Bears vs. Packers. Kendrick vs. Drake. Samantha vs. the rest of the SATC cast.
Rivalries are awesome.
The opportunity to watch evenly matched foes battle passionately always creates chills and thrills. That excitement builds as naturally as it does rapidly, often resulting in a flurry of adjacent activity. Whether it influences trends on social, inspires T-shirt shops on Etsy, or makes for heated dinnertime conversations, beef is good for business.
Recently, the women’s game experienced massive growth in large part due to the fiery play of Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. Viewership for the highly anticipated rematch of the 2023 women’s national championship game grabbed over 16 million viewers at its peak. That’s more eyeballs drawn than for any basketball game (college or professional) since the 2018 NBA Eastern Conference finals (Cavaliers vs. Celtics). Guess we can see you, afterall.
Boom moments in sports — the ones that spill over into the zeitgeist, driving forward the edges of interest — don’t just materialize out of nowhere. They require elite talent and commensurate investment. That’s how the buy-in…
