For a few years in the 2010s my iPhone case had a yellow sticker with LOL written on it. I'd appeared at a conference with a woman from Buzzfeed, when Buzzfeed was the darling of media industry, whose business model suggested a way forward for news beyond the platforms; that's how long ago this was. Anyway, we were in the green room and she put some of their emoji stickers on a table and me and the rest of the people in the room descended on them, pretending we'd give them to our kids but knowing full well it was
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Reading Convenience Store Woman while loafing in Japan
I read Convenience Store Woman while touring Japan, as it was the most obvious thing for a lazy pseudo intellectual to do (touring Japan suggests this was more than a holiday, which it wasn't. At least I didn't say 'travelling in Japan', like a gap year student, we can at least give me that).
Keiko is the woman in the title, she's 36, single and has worked in a 7-11 ish type shop in Tokyo for her adult life. The question the book asks is a good one: what is normal? Keiko's oddness - single, a permanent rather than temporary
Mark Bullingham's balls, revisited
The Big IdeaI enjoyed England's World Cup squad reveal.
The film is here:
It was released via The FA's app, which gave it a boost in the upload charts.
Context is king.
Last weekend the St George flag was used to portray a narrow version of Englishness.
I prefer the world The FA is promoting.
See previous note:
In praise of Mark Bullingham’s massive balls
Overthinking the sports business, for money
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AI is the new betting, which was the new tobacco
The Buy SideA story is building that AI is the next era defining sponsorship category.
The dream scenario for the sports sector is that this is true.
It has the characteristics required.
Undifferentiated brands backed by vast sums of OPM.
So, forward five years.
Two thirds of Premier League shirts carry AI brands.
Cue rumbling from legislators about the dangers of AI to children and mental health.
I'd model a ban by 2035.
By which time any societal harm inflicted will be baked in. The money will be in the sports 'ecosystem' and the next big category will emerge. It's a circle
Should BBC do Adidas PR?
What Just HappenedIt was the shoe what won it.
Just to be clear, the following copy is taken from a BBC Sport news story, not an Adidas press release:
What shoe did Sawe, Kejelcha and Assefa wear? All three athletes wore Adidas' Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3. The shoe was launched on 25 April, just two days before the world's best took to the streets of London.
It is the third iteration of a hugely popular shoe. Adidas worked with Sawe, Kejelcha and Assefa over the last three years to produce this version of the trainer.
In Sawe's case, it
Forget MCOs, MAGs are the next problem
Other People's MoneyWhy does private equity want to be a football agent?
That was a question posed by Daniel Geey on Other People's Money, our sports finance podcast series.
Jonathan Booker has written an interesting set of newsletters on this topic.
Good point here:
What is notable, and what warrants serious attention, is the scale at which this has now occurred in the world of football/soccer agency. For example, the mergers and/or acquisitions that saw American giant CAA bring together the UK behemoths Base and Stellar under the CAA ‘umbrella’, each of which were already individually amongst the most significant
