Weekly Roundup – August 12th, 2025
Roundup Links
The ESPN-NFL megadeal looks and feels like a big trade. So we're grading the participants
"The dust has settled from the formal announcement of the blockbuster deal between ESPN and the NFL, with the league swapping NFL Network, linear rights to RedZone, NFL Fantasy and other content assets to ESPN for a 10% equity stake in the network.
This isn’t a traditional sports “trade,” in which teams exchange star talents or draft picks, but it evoked that feel: two powerhouse franchises trying to improve through strategic additions and divestitures."
Our Take: The NFL is the only sure thing in the sports streaming economy. A major problem with streaming is that subscribers are constantly cancelling subscriptions. ESPN is launching its flagship streaming network. It doesn’t need to make money right at the start insofar it retains the people that sign up for the new streaming service. ESPN needs to prove to Wall Street that it is viable in the current streaming ecosystem. ESPN is essentially bribing subscribers to keep paying those monthly installments on the elite tier of their new platform by offering exclusive NFL content.
The Sydney Sweeney Jeans Ad "Backlash" Is Mostly Fake
"...American Eagle dropped a new denim campaign featuring the actress sprawled across various surfaces while delivering this gem of ad copy: “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color.” Then, with timing that would make a dad joke enthusiast proud, she adds: “My jeans are blue.”
Get it? Genes. Jeans. She's wearing jeans and also has genetics. Revolutionary stuff.
Within approximately 37 seconds, the internet did what the internet does. But here's the thing—when you actually look at this "massive backlash," it starts to feel a bit... manufactured?
Sure, some TikTokers made videos calling it fascist propaganda. A Columbia University lecturer analyzed it for eugenic messaging. But when you dig into the actual numbers, when you look for the hordes of furious liberals supposedly melting down over a jeans ad... they're surprisingly hard to find."
Our Take: When you actually went looking for people expressing their offense online at the "Sydney Sweeney Ad" in question, you would come up fairly empty-handed. The 'backlash’ was basically a handful of accounts on TikTok that happened to go viral. What you did see online if you went looking is backlash to the supposed backlash. It was a unique confluence of sociocultural, economic, and technological factors that gave the false impression that large swathes of the country were seething with hysterical rage at the ad, when most people liked the ad or just shrugged their shoulders at it.
Americans divided on whether companies should make statements about political, social issues
"Americans remain divided on the importance of companies and organizations making public statements on political or social issues.
A diverging bar chart showing that U.S. adults are divided on the importance of company statements about political and social issues.
Today, half of U.S. adults say these types of company statements are very or somewhat important. The other half say they are not too or not at all important, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in February.
...
Among Americans overall, views on the importance of company statements on political or social issues have not changed much in the last five years.
However, views among Black adults and Democrats have shifted. Although majorities in both groups continue to say company statements are important, these shares have declined:
63% of Black adults now say company statements are very or somewhat important, down from 75% in 2020.
66% of Democrats hold this view today, compared with 71% in 2020."
Our Take: While we see here that large portions of US consumers say they want companies to weigh in on politics, something tells me that companies should focus on the product and not play the role of cultural interpreters. Some people might want to hear some generalized political messaging, but does anyone really want Wendy’s to be tweeting their thoughts on a potential Trump-Putin-Zelensky summit? Received wisdom tells me that staying silent is often the smartest play.
Sam Altman warns some ChatGPT users are using AI in ‘self-destructive ways’ after GPT-5 backlash
"OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has warned that a lot of ChatGPT users are using AI in a self-destructive way. The comment from the OpenAI top executive comes shortly after the company faced backlash over discontinuing GPT-4o and other older models.
“If you have been following the GPT-5 rollout, one thing you might be noticing is how much of an attachment some people have to specific AI models. It feels different and stronger than the kinds of attachment people have had to previous kinds of technology (and so suddenly deprecating old models that users depended on in their workflows was a mistake).” Altman wrote in a post on X
“People have used technology including AI in self-destructive ways; if a user is in a mentally fragile state and prone to delusion, we do not want the AI to reinforce that. Most users can keep a clear line between reality and fiction or role-play, but a small percentage cannot. We value user freedom as a core principle, but we also feel responsible in how we introduce new technology with new risks.” he added."
Our Take: It’s not the worst thing in the world for an exec to be paying attention to how people are using his company's products and making subsequent tweaks to benefit the user rather than just pad the bottom line. But then again, a lot of companies don’t have this luxury of caring for the common good because they will go bust if they do not maximize engagement.
