Alright, Alright, Alright

Howdy gang,

What an action-packed week in sports and life… We had Aaron Rodgers’s 🏈 achilles snapping like Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner’s marriage. We got Taylor Swift rumored to be dating the best tight end in the NFL Travis Kelce 🏈, and Zach Bryan getting arrested on his way to the Eagles game in Boston. Also — some important Matthew McConaughey ⭐️ updates?

Also thanks to the subscriber whose feedback was this picture and saying “Gone are the days of this, thanks to SportsBall.” Appreciate you.

Let’s get started. Fair warning, it’s a football-heavy installment, but it won’t be this every week— we promise.

🏆 Athlete of the Week: Coco Gauff 🎾

Congratulations to Coco on winning the US Open on Saturday. At 19 years old, she became the youngest woman since Serena Williams 🎾 in 1999 to win the major tournament. Her historic match also garnered more viewers than the Men’s final the next day, which is uncommon for the major tennis tournaments.

This is an especially sweet moment as Coco grew up going to the US Open and below is a video of her watching and dancing at the tournament as a kid. Little did we know she would be back at that same court holding the trophy a decade later.

🧭 Season Tracker

Football is officially in full swing and the MLB season is creeping closer to the playoffs. On the chart, you may notice that in late October and early November, there is an overlap of all 4 major sports seasons as the NHL and NBA will start up again. This is the only time of the year with this phenomenon, so for you astrology enjoyers, we’ll call it the “Sports Solstice.” Be prepared for the 6-week countdown.

💡 Learning Module: How big is the NFL

We talk about football a lot and although it can be a bit tiresome, we want to quickly touch on how big the NFL is to put things in perspective.

The NFL is an organization that consists of 32 individual teams with an average value of $5.1 billion. If you combine all of those, the baseline aggregate value of the NFL is at least $160 billion before various sponsors and partnerships... The league’s 2022 revenue of $18.6 billion also made it by far the wealthiest sports league in the world. So to compare, if it were its own country, the NFL would be the 60th largest in the world by GDP. If it were a publicly listed company, it would be larger than Nike, Disney, Verizon, and Boeing.

It also dominates the media landscape in America. Below is a visual showing the top 100 most-viewed events on television in 2022, colored by what type of event it was. Of the 100, 82 were NFL games, and over 100 million people watched the Super Bowl last year (a third of all Americans).

⏮ Last Week

It was a big week for New York City in every regard. New York Fashion Week is underway, the US Open finished up, both the city’s football teams had exciting (bad) starts, and there was some sports drama around the anniversary of 9/11.

• By far the biggest sports story of the week was Aaron Rodgers 🏈 tearing his achilles tendon in the first 5 minutes of the game for the New York Jets (we won’t link the video for everyone’s sake). Aaron is one of the biggest NFL stars who used to play for the Green Bay Packers and spent the offseason causing all sorts of off-the-field drama (ayahuasca, vaccinations, silent retreats) while also deciding where he was going to get traded to. In the end, he chose the Jets and it was slated to be a “saving grace” for the doomed franchise. But only 4 plays into the game, the former MVP and Super Bowl winner went down with the injury and is now out for the season, bringing unbelievable, yet not uncommon, pain to the Jets fans everywhere.

• The New York Giants 🏈, the other NY NFL team, also had a not-so-good week as they lost to the rival Dallas Cowboys by a score of 40 to 0. This was the Sunday night prime-time game and ended up being the biggest blowout of the week.

• There was some controversy with the sports gambling company DraftKings on 9/11 as they offered a “Never Forget” promotional bet that featured all three NY teams playing that night. Name a less tasteful play. The article below gives some more detail and also gives a bit of history on 9/11 and how sports in America helped the country heal after the attack.

America’s favorite country singer Zach Bryan got arrested last week on the heels of his album release and on his 3 month break in between world tours. “Wait Riley how does this relate to sports at all??” Great question, well ZB is an avid Philadelphia Eagles 🏈 fan and he was planning to drive to Boston to watch the team on opening day last Sunday. He was beginning his 18-hour journey from Oklahoma when he and his security guard were stopped by the police. Zach gave some attitude (video here) and ended up in the Vinita County jail for a few hours. All seems well though as his mugshot has done its rounds on the internet and even made its way to the cover of a Spotify-made country playlist.

Some updates on the college football conversations we were having last week:

• The University of Colorado 🏈, led by their coach Deion Sanders won another big game against Nebraska. This team is now becoming the biggest story college football has seen in a long time and this game was the most-watched college game of the week with almost 9 million viewers.

• Catching up on the Texas vs. Alabama game 🏈 we talked about last week, Texas won 34-24. We could dive into the highlights, but in reading the room, it seems more important to show Matthew McConaughey ⭐️ on the sidelines of the game cheering on the Longhorns. This may seem normal but Matthew has a very unique position with the University of Texas as he was named the “Minister of Culture” for the athletic department and is responsible for being the face of the college’s teams at games. Dream job. Green light.

⏭ Next Week

In college football, there aren’t any top 25 matchups this week, which are more likely to be good games (remember last week we talked about #3 Alabama vs. #11 Texas). If you want to continue following along with the University of Colorado story, they will be playing a “rivalry” game against Colorado State on Saturday at 7 PM on ESPN. They’re expected to win big but it may be worth tuning in to keep riding the wave.

In baseball ⚾️, teams will play each other 3 or 4 games in a row which is called a series. Right now, there are six teams that are on the edge of making the playoffs which start in 3 weeks: the Chicago Cubs, San Francisco Giants, Arizona Diamondbacks, Toronto Blue Jays, Texas Rangers, and Seattle Mariners. This week there is a series between the Cubs and the Diamondbacks which will be especially intense as both teams are fighting for those playoff spots. The games are Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for those interested.

Another weekend of NFL coming up and these are the games that will be getting the most attention (not based on any data just vibes)

• Dallas Cowboys vs. New York Jets — Sunday at 1:25 PM PST

• Kansas City Chiefs vs. Jacksonville Jaguars — Sunday at 10 AM PST

• Baltimore Ravens vs. Cincinnati Bengals — Sunday at 10 AM PST

Thank you all and have a fantastic week! Also feel free to send this around to anyone or give feedback, good or bad 👍

— Riley and Claire