nerds vs "real sports fans"

Analytics vs "Eye Test"

When I was a kid, I could not watch most sports teams on TV of any sort.

Local teams were on local channels for the most part.

Exceptions were mostly Sundays and some weekdays on cable.

Usually rumblings of greatness would make its way thru word of mouth marketing, and when a team made it to those prime time slots, they either confirmed or disappointed the myth.

Nowadays, we have an all access, any game you want to watch, free for all, app for any sport, (unless it's a team In your market and when you're a cord cutter like myself you don't get any access except espn and tnt games 😡 or the radio 😒 )

Well, since the average fan wasn't able to watch games the way we do now, how did we keep up with sports?

The box score.

You had to split open a newspaper smack dead in the middle to find the box score for most of the games that took place the day before. Most of the times, late games were unaccounted for in the newspaper and 10 year old Ray Ray did not like that at all.

Memorizing stats and scores was essential when taking part in religious sports debates at school. You had to know wtf you were talking about and/or become "baby Stephen A Smith" while yelling random opinions.

Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms are an all day, constant stream of a school lunch table.

One topic from yesterday that was trending on Twitter yesterday: "Nerds vs 'real sports fans," kind of confused me.

There are plenty of things I miss when I watch a game and rewatching a game is definitely time consuming.

If I need to check up on stats, to help echo or null whatever I saw in the game, so be it.

Ben Taylor's "Greatest Peaks" series, has some of the best content I've ever seen on the greatest players in the NBA. (Latest ep https://youtu.be/vhIS4wlLXk8)

Its the peace zone between the holy war of nerds vs real sports fan.

This approach helps allow us to kill much of the hyperbole created by either/or/both nerds and real sports fans.

You see it all the time. "Such and such sets a new record" "such and such for the first time ever has done something that has never been done ON GOd'S GREEN EARTH OR THE UNIVERSE *JIM ROSS VOICE*

Wall Street has played this game forever, pumping numbers out on a second by second basis to have you believe you're missing out on something.

This is manipulation of the word of mouth.

And is resolved thru the eye test. The fundamental element in why we're WHY WE'RE WATCHING THE DAMN GAME TO BEGIN WITH.

So yes, to the real nerds, who are really out there, who just see a scientific calculator on the the screen when the game comes on, if aren't watching games what the hell are you arguing about??

And to the "real sports fan," embrace some more analytics.

If we really think this is new gentrification of some sort, why not learn some of their language and counter punch the geeks to death w their own medicine?

Like you know, a sport.