all the sports to see whether we deserved a place,” he says. “everybody seemed so much better than us, better organised. i said: ‘we have no chance, or we work hard.’ and maybe we come back in 10 years and we ask again.” at the ioc session in 2016, sport climbing was confirmed as an additional sport for tokyo. but with only one medal on offer, scolaris proposed a compromise that proved unpopular with his athletes. the competition would combine three disciplines: lead climbing, bouldering, and controversially, speed climbing. while the first two share similar skill sets, speed climbing is typically practised by specialists. disgruntled climbers compared it to asking a 1500m runner to enter the 100m. scolaris, describing the dissenters as “friendly fire”, saw it as a short term sacrifice for a long term win. “the speed climbers had to train for the two other disciplines,” he says. “and climbers from the two other disciplines had to train for speed, which they saw as sacrilege. but this was the only way to get into the olympics.” vindication didn’t take long to arrive. this summer in paris, sport climbing has been allocated an extra medal, allowing speed climbing to emerge on its own. “it was difficult, but in life sometimes you have to compromise to make progress,” says scolaris. breakdancing (officially known as breaking) is the french addition to the programme in paris, which will be the first olympiad to achieve gender parity among its athletes. set in the iconic place de la concorde to a soundtrack provided by live djs, the dancesport discipline will join a lively urban hub alongside bmx freestyle, skateboarding and 3×3 basketball. for los angeles 2028, the americans have opted for the return of baseball/softball, cricket (last featured in 1900) and lacrosse (ending a 120 year absence). squash   after a decades long campaign   will finally make its first olympic appearance. so too will flag football. for pierre trochet, it represents the fulfilment of his father’s prophecy. now the president of the international federation of american football (ifaf), trochet grew up near the american nato base in the small french city of chateauroux and was introduced to gridiron by a green bay packers mad dad. “his excuse for bringing me into the field was that by the time i grew up, american football would be in the olympics,” remembers trochet, who played 25 years as an offensive lineman and quips that he “never touched the ball once”. one of the appeals of flag football, in addition to the reduced physical contact, is that all players enjoy possession of the ball. from a fan’s perspective, the absence of helmets also provides a closer connection to athlete’s emotions and personalities. full contact american football was a demonstration sport when los angeles first hosted the games in 1932, before its near century long disappearance from the olympic stage. trochet has no interest in another short lived cameo. “this is not a one and done,” he says of flag football’s la 2028 appearance. “we are aiming to stay on board with the olympic movement. historically speaking, flag football was always the football for all version of the game.” flag football’s five a side line ups mean trimmer rosters compared to the swamped sidelines of tackle football, making for a more compelling case given the ioc's intention to streamline athlete numbers. but the most persuasive element of its pitch was the powerful presence of the nfl with its commercial might and gen z pulling power. super bowl champions patrick mahomes, travis kelce and tyreek hill have already put their names forward for a potential united states dream team in 2028. mcconnell sees it as proof of the enduring allure of the games. “it’s hugely important even in sports like basketball, with the guys that have won multiple nba championships, the tennis players that have won multiple grand slams, and in football where we see some of the biggest names talking about their hope of playing in paris this year. “it’s important for us to protect that and celebrate that, because we think the olympic games are still the pinnacle of sport. to showcase these athletes, not only in a sporting sense, but as olympians.” miami dolphins wide receiver tyreek hill, a pro bowl regular, has called on his fellow nfl stars to assemble a team to take gold in los angeles eight time squash champion nicol david once said that she’d swap all of her world titles for olympic gold. now retired, she will not get the opportunity in 2028. huszar wants his teqballers to avoid similar regrets when he speaks of them “living the olympic dream”. hungary’s csaba banyik is ranked number one in both the mixed and men’s teqball doubles, but his career remains self funded. for him, pragmatism beats prestige in his desire to become an olympian. “when the top five players are only semi professional, it’s not good for the sport,” he says. “we need more competitions, more prize money, better conditions. this is why the olympics is the biggest dream.” while banyik jokes that he may need to be content with being a pioneering “teqball puskas”, ultimate’s leading players have more humble olympic aspirations. “to be an olympic athlete takes a lot,” admits denniston, remembering a recent concussion that kept her off the field for three months. “currently, the fact that ultimate is amateur allows me to have balance in my life   have a job, think about having a family, maintain relationships and friendships.” abrams, approaching 20 years in the sport, offers an honest appraisal of his own prospects. he says: “from a personal level, if ultimate was played by two million people in the uk, i probably wouldn’t be at the top of the sport.” “but if ultimate got to the olympics i would try my best to be playing. in 2032, i’ll be 43. for me to still be going would be awesome for me personally, but i’d also be a bit sad that great britain hadn’t got someone better than a 43 year old me.” banyik won the men’s doubles and a bronze in the mixed doubles at november’s teqball world championships there’s no time to lose for federations to stake their claim for the 2032 games in brisbane. the ioc will confirm its core programme next year, two years before the brisbane olympic committee can request additional events. when asked what sports can do to strengthen their case to the ioc, mcconnell offers some words of advice. “it’s about continuing growth, continuing to reach out to new communities, and continuing to make their sport as accessible as possible. both to play and participate in, but also to see and support as well.” having already met the recognition threshold, wfdf is in a strong position. the sport is enjoying fast growth in china before its appearance at the 2025 world games in chengdu. the chinese flying disc administrative committee reported a tv audience of 1.6 billion for the new chinese ultimate league in 2023. rauch, now only a train journey away from the ioc’s headquarters in lausanne, is quietly optimistic, especially as this year’s world ultimate championships take place in australia’s gold coast. “we’re going to use that opportunity to get in front of the brisbane organising committee and become part of the conversation,” he says. he also has another reason to feel confident. “when a host city designates a discipline, they’re probably looking for a medal,” says rauch, noting that the australian ultimate team has won a medal at four of the past five world games. “they have a strong programme, and that’s positive for us.” whether his sport will finally transform a pie tin into a gold medal remains to be seen. either way, de coubertin’s olympic creed is just as relevant to those outside the five circles of trust: “the important thing in life is not the triumph, but the fight; the essential thing is not to have won, but to have fought well.” for sports like ultimate, teqball and dodgeball, the fight goes on. 'i didn't bully him enough'   a death, regret and revolution schalke's fall to the edge of existence booing your own anthem   hong kong and a dilemma the controversial dress code at sport's biggest party facing disaster   the forest fans at hillsborough copyright © 2025 bbc. the bbc is not responsible for the content of external sites. read about our approach to external linking.

that new british show you love? there’s a fair chance it is being backed by a us studio. what’s behind the americans’ sudden influence over our tv   and will it mean more ted lassos, and fewer only fools and horses? my favourite tv show of 2024 couldn’t be any more british if it tried. set in a city investment bank violently buffeted by an omnishambolic treasury, soundtracked by wry, maudlin 1980s uk synthpop (simple minds, pet shop boys) and featuring a character named sir henry muck, industry scans british society, from strip clubs and tabloids to private members’ establishments and country piles. every second pulses with a lightly worn, razor sharp fluency in british class and culture that can only be the product of a lifetime studying its dynamics. but the funny thing is, industry isn’t really british at all. perhaps that’s a bit harsh. after all, industry is   obviously   filmed here in the uk, has a predominantly british cast and is written by two britons; erstwhile city boys konrad kay and mickey down. yet this is a tv series that is essentially made by and for the us: industry has two prominent american actors in its ensemble, premieres in the states and is funded by hbo, the network that almost single handedly created prestige tv in the early 00s. the vibe may be british, but the money is not. industry’s transatlantic nature is not a one off   in fact, it’s the new normal. the sheer number of tv shows that seem british due to their settings and casts yet are really us productions is quite frankly overwhelming. the past few months alone we’ve had armando iannucci’s uk set superhero movie satire the franchise (british writers plus a british american cast); the diplomat (a political thriller about the us ambassador to the uk); say nothing (a us made drama about the troubles) and the agency (about a cia spy in london). others from 2024 that fuse british and american elements include prime video’s the decameron; the kate winslet led the regime; greek myth inspired kaos; period dramas my lady jane and bridgerton; and disability dramedy we might regret this. thanks to their healthy american budgets, these shows tend to be polished and ambitious, but that aside, they have little in common: the transatlantic tv trope has extended its tendrils into all corners of comedy and drama. in fact, those examples are merely the tip of the iceberg. over the past couple of years, it has become nigh on impossible to make any scripted tv show in this country without american money. from modern british comedy (everyone else burns, we are lady parts) to modern classics (top boy) to actual classics (doctor who, now a co production with disney+), look closely at the credits and you’ll find that they have all been financed by the us. “the big question is: have we been unwittingly colonised by american television?” says phil clarke. the one time head of comedy for channel 4, clarke now runs the production company various artists limited (val), which has made a raft of british shows   from i may destroy you to bafta winning sitcom such brave girls and julia davis’s sally4ever   with help from us production companies, streamers and networks. (the company’s co founder, jesse armstrong, helmed another transatlantic treat in the form of succession.) if british comedy and drama has been annexed by the us, it hasn’t exactly been a hostile takeover. in the 11 years since netflix released its first original series, house of cards, the tv landscape in the country has changed dramatically: content from us streaming platforms (amazon’s prime video, disney+, apple tv+, paramount+) means uk viewers now expect a constant stream of slick, sophisticated and expensive television. homegrown tv is struggling to keep up in terms of quantity and quality: it’s no secret that publicly funded channels and those that rely on advertising revenue (ie the bbc, itv, channel 4 and channel 5) are in various forms of financial crisis; clarke says programme budgets haven’t risen in a decade while costs have ballooned thanks to inflation. time was when tv channels doled out enough money to make the tv series they had commissioned. “now you just can’t conceive of making something for a british broadcaster without getting money elsewhere,” says roberto troni, val’s joint md. who comes to the rescue? usually, the americans. this might sound like a sinister development   and clearly, the fact that a cornerstone of british culture is now beholden to american tastes is not ideal   but let’s start with the positives. for industry creators down and kay, this shift has been invigorating. the duo spent the 2010s attempting to break into tv in this country, which they viewed as increasingly stale and depressing: down felt he’d “seen the same show 10 times every time i turned on the tv; everything was a grey [detective drama] procedural”, while kay saw british television as “defanged, somehow dulled at the edges, unchallenging, basically unartistic”, this was partly because the tv industry was “a closed shop”, argues down. the pair felt they couldn’t get a look in as both drama and comedy were dominated by a handful of established writers. yet hbo was open to their ideas: kay and down started working on industry in 2017, when the network put it into development (the bbc came on board later as a co producer and the first series was broadcast on both in 2020). do they think the show would have ever been commissioned independently by a british broadcaster? “absolutely not,” says kay, considering it was “written by two guys nobody’s ever heard of, with no existing ip [intellectual property], no story of the week element,” and was “too rarefied and esoteric”, according to down. in other words, it would have been far too risky (and, you can’t help but feel, exciting) a proposition for the bbc or another british broadcaster. for hbo, however, it was a calculated punt based on its confidence in its ability to nurture promising talent   and the fact its subscription based model meant it could afford a lengthy development process. still, why do american broadcasters bother taking risks across the atlantic when they could do it on home turf? the truth is that despite a post streaming glow up, making tv in this country is still a much less expensive proposition than in the us. “we definitely used to be really cheap   and we are still relatively cheap compared with the states,” says clarke. that’s down to the tax breaks that make the uk a famously popular place to film (it has been forecast that the uk may soon overtake la in terms of studio space), plus the fact we are used to making shows on a shoestring. “sometimes we talk to our american agents and they can’t believe the tiny budgets we make our shows on,” says clarke, who maintains that british tv remains a “cottage industry” where writers work in their bedrooms, rather than a swish corporate world. throwing relatively small amounts of money at british productions and creatives means that if a show does hit   such as scottish comic richard gadd’s baby reindeer, now one of the most watched netflix shows of all time   you’ve struck gold, and the increasingly broad appetites of us audiences (partly a result of the plethora of international content available to them on streamers) makes that more likely than ever before. yet tv programmes don’t need to rake in viewing figures to prove a clever investment: a zeitgeist defining cult hit like succession can provide a broadcaster with cultural capital or reinforce its identity and brand, says troni. dhanny joshi is the producer of the sitcom dreaming whilst black, which follows a wannabe film maker in london; after the show was commissioned by the bbc, he needed to source extra funding. he found a partner in hip us tastemakers a24   known for zeitgeisty films such as uncut gems and everything everywhere all at once (as well as the shows euphoria and the curse   which felt the show “aligned with their vision, because they’ve got a brand they’ve honed really well”, he says. (a24 also co produced val’s such brave girls and shane meadows’ period drama the gallows pole, and are partners on michaela coel’s upcoming new series). dreaming whilst black wasn’t a ratings smash, but it was a critical hit   crowned the second best tv moment of 2023 by deadline   and a financial success, earning £4.3m in international sales. clearly, this isn’t just about cheap gambles: british talent is valued highly across the pond. performance wise, we have a reputation for professionalism   the popularity of british actors in hollywood, a continuing source of consternation in the us, is largely thought to be down to the superior training offered in this country. when it comes to writing, however, our cottage industry approach is the draw. in 2015, then hbo chief michael lombardo told the royal television society that he found uk scripts more “voice driven” and appealingly handcrafted due to our lack of writing rooms. yet this appreciation is resulting in brain drain. clarke complains that us broadcasters “suck up all the top british writers. often a conversation we have is: how long is so and so going to stay around making shows in britain before they go and attempt it across the water?” it’s true: richard gadd now has a first look agreement with netflix; kay and down recently signed a three year exclusive deal with hbo and phoebe waller bridge has had an amazon deal   worth eight figures annually   since 2019. that’s what’s in it for the americans. but what’s the upshot for us? industry may suggest us money has given british tv a kick up the arse (not ass), yet it has also booted it to face a slightly different direction. industry was designed with us audiences in mind; the show’s “fish out of water” us protagonist, chancer genius harper stern, came from a desire “to ground an american viewer in the uk ness of the overall experience”, says kay. it would be naive to think uk creators of us funded shows get total free rein: russell t davies has confirmed that he has taken at least some of disney’s notes about the new doctor who on board, while kay and down say they were encouraged to include some “over explanation of british politics or media stuff” for industry season three. clarke recalls making a show for a streamer who asked if “somebody in the cast could speak more slowly for people in los angeles” due to their accent. transatlantic tv often means british television made for the benefit of american audiences   or, at the very least, american executives. in this case, britishness becomes a fun theme, a point of difference, an interesting flavour. in industry, the strange customs of society’s upper echelons are a mystery to be decoded. “you want to present something that feels like a little bit of a black box for an american viewer so they can get pleasure out of uncovering [meaning],” says down. “i think some people really like the idea that it’s a slightly esoteric class analysis of a country they don’t live in.” disney’s decision to fund the recent adaptation of jilly cooper’s rivals may have been motivated by a similar logic (like the diplomat and industry, the show also features a fish out of water american). industry’s hyper real depiction of british life is thrilling and clever rather than cartoonish and ersatz. yet this idea of trussing up british society for us audiences to goggle at isn’t always so edifying. other shows take britain and use it as a fantastical backdrop; a place of scenic olde worlde charm, odd behaviour and a lifestyle that is close to but tantalisingly different to the viewer’s own. bridgerton, for example, gilds regency england with soapy plots and blatant anachronisms to sell a modern american fantasy of british history. meanwhile, ted lasso   a 13 time emmy winning show about a kansas college football coach recruited to manage a fictional premier league side   is set in the chocolate box london suburb of richmond, and makes hay from the culture clash between the rude, repressed british characters and the optimistic, open hearted lasso. ted is an outsider, but us viewers are clearly the show’s central concern: the first episode alone features british characters using the terms “garbage” and “tie” (to mean draw). this uncanny cultural mashup can also be found in netflix’s sex education, which sees british students wearing varsity jackets and playing american football, something its star gillian anderson has claimed was supposed to help it appeal to us audiences. ted lasso has massively boosted the careers of its british cast members   but it’s almost as if their job is to cosplay britishness for american eyes (the model is even being copied by amazon, who in 2022 ordered all stars, a reese witherspoon comedy about a cheerleading coach who attempts to introduce the sport to the uk). but even when the tv shows in question don’t pander, their very existence is still partly determined by the preferences of us audiences. historically, british comedy was seen as a trendily left field in the us; this stereotype means us broadcasters often prefer cutting edge shows. “it’s perhaps easier to sell a british comedy if it’s considered cool in america as there’ll be a cult audience for it,” says clarke, citing the outrageously dark 2023 sitcom such brave girls as an example. that’s all well and good   but what about more mainstream fare? increasingly, it’s not getting made. “it definitely feels like there’s a slight prescription from america,” says val’s head of comedy, jack bayles. “and i do wonder if that means that culturally we’re lacking the stuff that is purely for us, in the way that only fools and horses or gavin & stacey was.” despite his positive experiences working with hbo and other us companies, clarke views this dilemma as something of an existential crisis for uk television. “british comedy, and i suspect drama as well, needs a britpop moment where we say: hang on a sec, how do we just go back to making shows about britain for british audiences?” considering the perilous financial outlook for our major channels, it’s hard to see british tv ever existing independently again. for clarke, however, it’s “a challenge that i’m determined that we solve, because therein lies the future”.

' // cutting the mustard if ( 'queryselector' in document && 'addeventlistener' in window ) { document.documentelement.classname += 'js'; } var googletag = googletag || {}; googletag.cmd = googletag.cmd || []; 1920's 30's philo farnsworth patents his "dissector tube" in 1927. it turns out to be an important component in the development of all electronic television. television's first drama,the queen's messenger, is broadcast from schenectady, new york station wgy on september 11, 1928. russian born, american scientist vladimir zworykin demonstrates the first practical electronic system for both the transmission and reception of images in 1929. the communications act of 1934 ushers in an era of government regulation of television airwaves. the act stipulates that commercial television stations "operate in the public interest, convenience, and necessity." the federal communications commission (fcc) is charged with the responsibility of enforcing the act. rca's national broadcasting company (nbc) begins regular telecasts from new york city. in 1939 the network broadcasts the opening of the world's fair and the first televised baseball game: princeton vs. columbia at baker field. 1940s   50s development of commercial television takes a back seat to america's involvement in world war ii. rca introduces a zworykin designed image orthicon camera tube in 1945 that has a greater sensitivity to nuances of light and dark. this is viewed as a significant advance in television picture quality. 1947 marks the debut of two milestone television programs, both broadcast by nbc. howdy doody captivates a generation of young viewers, while meet the press begins its reign as television's longest running program. both nbc and cbs unveil fifteen minute national newscasts during the 1947 48 season. john cameron swayze is the host of nbc's camel news caravan, sponsored by camel cigarettes. meanwhile cbs producestelevision news with douglas edwards. television provides fame and fortune for the hosts of two variety shows debuting in 1948: texaco star theater with milton berle, andtoast of the town, hosted by ed sullivan. berle soon comes to be known as "mr. television," while ed sullivan introduces the country to various musical and comedy acts. the fairness doctrine is introduced by the fcc in 1949. it requires broadcasters to devote equal time to controversial issues of public importance and to give those with opposing views time to air them. the 1949 edition of the sears, roebuck catalogue was the first to offer televisions. suddenly, everybody loves lucy: in 1951, i love lucy, breaks television ground on several levels. produced on film, instead of being broadcast live, the program establishes lucille ball as television's first major female star. hear it now had been a successful radio program hosted by reporter edward r. murrow. 1952 would see the television launch of the program, renamedsee it now, featuring the same intrepid reporter. the same year, nbc introduces thetoday show starring dave garroway. the morning program is slow to attract viewers. one j. fred muggs changes that, however. his addition to the cast generates interest and muggs becomes a national celebrity. j. fred muggs is a chimpanzee. also in 1952, the fcc sets aside channels for non commercial, public broadcasting. tv guide hits the newsstands for the first time in 1953, and goes on to become the largest circulation periodical in the united states. fifty three percent of american households have televisions. the era of television anthologies begins. highly acclaimed playwrights, such as paddy chayefsky, produce works of drama for programs such asgoodyear television playhouse and playhouse 90. the artistic boom is short lived, however, as writers, directors, and actors are driven from television due to creative constraints put upon them by sponsors. as the cold war heats up, wisconsin senator joseph mccarthy conducts his campaign to purge the nation of communists. feeling mccarthy has gone too far, edward r. murrow proclaims on see it now, "...the actions of the junior senator from wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad and given considerable comfort to our enemies..." in april, 1954, the army mccarthy hearings allow a new television network to make its presence known. the american broadcasting company (abc) carries the hearings live and in their entirety. the game show craze hits television in 1955 with the premiere of the $64,000 question. huge ratings lead to an onslaught of similar shows. among them: can do, high finance, nothing but the truth, andtwenty one. twenty one would later become embroiled in scandal that would lead to congressional hearings. the sounds of gunshots and horse hoofs fill the airwaves as a stampede of television westerns are introduced in the 1955 56 season.wyatt earp, tales of the texas rangers, frontier, adventures of jim bowie, and the most enduring of the horde, gunsmoke, ride tall in the saddle for years. at their height of popularity no fewer than thirty two westerns can be found on network television. in 1958, senator estes kefauver holds congressional hearings on the rising rates of juvenile crime and publishes an article in reader's digest called "let's get rid of tele violence." 1960's 70's the first ever televised presidential debates between john f. kennedy and richard m. nixon take place in the fall of 1960. kennedy's comfort with the medium gives him a distinct advantage in the eyes of those who watch the debate. those listening to the debate on radio are less impressed. ninety percent of us households own a television in 1960. that same year, television's first animated prime time series makes its debut. the flintstones bear a striking resemblance to a stone age honeymooners. viewing audiences respond with a rousing "yabba dabba do!" president kennedy gives the first live, televised press conference in 1961. fcc chairman newton minnow makes his famous "vast wasteland" speech at the 1961 meeting of the national association of broadcasters. the doctor is on! the 1961 62 television season brings with it a full staff of physicians: ben casey and dr. kildare among them. the 1962 launching of telestar i, a communications satellite, makes possible "live" transmission of events from all corners of the world. the television village goes global. johnny carson succeeds jack parr on the tonight show in 1962, broadcasting first from new york and later from "beautiful downtown burbank." in january 1963, the government mandates that television sets must be manufactured to receive uhf and vhf stations. non commercial television stations see this move as being crucial to their existence. for the first time, americans in 1963 say that they get more of their news from television than newspapers. the november 1963 assassination of president john f. kennedy thrusts television into the spotlight as never before. for four days the nation is transfixed as history in the making is beamed through tv screens. amidst the tumult, the first televised murder takes place as jack ruby guns down lee harvey oswald as he is being transferred from the dallas city jail. instant replay makes pro football a made for tv sport. at least cbs thinks so: they pay $28 million for the rights to broadcast the nfl in 1964. the 1964 presidential campaigns of lyndon johnson and barry goldwater use television as a means of political advertising like no other time before. johnson's "daisy girl" ad is labeled manipulative, effective, and a sign of the medium's awesome power to shape a message. americans go crazy for the fab four as the beatles make their 1964 appearance on the ed sullivan show. the cold war ushers in the era of spy tv. the man from u.n.c.l.e, get smart, i spy, mission: impossible all entice viewers with tales of intrigue and high tech cloak and daggerisms. i spy features bill cosby as half of a two man team. cosby's portrayal of an educated, worldly and witty black man is considered groundbreaking. 1965 sees the death of television pioneer edward r. murrow from lung cancer. in 1966, murrow's former producer, fred friendly, resigns from cbs over their refusal to broadcast live the senate foreign relations committee's hearings on vietnam. the corporation for public broadcasting is established in 1967. the first super bowl is broadcast live in 1967. millions witness the green bay packers defeat the kansas city chiefs, 35 10. the "most trusted man in america," walter cronkite, reports from vietnam in 1968 that a stalemate might be the best america can hope for in its fight against the vietcong. president lyndon johnson laments that he has "lost cronkite." television programs attempt  gingerly  to reflect the influence of the civil rights movement in its portrayal of black characters. the 1968 season features diahann carroll as julia, a self confident, accomplished nurse. while the show is praised for avoiding racial stereotypes, it takes heat for failing to accurately present the life of a black working mother. astronaut neil armstrong takes the first lunar stroll on july 20, 1969. television's international reach is undisputed as an estimated 720 million people around the globe tune in to view the event live. legions of children begin to spend lots of time hanging out on the street in 1969. sesame street, that is. weekend football widows are forced to go it alone one day longer as monday night football debuts on abc in 1970. congress snuffs out cigarette advertising on television in 1970. norman lear's all in the family. debuts in 1971 and introduces the nation to archie bunker  a cantankerous, if ultimately good hearted, bigot whose views on nearly everything are both amusingly shocking and uncomfortably familiar. the show's success leads to numerous spin offs, each attempting to use comedy to explore some of the day's thornier issues. public television expands it audience through the popularity of upstairs, downstairs. the senate watergate hearings quickly become the most popular program on daytime television during the summer of 1973. the big three networks follow pbs's lead in carrying the hearings live and quickly see it outdraw the usual selection of soap opera fare. on august 8, 1974 richard nixon not only becomes the first president to resign, he becomes the first to do so before the unforgiving television camera lens. the birth of the mini series: abc broadcasts roots on january 23 30 in 1977. the program goes on to set ratings records. a roper study in 1977 reveals, for the first time since television's introduction, a drop in the number of people watching. the vcr (video cassette recorder) is introduced into the home market. it slowly revolutionizes the way people watch television, and bedevils advertisers dependent upon a captive audience. on august 8, 1974 richard nixon not only becomes the first president to resign, he becomes the first to do so before the unforgiving television camera lens. the birth of the mini series: abc broadcasts roots on january 23 30 in 1977. the program goes on to set ratings records. a roper study in 1977 reveals, for the first time since television's introduction, a drop in the number of people watching. the vcr (video cassette recorder) is introduced into the home market. it slowly revolutionizes the way people watch television, and bedevils advertisers dependent upon a captive audience. 1980s   90s interactive television is introduced in columbus, ohio in 1980. operating as a subscription system called qube, it allows viewers to cast a "vote" regarding various questions of local interest. cable television networks, particularly home box office (hbo) begin to eat into the big three networks' share of the viewing audience. nbc pays a record sum for the rights to broadcast the moscow olympics in 1980. the deal falls through when the united states boycotts the games over the soviet invasion of afghanistan. the prolonged saga of american hostages in iran undermines the reelection hopes of jimmy carter, but launches a new late night news program, nightline , on abc. the final episode of mash, broadcast on february 28, 1983, becomes the most watched television program in history. in the spirit of deregulation, the fcc drops the fairness doctrine in 1987. the american experience debuts on public television in 1988 with the film, "the great san francisco earthquake." presidential candidates in 1992 "go over the heads" of the traditional media and use television to appeal directly to voters. texas billionaire ross perot buys blocks of tv time and advocates an "electronic town hall." other candidates appear on talk shows and field questions directly from the audience. in may, 1994, 99% of u.s. households have at least one television set. television networks introduce ratings, similar to those used for movies, for their programs in january, 1997. the little known story of a deadly 1898 race massacre and coup d’état in wilmington, north carolina, when white supremacists overthrew the multi racial government of state’s largest city through a campaign of violence and intimidation. la historia poco conocida de la fatal masacre racial y del golpe de estado de 1898 en wilmington, nc. when black neighborhoods across america erupted in violence in the summer of 1967, president johnson appointed a commission to find the cause for the unrest. their findings offered an unvarnished assessment of american race relations. sarnoff's optimistic predictions for the future of radio, and belief in his personal vision were largely the by products of his own dogged determination. actress and playwright kaiulani lee has traveled the world performing her play “a sense of wonder,” which tells the story of science writer rachel carson. in this co production with retro report, scientists and historians weigh in on rachel carson, and today’s battle against malaria.

when the broadcaster first burst on to british tv on the reality singing show, he was derided and mocked by the press. it wasn’t until a decade later that anyone learned what had actually been happening behind the scenes rylan clark, better known simply as rylan, was actually born ross clark. the former x factor contestant, celebrity big brother winner, radio 2 dj, this morning presenter, gogglebox regular, podcaster and author couldn’t be more clear about the distinction. rylan is ott, supremely camp, larger than life   the man who hysterically wept a show’s worth of tears when nicole scherzinger put him through to the live finals of the x factor in 2012. this is the rylan whose dream was to be famous. and then there is ross   quieter, super smart, capable of trouncing politicians in debate and allergic to the idea of celebrity. with such polarities, perhaps it was inevitable clark would run into trouble. and sure enough he did. after finishing fifth on the x factor, he became a tv fixture. he never stopped working. then, three years ago, he had a breakdown from which he never expected to recover. but he has done   with style, and a huge amount of support from the public. these days, there is still a distinction between rylan and ross. “you’re not going to see rylan sitting there with no makeup on, with a beer in one hand and the other hand down his pants just to keep warm, watching the football. that’s what ross does,” he says. but the two are getting closer. the pizazz of rylan alongside the integrity of ross makes for a formidable and foul mouthed combination. we meet at a central london hotel. clark is dressed from head to toe in black   hair, beard, polo neck, trousers, shoes, the works. he could be a male model or a doctor who baddie. as a kid, he was an unconfident redhead, burdened with issues. i ask what he likes to be called: rylan or ross? “whatever you prefer,” he says. what does he prefer? “baby!” clark was the ultimate marmite x factor contestant. he had plenty of fans, and perhaps even more haters. in 2013, on celebrity big brother, which he won, he had another tearful episode. “i’ve had worse press than jimmy fucking savile,” he claimed. “i even had death threats sent to my hotel and 24/7 security.” it wasn’t much of an exaggeration. sure, he didn’t have the greatest voice, but the level of hatred directed at him was shocking. and that wasn’t the worst of it. it’s only today that i discover the full extent of what he went through on the x factor. we are meeting to discuss a new prime video reality show, hot mess summer. the concept is brutal and compelling: a bunch of spoilt, lazy narcissists are taken to the greek island of zante, thinking they are about to participate in a reality show for party animals. “they are all liabilities,” clark says. “they are selfish, so self centred … i’m trying to think of nice words that aren’t derogatory, but they were everything you don’t want on a night out.” i try to help out. they’re arseholes, aren’t they? he smiles. “yeah! they’re that arsehole on a night out. that’s exactly who they are.” when they get to zante, they are told that rather than spending the summer drinking at the bar they’ll be working behind it. so far, so nasty. but it gets worse. they are then shown videos in which their friends say why they have volunteered them for the show   because they ruin nights out, they’ve never done a day’s work, they don’t think of anyone but themselves, and on it goes. the contestants watch the videos open mouthed, horrified by their friends’ betrayal. it’s a wonder that only one threatens to leave the show. but gradually clark wins them over: he tells them the show could make them better people, that they will learn new skills and values, and best of all there is a pot of money to be won at the end. ultimately, they all decide to stay. what would have happened if they’d refused to take part? “the worry was that none of them would want to do it and from a duty of care point of view we would have stopped the production there and then. we would have booked eight flights home   thank you, everyone; sorry, guys, we’ve not got a show to make; let’s stay for a couple of days, lap up a bit of the beach and go home. but the risk paid off.” and if the contestants had been seriously traumatised by the experience? “oh my god, i’ve worked on reality shows for 12 years now. and from being a contestant myself i’ve seen the change in duty of care. it’s everyone’s priority now.” whenever clark has been asked about his time on x factor in the past, he has been generally positive about the support system that was in place. but he’s never told the full story. as he tells me now, he has never been in a position to. clark, who grew up in essex, was 23 when the show started. he had been a bright child who went to one of the country’s best state schools, and left with a stash of gcses. he’s not sure how many exactly, he says   somewhere between 12 and 15. despite his academic prowess, he was unhappy: bullied for his campness until he decided to fight back, and an eternal outsider. he didn’t bother with a levels, and went off to ibiza to perform in take that and westlife tribute bands. and then came the x factor. he says he knew what he was up to   they always want a joke act, so he hammed it up to the max. he looked as if he was having the time of his life, and he was to an extent. but there was also something else going on. he and fellow contestant lucy spraggan were portrayed as trouble makers, with the press reporting unauthorised breakouts from the luxury london hotel where they were being housed. one night, as apparent punishment, they were exiled to a hotel away from the other contestants. in the next episode spraggan was absent. we were told she was sick. she then left the show. last year spraggan wrote a memoir in which she revealed what actually happened. that night a hotel porter broke into her room and raped her, after she had passed out following a drunken night out with clark celebrating his birthday. the porter was later jailed after admitting the crime. in her book, spraggan reveals how supportive clark was. although the production team called the police and an arrest was quickly made, she suggested they were “unprepared” to deal with what had happened. i have also heard that spraggan’s legal team believes clark played a vital role in securing the conviction. it was clark who preserved the scene, prevented others from entering the room before the police got there, and gave impressive evidence about what had happened, despite being the worse for wear. when i mention this to clark, he is surprised that i know about it. “this is so weird we’re having this conversation because for 11 years i’ve kept it all quiet.” he starts to dab his eyes. “i’m getting emotional. that was a really, really tough time. it was horrendous and i’ve still not spoken about it because it’s not my story to tell, even though i was part of it.” in an interview with the guardian’s saturday magazine, last year, spraggan told joe stone why she had finally decided to go public about the rape. “for years i was terrified of being known as the girl that that happened to. i was deeply, chronically ashamed. now i understand that what happened wasn’t my decision   it was out of my hands. and in order for me to rebuild myself and move on, i needed to tell the truth.” “lucy called me,” clark recalls, “and said, ‘i’m going to put it in the book.’ i said, ‘i’ll support you if you want to do that. whatever you want to do, we do that.’” clark says he’s going to check in with spraggan, after our interview, to make sure she’s happy with him talking about the attack. it says a lot about your character, i tell him, that you acted so responsibly that day. “thank you. as a 24 year old   it was the night of my birthday   to wake up to your friend saying, ‘i was raped last night,’ while being on the biggest show in the country, while being followed by the press wherever you go … i don’t know how i did it. i don’t know what happened. lucy calls me jessica fletcher because i came over all angela lansbury.” in what way? “the first thing i did was say to one of the researchers, ‘go and get the bosses,’ and they said, ‘they’re busy,’ and i was like, ‘go and fucking get them!’ i think it’s the only time i’ve ever spoken to somebody like that.” how did he preserve the crime scene? “i said, ‘you need to call the hotel and tell them you don’t want the room cleaned.’ and they were like, ‘what d’you mean?’ and i was, ‘don’t … fucking … tell them … what’s happened. just tell them you don’t want the room cleaned   you’re working in there. say that.’ if someone goes in that room and it’s cleaned, we’re fucked: that was my first thought. i became like a crime detective and i don’t know why that was.” he laughs, still dabbing away the tears. a few minutes later he was doing a recording session with robbie williams. “i knew i had to carry on. that saturday lucy was having a week off for ‘illness’ and they said to me, ‘if you want we’ll give you this saturday off too,’ and i said, ‘i can’t because if we both take this saturday off, the two “wild childs” of x factor, she’s going to get shit and she can’t have that right now.’ “i went out and during that performance if you watch it back, halfway through i go, ‘this one’s for you, spraggan.’ i knew she was watching back at the apartment. she then had to quit because she had to go for treatment, and i had to carry on.” does he think if something like this happened today, production teams would be better equipped to deal with it? “that’s a really difficult question because back then no one expected any of us to get raped on the show. there was a lot that could have been improved. i think everyone learned loads from those kind of mistakes, but i don’t think it was anyone’s fault other than the man who raped lucy.” spraggan has said that moving her and clark to another hotel made them more vulnerable. he nods. “i don’t think that should have happened. we didn’t have as much security as we were used to. me and lucy have had this conversation for years because we’re the only two who can talk to each other about it.” a spokesperson for the x factor says: “to our knowledge, the assault was an event without precedent in the uk television industry. while we believed throughout that we were doing our best to support lucy in the aftermath of the ordeal, as lucy thinks we could have done more, we must therefore recognise this. for everything lucy has suffered, we are extremely sorry. since then, we have done our very best to learn lessons from these events and improve our aftercare processes.” clark is still emotional   about what happened to spraggan, their friendship and the public hostility towards him back then. “a lot of people were judging me when i was on the x factor. prick. idiot. and i suppose from a selfish point of view all these years on, someone reading this, i’m like, ‘fuck you, you bastard. you had no fucking idea. you. had. no. fucking. idea. i had to get up on stage in front of 12 million people singing fucking madonna while dressed as a drag queen while i’m dealing with that. i hope you feel ashamed of yourselves, you bastards.’” the thing is, clark did get his revenge on the trolls. and in the best possible way   by becoming a huge success. even the way he became a success was surprising: it wasn’t by being outlandish, but by being kind and empathic. i’ve heard lots of nice things about you, i say. he smiles. “oooh, fucking hell, that’s nice to hear.’ it’s quite unusual to hear this about someone in your world, i say. “i’ll be honest with you: i don’t think there’s much nasty shit i’ve done. i think i’ve always been nice to people and that showed when i came back from being ill. i didn’t lose any of my jobs. i could have lost my radio 2 show. i’d had fucking six months off.” loyalty pays both ways, he says. clark points out that his former big brother runner is now the director of his management company. when it came, his breakdown was extreme. he attempted suicide and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. the catalyst was splitting from his husband, dan neal, in 2021. years after being unfaithful to neal, he fessed up. neal couldn’t forgive him, and that was it. for a long time, clark says, he questioned why he felt the need to tell neal about it. “i couldn’t understand why i pressed the nuclear button on my seemingly perfect life. and it’s only now i’m better that i realise it was the ejector seat i needed. now i just wish i’d pressed that escape button earlier.” but for a long time he was just struggling to stay alive. “i got so ill to the point where i knew i couldn’t get any iller.” he says he simply couldn’t function. “i couldn’t speak. i had to learn to speak again, i had to learn to move again. it was like i’d had a stroke. i couldn’t understand anything. nothing made sense to me. i couldn’t have the tv on and i couldn’t listen to music. all i could do was sit in silence. tv and music’s my job! i was fucked.” having survived his breakdown, he says it’s the best thing that could have happened to him. “it’s made me who i am now. my only regret is i had to put my friends and family through it, and they had to watch me turn to nothing. horrendous.” how did he come through it? “i don’t know. there wasn’t a lightbulb moment. it sounds silly but i think the turning point was the fact that i didn’t die. i wish i could give a better answer because if there was a turning point, i’d bottle it and dish it out free of charge.” what has become clearer than ever is how much he struggled with the reality of fame. “i thought the celebrity was what i wanted. i wanted to be known. i didn’t want to queue. i didn’t want to be ignored. i wanted every fucker to know who i was, and then if i earned money out of it and got a job, great.” his sole dream was fame? “yeah, and i got it and very soon realised, ‘no, it’s the job i wanted, not the fame.’ but then it was too late. if people want to see that as ungrateful, so be it.” he mentions the pet shop boys song flamboyant. “if the boys knew me i would genuinely go to a court of law to say they wrote it about me. there’s a line that sticks with me every day and it’s, ‘just crossing the street, well, it’s almost heroic.’ that’s how i feel a lot of the time. ‘i can’t go there, i can’t go there, i can’t go there.’ because i just get the fear a lot of the time.’ then there’s dating. it’s a nightmare, he says. clark has been thrown off dating apps because they think he’s catfishing. and most people who realise he is for real struggle to treat him normally. has he met anybody who didn’t know who he was? “yeah, i went to barcelona a couple of years ago. i was like, ‘my name is josh and i’m a family lawyer.’ great night.” he grins. “until a hen party walked in, went ‘oh my god, rylan!!’ and asked for a photo. then the game was up.” he has still got to work out how to make peace with fame. one way is to remind himself how much he’s loving his work   as well as the reality show, he’s just made a documentary about homophobia in football. another is to accept the industry for what it is and stay true to himself. “it’s cut throat. cut throat. you think people care about people? not really.” he pauses. “but you know what? i earn a living from it and as long as i can sleep well at night knowing i haven’t fucked people over, i’m happy.” hot mess summer is on prime video from 7 february. information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. in the uk, rape crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222 in england and wales, 0808 801 0302 in scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in northern ireland. in the us, rainn offers support on 800 656 4673. in australia, support is available at 1800respect (1800 737 732). other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html in the uk and ireland, samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. in the us, you can call or text the national suicide prevention lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text home to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. in australia, the crisis support service lifeline is 13 11 14. other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? 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it might be america’s most played sport. now it’s quietly becoming a tv success story. credit...angie smith for the new york times supported by by devin gordon devin gordon is a writer in massachusetts who has written for the magazine about umpires, “athletic intelligence” and ironman races that cater to executives. the best part about watching professional cornhole on tv may be listening to it. as aural a.s.m.r. goes, it ranks right up there with golf. first comes the satisfying plunk of the bag landing on the board’s slanted 18 millimeter grade a baltic birch surface, followed by a whispery thhhnnn as it slides upward toward the hole. and then if the shot is true, the polymer resin pellets inside the bag rustle   shh chh   as it drops through. cornhole bags are the scalp massager of sports equipment. you wouldn’t know it if you were watching on espn+, but on a friday night in april there were only about 250 spectators surrounding the floodlit court at the low slung john a. alario event center in westwego, la., and they observed a respectful silence during shots, as if this were the all england club during wimbledon and not suburban new orleans on the cusp of a weekend. so the only sounds you heard if you were following the action remotely were plunk thhhnnn shh chh, plunk thhhnnn shh chh. “i like to call it sticky content,” trey ryder, the voice of the a.c.l. on espn, told me during a pause in play. “because i can’t tell you how many times i’ve heard the same story over and over: the guy that walks into their living room, it’s on tv, and they go, what in the world is this? and then they see one round, and then all of a sudden 20 minutes went by.” according to a 2023 ipsos survey, cornhole is the most played sport in america, ahead of bowling and swimming and far ahead of golf. “i played it like anybody else   with a beer in my hand,” says greg weitekamp, the chief operating officer of tupelo honey, which produces all of the a.c.l.’s telecasts. “and you couldn’t play it without the beer, because you had to balance yourself, right? the beer in one hand, and the bag on the other side.” for most of us, cornhole is a sport we play in a backyard or in a parking lot while we’re waiting for another sport to start. it’s a straightforward game with no discernible strategy beyond “throw the bag through the hole.”

