Every four years, someone writes a nine-figure check to put their logo next to the words “World Cup.” This July, three guys pushing eighty got the same real estate for the price of a Spotify link. The Rolling Stones didn’t sponsor anything. They didn’t need to. They built their own tournament, borrowed the shape of … Read more
I stayed up late last night reading through the notes from a fascinating podcast conversation about FIFA’s financial transformation, and I’m still thinking about it this morning. Not because of the numbers themselves, though a jump from $7 billion to $13 billion in one World Cup cycle is certainly eye-popping, but because of what those … Read more
Here’s a delicious irony for you: sometimes the best way to win attention is to be told you can’t have it. I’ve been thinking about the Levi’s Stadium debacle at the World Cup. You know, the one where FIFA forced them to cover up their branding. Instead of fading into obscurity, they turned that awkward … Read more
Over the past two decades of writing about telecom, mobile and the evolution of how we communicate, one thing has become very clear to me: when companies make it harder to reach them, consumers don’t stop trying. They simply change channels. As someone who has spent more time than I care to admit on the … Read more
The archetypes of today’s NHL grassroots and amateur hockey programs were not originally league-driven. They were community-driven, sponsor-driven, entrepreneur-driven, and in many cases arena-driven. The NHL eventually institutionalized what local hockey people had already proven worked. There are several foundational archetypes that shaped modern hockey participation systems. To find out, I asked ChatGPT for the … Read more
“Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.”–Mark Twain There’s a moment in every crisis when the subject of the story gets to make a choice. Get ahead of it, own what’s true, and let the story burn itself out in a news cycle or two. Or dig in, go to … Read more
Remember the “Soup Nazi” in Seinfeld. He would say, “No soup for you.” Well, it sounds like the Los Angeles Dodgers just became the “Ticket Nazis.” From an experience standpoint, I’ve crossed the lines of sports and tech for years. I’ve also handled crisis management for brands large and small. Those who avoid controversy do … Read more
Sports Marketing used to be a clean loop: buy rights, build a campaign, measure impressions, renew. That loop is breaking. In 2026, the winning sports marketers are treating sports less like a media buy and more like infrastructure—a system where content, distribution, identity, and commerce run together. The shift isn’t subtle. It’s structural. Here are … Read more
For more than two decades, I have watched social media evolve—from the early days of blogging to launching the Nokia Blogger Relations Program, and through the rise of every platform that promised to democratize influence. Throughout it all, one principle has remained true to me: it is not how many followers you have, but who … Read more
Here’s something that would have sounded like science fiction five years ago: I just had three AI tools—Claude, Perplexity, and Manus—build comprehensive biographical websites about my work and thinking. Not from scratch. Not from thin air. From five decades of actual data, scattered across the web and buried in my personal files. The result? Three … Read more
