World Cup and Redefining Masculinity

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Whether you want to create flyers for that thing, make presentations for that thing, or design merch for that thing, you can do anything so people can see your thing, feel your thing Love your thing. The next thing you know, it's a thing. Canva, the thing that makes anything a thing. The experience economy is booming That's good news for building connections with other people But like everything else in the K shaped economy Acess unevenly distributed World Cup experience as read by George Han. I've seen more men embraced during the past two weeks than in the past two years. The beautiful game, football. generates a beautiful byroduct togetheretness The World Cup isn't an anomaly. The biggest trend of twenty twenty six isn't AI chat bots. It's IRL experiences In a nineteen ninety eight Harvard Business Review article Joseph Pine and James Gilmore coined the term experience economy Is thesis Economies progress from extracting commodities to manufacturing goods, to delivering services and ultimately, to staging experiences. with each evolution value becomes more personalized, immersive, and emotionally resonant as they wrote Commodities are fungible Goods tangible Services intangible and experiences memorable Since nineteen sixty, US consumers have increased their share of discretionary spending devoted to experiences by sixty percent. whileile the share devoted to goods has fallen by thirty five percent Writing the same year Google was founded, Pine and Gilmore couldn't have anticipated a society atomized by smartphones and social media. Digital technologies. supercharged by pandemic era social distancing measures rendered in person experiences scarce i. e. more valuable. In twenty twenty one, as the world began to lift COVID restrictions Consumers embraced revenge travel. The following year, a spokesperson for the American Society of Travel Advisors told CNN It's another way of saying, life is short. I want to experience the world and seek experiences that make me feel alive. The Yolo attitude persists. especially among young people twenty twenty six American Express Report. found that seventy four percent of millennials and Zoomers consider travel non negotiable twoo thirds said they would take a job with fewer benefits if it gave them more flexibility to travel. That says a lot about the value young people place on experiences, but it also suggests that young people are spending money on what they can, like experiences opposed to saving for purchases that are increasingly out of reach like homes It took significantly longer for the pendulum to swing in the other direction with respect to digital technology Only in recent years have schools begun restricting smartphone use in twenty twenty five. Australia became the first country to ban social media for anyone under sixteen This year, another thirteen countries are taking similar steps The side effects of the digital revolution act as an accelerant to the trend Pine and Gilmore first identified in the nineteen nineties According to a twenty twenty six mastercard survey of twenty seven thousand European consumers. sixty percent prioritize offline experiences to Balance out time spent online According to a twenty six McKinzy report. Consumers are prioritizing experiences that make them feel connected, relaxed, or excited And those feelings often translate to a desire to splurge But in a K shaped economy Blurging is relative The same McKinsey report found that the prolonged cost of living squeeze has led more than three quarters of consumers to engage in trade down behavior This has significant consequences for the loneliness epidemic, as live experiences tap into the hard wiring that drives us to seek out and sustain relationships Digital experiences are low cost, low friction by comparison IRL experiences are high friction. But to the extent that they're also high cost anntidote for loneliness is sequestered to those who can afford it In January, after investing in a live events company that produces themed music shows, Mark Cubin said Time we all got off our asses, left the house and had fun. AI world. What you do is far more important than what you prompt Hard Areement Also The amount of time you spend at home is inversely correlated to your success, professionally and romantically as it happens Out of home entertainment is booming Real world experiences are the hottest premium on Wall Street right now. AxiOos media correspondent Sarah Fisher recently told me Streaming is plateauing That's why we're seeing bundling and price hikes Where's the growth It's in live experiences Case in point. It's turning out to be a strong summer at the movies, with this year's domestic box office on pace to earn ten billion dollars, the highest total since the pandemic, and only ten percent off the pre pandemic peak Inflation is one factor, but the bigger driver is increased attendance Average ticket price rose three percent year over year, while total ticket sales rose seven percent year over year It helps that Hollywood has produced a strong slate, including two acclaimed low budget horror films, Backroooms and Obsession, directed by YouTubers. According to a Fandango report, young people view movie going as an affordable social experience In twenty twenty five, Zoomers and millennials saw an average of seven movies in theaters, more than any other generational cohort For young people, the social experience really outweighs the movie itself AMZ executive told CNBC adding that Zoomers are becoming the most important audience segment for exhibitors It's a similar story for the live concert business albeit with a monopolistic twist Live Nation and its ticket master subsidiary reported an eleven percent year over year increase in ticket sales the combined entity. which a jury found guilty of violating federal antitrust laws in April, controls seventy percent to eighty percent of ticketing for major US concert venues. The twenty twenty five Goldman Sachs report cautioned Demand for live music is expected to grow by seven percent annually until twenty thirty, but the seventy six percent rise in ticket revenue between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty four was largely fueled by a fifty percent rise in the average ticket price over the same period translation Fans at the low end of the market are being priced out an estimated six Billion people are watching the World Cup In one form or another, making this year's tournament FIFA's most popular and economically impactful to date Acording to Bloomberg Intelligence Tournament could drive nine billion dollars in revenue for FIFA and another eighty billion dollars in global sales across tourism, hospitality, retail, advertising, and consumer goods. As New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy put it in twenty twenty three while bidding to host the final match Each World Cup game is equivalent to a super bowl. But like the Super Bowl where the average ticket price last year was eight thousand two hundred dollars. seeing a World Cup game in person is an experience the overwhelming majority of fans can't access As a Scotland fan told the Wall Street Journal FIFA has taken it away from the ordinary fan and are selling it to the highest bidder for its part. The Wall Street Journal wrote that FIFA's dynamic pricing model and service fee on ticket resales has unleashed a summer Price gouging. Soccer has been the sport of the future since the nineteen seventies But in America, that future never arrived My casual fandom. is a function of my son's passion for the game and the value I take from it is the experience we share My team is Scotland That's a nod to my father who was born in Glasgow I can afford tickets, but I don't want my sons to conflate access to the experience with membership in a community Hint The latter Orders of magnitude more valuue As my markets co host Ed Elson, a die hard football fan, wrote Many of my greatest football memories have happened in front of a screen sometometimes at the pub, other times in a living room, but always in the company of other fans, AKA a community. What's unique about the World Cup is that more than any other sport It does what the UN can't unify people and nations around a common pursuit coming in There was real concern that America would export its political dysfunction to a degree it has Fans and support staff from eleven of the forty eight countries that qualified for the World Cup have encountered visa refusal rates above forty percent Zooming out The story improves, as the matches feature fans coming together to transcend the politics of division Here's my World Cup highlight reel Norway supporters doing the roow coordinated Viking style rowing movement set to a beating drum. Japanese fans going viral Cleaning the stadium after their team defeated Tunisia. known as Gomi Hii, reflects an emphasis on taking responsibility for shared spaces for a world that lives the tragedy of the Cons daily, online and IRL There's a lesson here And of course, Scotland's Tartan army which has drained Boston of beer won over the locals by cheering on the Red Sox at Fenway and raised thirty thousand dollars for local charities in Rhode Island where many are staying In the words of my father's people No Scotland No party Meanwhile Fans from all over the world are going viral for posting videos that Wait for it celebrate America People who have good reason to be angry with America are instead embracing Americans Finally, There's Iran's national team After playing two games at Sopfi Stadium in Los Angeles, They left a thank you note in the locker room. We came to Los Angeles with pride. repeated with honor and leave with dignity Thank you, Los Angeles. for your hospitality. In the U S, soccer skews young and male fifty six percent of fans are under thirty four and two thirds are men. Participating in or watching sports plays an outsiz role in male friendships The prevailing dark definition of masculinity in America involves dominance cruelty and an inability to show emotions other than rage. Soccer isn't our game but it offers an alternative view of masculinity. players demonstrate strength service oation, emotion, and devotion to one another, their country, and the game What I want my sons to take from the beautiful game isn't a love of Scotland per mission Permission to feel emotions, hug friends, and find common ground with people they may not have much in common with The men we've watched in the past two weeks Exceptions to Western masculinity They're the correction And Go Scotland Go England life is so rich This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. 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