I don’t know if you’re a baseball person like I am, but with the impending lockout looming over the sport in 2027, this year’s World Series feels like a series finale. That said, I do hope baseball comes back and that the Mets finally get it together. Wishful thinking really.
Anywho, welcome to the round-up of the things that are piquing my interest most in the worlds of sports and culture. This is the seventh edition of Just The Side. (Miss the last edition? Click here)
The DeLorean Rides Again
Just a few weeks after I tried to make heads or tails of Sail GP, I came across the news that the star of the Back to the Future series is going to live on as the name of an Airspeeder team. And what’s Airspeeder, you ask? It is a racing series with high-speed, electric aircraft trying really hard to be the sport your rich friends talk about in passing over English muffins and grapefruits cut in half. The idea seems cool though, I can’t lie. And well, if you wanted to get casual fans involved while not looking like you’re selling out, why not lean into a brand that’s semi-retired.
The collab does raise some questions. Like, the DeLorean, for all intents and purposes, was a car that would’ve faded into obscurity in another timeline. In the aforementioned Back to the Future movies, the car was sluggish, finicky, and literally used to make going to 88 miles per hour dramatic. It’s not necessarily the symbol for speed. It would be like opening a restaurant with a curated menu provided by Soylent Green. As far as the races themselves, I think they’re pretty neat considering.
Cleat-Gate Turns Into Marketing Win
So here’s the deal. NFL only allows cleats to be Adidas, Nike, or Under Armour. So what happens when one of the rising quarterbacks in the league, Caleb Williams, decides to wear a cleat from the Caddix brand for comfort? If you guessed “Nothing because it’s not a big deal,” you would be WRONG. The NFL fined Williams over ELEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS because of an unforeseen “Shawty, what are thooose” tax.
Here’s the LinkedIn twist:
Caddix, the brand of shoes in question, basically elected to cover Williams fines for the infraction. Their position? This wasn’t a brand deal, but an athlete shouldn’t be penalized for choosing comfort.
When WWE impresario Vince McMahon founded the original XFL in 2001, he famously called the NFL the “No Fun League.” And man, they are NOT going to beat the allegations.
Firefox Leans Into Nostalgia
Firefox has been one of those browsers that has had its ups and down. Post Internet Explorer, it seemed like the lighting fast and innovative option. Then Chrome came around, and Firefox started to feel dated. Well, what goes around comes around because Mozilla launched a campaign that urges…I guess older Gen Y/Millennials to come back to the browser like the good ol’ days of the Internet. And what’s better, it featured all of the Internet Stars from the web’s golden era:
Now, allow me to wax nostalgic a bit, but I sure do miss rage comics. I know, it’s a random thought, but kids today don’t know how to Trololol or Y U NO?? and it shows.
Jay-Z Picks Himself To Host Super Bowl Halftime Show
Okay, so I didn’t even think this was possible, so when I heard “Jay-Z selected himself to headline the Super Bowl Halftime Show,” I was like “How?” Here’s the TLDR: Roc Nation, a outift that Jay-Z has a controlling interest, has been curating the Super Bowl Halftime Show since 2019. Jigga saw people stop what they were doing to watch the Bad Bunny Bowl, and HOV was like, “What about me?”
The idea puts Jay-Z in a tough spot. Here’s a rapper that is influential to the story of Hip-Hop but is having his legacy diminished by Gen Alpha/Beta who don’t “get his hype.” On top of that, he’d be taking the stage the year after one of the most talked-about Half Time Shows of all time. He’s both the Streets Is Watching guy and the alleged NFL Sellout guy at the same time. Time will tell if he’ll gather the same level of controversy, but in the meantime we get pretty standard, on-brand monochrome Jay-Z hype video promoting the whole thing.
For the record, Shawn Carter himself says he feels “no pressure” about the whole deal.