Best free newsletter/blog I've seen in a long time

[highnote]

The Lefsetz Letter is the best free newsletter/blog I have seen since John Mauldin's free economics newsletter. It's written by Bob Lefsetz, a music industy attorney. The articles on music are priceless -- like "Why Todd Rundgren belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame".

This link takes you to the Leftsetz Letter and an article about "the distraction economy" and its impact on the World Series and sports. That definitely applies to horse racing:

https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2018/1...orld-series-3/

Here are some key points from the article:

The World Series


Do sports die?

I just spent seven and a half hours watching game three of the World Series. It ended after three a.m. on the east coast, it took eighteen innings, and all through it I had to fight looking at my phone.

Now baseball is better at the stadium. But even there, it’s hard not to get distracted by your phone and your eating. But at home? When time is passing and nothing is happening? That’s a condition we no longer have in our society, boredom. Hell, I remember the days before clickers, i.e. remote controls, hell, I remember the days before color! But now we’ve got pristine hi-def and it all looks good but your phone has an even sharper screen, and it’s tailored just for you.

This is what the media has wrong. This is what the boomers have wrong. We are never going back, only forward. These people blamed Apple and Android for ruining society. They even got them to include software that theoretically discourages use, but it doesn’t, read the reviews. Wait a second, I should shut off my phone so I should read your physical newspaper and watch your TV program and talk to people? I hate to break it to you, but they do call it SOCIAL media. I’m in touch with more people than I’ve ever been in my life, and they’re all looking for ME! And it’s not only me, it’s EVERYBODY! And this has numerous consequences, one being that it’s hard to penetrate everybody’s feed. The second is that old paradigms, like baseball, don’t mesh with the new world.

First and foremost, baseball is now about money. Hell, they now have ads DURING the game, between pitches. Maybe they can fix it so it’s all ads occasionally broken up by the game. And one reason the games are so long is because the commercial breaks are so long. But money comes first. Only it doesn’t.

If you want people to believe, which is the bedrock of any enterprise, you’ve got to make it about the core, not the penumbra. The game, not the ads. The music, not the sponsorship. People want to believe. When you’re whoring yourself out, they can’t. But the ten percenters keep telling us it does not matter, when the truth is they just want to get paid.

People are on their phones because the experience is about them. They want to share it, with those there and at home. And if you bore the audience, they’ll start surfing their handsets for information. I know, I was recently at a gig and when the act played an unknown song, the guy next to me started reading the “Wall Street Journal” on his phone.

So you want to create something so great, that it trumps the phone. And that’s hard to do, but not impossible, but that’s your challenge.

Used to be the World Series had gravitas. Back before the endless playoffs, when the games took place in early October during Indian Summer. Baseball was not made to be played at forty two degrees, hell, it impacts the playing of the game. And it was not made to be played long after midnight either. But over the decades the game has been changed in service of the almighty dollar, to the point where most of the public has no idea who the great players even are.

But the owners of this nation, the ones who believe they are in control, feel that nothing must change and they must continue to win. So they miss change completely until it smacks them in the face. Like Trump. Turns out globalization hurt a lot of people, even though it was the right path to take, but these people felt ignored, they should have been helped, but if one team is winning they don’t care about another until…

It all crashes.

[woodtoo]

Originally Posted by highnote

The Lefsetz Letter is the best free newsletter/blog I have seen since John Mauldin's free economics newsletter. It's written by Bob Lefsetz, a music industy attorney. The articles on music are priceless -- like "Why Todd Rundgren belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame".

This link takes you to the Leftsetz Letter and an article about "the distraction economy" and its impact on the World Series and sports. That definitely applies to horse racing:

https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2018/1...orld-series-3/

Here are some key points from the article:

Thanks highnote, especially liked the article 'Bohemian Rhapsody'

[highnote]

Originally Posted by woodtoo

Thanks highnote, especially liked the article 'Bohemian Rhapsody'

I just read Bohemian Rhapsody. Excellent article. Lefsetz hits the nail on the head with his analysis.