Brands Ought to Put The Ball In The Air More Often


Dave (https://lnkd.in/ezJfGxQg) is at UC Boulder, so he’s got a front-row seat to the Buffaloes' transformation into a somewhat better performing, but much more interesting product. Of course, fans like winning and the Buffaloes are currently 4-3, just barely a winning record. But there’s a lot packed into that ‘just barely.’

'Just barely’ is a big part of what makes sport interesting. CU just barely lost two of those games, one in double OT. What we really like is riding the wave of possibility, when ‘everything is on the line’ whether or not it’s your team. In ‘The New Ballgame,’ Russell Carleton, a lifelong Cleveland Indians fan (a peril of geography, I suppose) describes a game that made him question what he was actually there for:

“It’s an odd thing to watch the pitcher from a visiting team creep closer to a landmark achievement like a no-hitter, because you don’t know whether to root, root, root for the home team, or to root for history to take place. Life is full of conflicts, and that day, eight-year-old me had to confront that one. I’ve never quite solved that dilemma in my own head.”

Performance and interestingness are not in conflict, but consistency and interestingness are. Sportswriters see that the Buffaloes and the changes that enabled them (NIL, expanded transfer window) have led to a boom in interest:

‘Coaches, commissioners, athletic directors and NCAA presidents have spent years warning us of these two supposed bogeymen’s ruinous effects. Instead, they have been a massive boon for those leaders’ most valuable sport, allowing long-stagnant programs to turn themselves into contenders and star players to gravitate to less-established programs. All of which makes the sport more exciting and more interesting.’ (https://lnkd.in/e6b4xe3G)

The possibility of significant change, upending what we expected, is interesting and comes to visceral life every time a ball goes up in the air and the world is ‘up for grabs.’ One of the most interesting sports books I know is not about sport. ‘Sharp Teeth’ is a novel in blank verse about werewolves in LA written by a JWT ECD in Detroit, but it contains this passage that I hear every time I see a stadium of male heads swing in unison:

‘The theory is simple.
Every boy, every man, is really
a bit of a golden retriever
or a big chocolate lab.
Watch any man’s eyes
at the bounce of a ball.
His head tilts slightly sideways, just a hair,
as a primitive focus
comes to life.

Follow the ball.

The basketball, the tennis ball, the baseball,
the golf ball, the lacrosse ball, or in this case
the mere symbol of a ball, a plain white dot,
floating across a dull, black screen.
And just like that, the pupils sharpen their gaze.
The game begins.

Stay with the ball, follow the ball.

The mind opens there, a psychological soft spot,
where reason’s stubborn persistence fades
and some underbelly is exposed.

Just follow the ball, stay with the ball.’

Brands ought to put the ball in the air more often.

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