We are here at the end of April, looking at the biggest story happening in sports. NBA Playoffs? Nope. Playoff hockey? Not even close. Is it Skip Bayless leaving ESPN? No way. It is the end of April, and we’re talking about football.
Thursday marked the first night of the NFL Draft. Let that sentence sink in here a bit. The. First. Night. Of the NFL Draft. The draft has turned into a 4-day, primetime event! Why? Because we need to talk about football!
For the past 14 months, we’ve heard more about Deflategate on nearly every sports show than every other topic combined. We’ve heard every angle discussed. Everyone has an opinion. This week we found out Tom Brady would be suspended for the first four games of the season. Because we need to talk about football!
Last month we had free agency. The previous month we had the Super Bowl. Before you know it, training camps will start, Hard Knocks will begin, and the preseason will kickoff. It’s April. Because we need to talk about football!
Through some great marketing maneuvers and great media relationships, the National Football League has truly turned into a 12-month sport. The NFL is dominating the conversation in the sports world so thoroughly that the MVP of the NBA is injured and I can’t remember the last time that was the main topic of a show.
Even here, in the Links of the Week, we’re talking about football. And that got me thinking - do we really need to talk about football? I say no. We shall talk about football no longer. I hereby ban football from being discussed with me or on the site until the actual NFL season kicks off. It’s springtime, the Cubs are great and the NBA playoffs are rockin’. Let’s get started.
Here are the Links of the Week:
Tim Grierson and Will Leitch, two film reviewers, break down the 15 movies you’ll want to see this summer. It looks like we’re about to round into an awesome summer for flicks with big superhero movies (Captain America: Civil War), awesome looking comedies (Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping), and good ol’ dramas (The Founder, aka Ray Kroc story). [New Republic]
While we’re on movies, 20th Century Fox is going to pass on bringing their movie previews to Comic-Con, the one place that literally everyone goes to see movie previews for superhero franchises. Why? Because they are afraid footage will leak like it did last year, and they won’t be able to “control the marketing” behind the promotion of its upcoming flicks. [The Verge]
Turns out that if you can suck well, you can blow well too. Dyson is in the hair drying game, y'all. [Wired]
Adweek’s profile of Girl Scout Cookies' impact on girls' sense of business gives me a good reason to officially rank the different varieties. Here we go, the definitive ranking:
- Carmel deLites/Samoas
- Thin Mints
- EVERYTHING ELSE [Adweek]
Tesla’s Elon Musk and Y! Combinator’s Sam Altman have teamed up to push artificial intelligence with OpenAI in what can only be described as the beginning of a bad superhero movie. [Wired]
If you ever wanted to see KISS putting on their makeup before a show in the ‘70’s… [Mashable]
It is starting to look like ESPN has overextended itself. Only a few years ago, the network was cited as something like invincible with its dual-revenue streams (cable subscriptions and advertising). With the rise of Netflix, Hulu, and all of those, people are opting out of the cable subscriptions and thus, ESPN as well. It looks as though that is taking a toll on the network, as it may be losing the Big Ten Conference rights that it has had for so long. Good stuff from Sports Business Daily. [Sports Business Daily]
Stop doing sit-ups? You got it, dude! [Lifehacker]
In my quest to take in more Prince music, I came across his renowned Saturday Night Live 40th anniversary after-party performance, which is pretty fun. [YouTube]
I am on the same page as GQ’s Drew Magary when it comes to home renovation. [GQ]
And now: Wilco. Have a great weekend.