Watching the WWE has kind of become a job

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I was on vacation, I didn’t really think much of wrestling beyond the show in Korea that I was going to go/had gone to, and thinking of an upcoming local show that I mentally reminded myself to reach out to my boys about when I got back.  But as far as what was going on in the big pro-wrestling industry, I knew that I was missing out on things, but at the same time I didn’t really care.

Through social media, I saw that Sami Zayn had won the WWE championship at Night of Champions, which in one hand made me happy because I’ve grown to really appreciate the man and his career, and it always brings me satisfaction when a hard worker gets rewarded. 

However, in the other hand, was the skepticism that his win came entirely on account of the fact that this was one of the WWE’s gross Saudi shows, and in spite of the fact that the E has gotten a lot of credit in recent years for not treating viewers like complete idiots like they used to, such doesn’t seem to apply to the Saudi shows and the company pretty much does nothing but grasp at low-hanging fruit out in the Middle East.  It’s very easy to assume that Sami won in Saudi Arabia almost entirely to satiate the local audience, getting to see an openly Muslim man win the largest prize in the company.

Such narrative was justified just nine days later, when Sami would immediately drop the WWE championship to a returning CM Punk; contrary to what I was just saying about not treating fans like idiots, such had occurred in Chicago, Punk’s hometown, being seen as yet another low-hanging fruit cash grab, or that Sami was seen as nothing more than a transitional champion and that this was the plan all along, neither of which is particularly good optics among the IWC.

The E has been harder and harder to keep up with, much less actually, like and enjoy, as the sands of time have progressed since the company had been sold, folded into the parent TKO company, and turned into this NASCAR-like ATM of corporate greed.

Months ago, I stated that I’d never felt more alienated from the WWE and my general fandom, and not only has that not changed, but the chasm has widened and continues to do so.

Obviously, companies like the WWE and their parents TKO don’t become the bloated fat cash cows they are because they care about lifer fans with lots of opinions like me, but if it actually mattered, they’re at constant risk of fans like me turning my back on them because of how much they’ve changed things, primarily for the pursuit of moar and moar money.

The point of all this is that I’d actually been debating with myself since coming back from vacation, on if it really wanted to bother getting back into watching big wrestling anymore, because over the last few months, watching wrestling has begun to feel more like a chore and that my time was not being spent well doing such, versus actually enjoying the product. 

For every Iyo Sky vs. Rhea Ripley or El Grande Americano vs. El Grande Americano banger classic, there are hours upon hours of ads to have to sit through, predictable, ChatGPT-generated storylines, moar ads, moar shitty product, and a whole lot more ads.

But for lack of a better alternative, as well as probably false-hope clinging that just one more RAW will get better, I still tuned into RAW the other night, just to see where things were.  And honestly, nothing was really new, and I’m left wondering why I even bother, yet again.  I’d say I’ll just keep up through YouTube, but even those videos are so loaded with ads now as well, that they’re becoming a chore as well.

I was chatting with some of my bros during the broadcast, and it dawned on me that watching the WWE was a lot more like a job, than the last time I opined such, and it was slightly more explainable now, because as someone who has worked for large corporations for the most of their career, watching WWE truly feels like a scenario where I like and appreciate all the workers and talent, but I really dislike and detest all of the higher-ups, shareholders and people who are steering the workers and talent into soul-sucking and inefficient uses of their skillsets.

Frankly I realize that I’ve had this mentality and relationship with other fandoms in my life, like how I’ve felt/currently feel about the Atlanta Braves, as well as how I’ve felt about most of the companies I’ve ever worked for.  I appreciate (most) talent, workers and colleagues, but I don’t particularly care much for those higher up, playing a different game than the rest of the pleebs.

This is probably one of those revelations where I’m amazed to realize at the age of 44, and that there are probably tons of people way more enlightened than me that figured it out way longer ago.  That fandoms all eventually feel like jobs at times, and that it’s worth pondering on if they’re worth continuing to keep once they hit that point, or if we should always just be looking for better things to invest our time into.

As far as professional wrestling goes, I still enjoy going to indy shows with friends, and thankfully Atlanta has no shortage of availability of such shows, and even though I’m jaded and completely skeptical of the E these days, I still have hopes for the few storylines that it’s clear that the company actually gives a shit about, like the masterpiece that is the redemption of Chad Gable. 

Granted, I know that on a long enough timeline, they’ll fuck it up because they always fuck up eventually, be it through he’ll fall short at Summer Slam due to some shenanigans, an injury, or they won’t plan for anything beyond his initial journey and that he peters out after victory, but at least for the time being, he’s probably the best thing going under the E umbrella, and the only thing I’m truly vested in with the company.

The ever-increasing aggravation of phone avoidance

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Much like the rest of ‘Murica, I don’t really like having to speak on the phone.  Frankly, I don’t like having to interact with other people if it can be avoided.  However, there are plenty of times in which I understand that a vocal interaction is capable of being way more productive than trying to do things over text messages or emails, and I will pick up the phone and make calls when necessary.

The other day, I had two things I wanted to accomplish: contact an optometrist and make an appointment for my dad to get an eye exam and some new glasses, and set up an appointment with my pest control people because it’s that time of year in which ants decide to intrude in my home and I don’t understand why ants exist in the first place.

When the business day was effectively over, neither objective was any closer to accomplishment than the start of the day and it’s partially my fault for thinking that text correspondence was going to get the jobs done as opposed to just calling up the places I needed to speak with.

The optometrist that I had in mind, not only would they not pick up their phone during business hours, there was a message that gave a phone number that could be texted for business purposes.  Hm, I thought, maybe they’d be like Delta Airlines and be more efficient at getting shit done over text than over the phone.

I was wrong.  The number I was given took three hours to get back to me, and responded to me as if I were an existing patient and was referring to bloodwork, and when I corrected them, they were like oh sorry, and gave me a different number to reach out to after 1:30 when the office was back from lunch break.  So I reach out to them, they don’t respond until two hours later, oddly in ALL CAPS, asking when I want to come in, and there’s no more response after I tell them the desired day in which I want to come in, and asked what information I need to give them in order to secure an appointment.

Mission failed.  Need to call tomorrow.

My pest control people, I reached out to them on Friday before the start of the business day via web submission, since it was early as fuck in which I realized that my annual ant problem was happening again.  No response at all, so Monday AM I call and ask what the delay is, since they’ve never taken this long to respond before, and am given a canned corn response that they’re busy and a scheduler will get in touch with me later.

Later comes, in the form of a text message, giving me a date and time that they’re available.  However, I am not, because of a work conflict, do you have another time?  No, we’ll just have to look for another time.

And then silence for the rest of the day.  Mission failed.  Need to call tomorrow.  But this time remind them that I’m over having an annual ant problem and that I will be reaching out to other companies now, and the first one available will be my go-forward pest control.

The point is, yes, having to speak with other people is a massive inconvenience that I understand that we all want to avoid if we can.  However, the issue is that the alternative is about as effective and efficient as trying to send an email with a cucumber or trying to construct an airplane with Fisher Price tools.  People hide behind the lack of pressure from real-time correspondence to suck at their jobs way more than they already do, and the clocks of life are never pausing, and the most important commodity in life, time, is continuously being wasted.

Until people on the other ends of the lines can prove to me that text correspondence can be remotely as efficient as pursuing a forced interaction over a phone, I need to remind myself to just forego the typing and just get in the grills of people and force them to speak, because when the day is over, I want to meet my objections and be efficient with my time over the convenience of not having to interact with others.

Dad Brog (#169): the future brogger

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

My youngest’s birthday is coming up very soon, and we let her open a gift early, because boredom is the greatest opponent for all parents and the girls were driving us bananas over a lazy Sunday.  To the credit of my children, they love Legos as much as I did when I was a kid, and I really enjoy putting together kits with my own kids; except when they squabble and fight over who gets to do what, things start to get out of order, and ultimately one will start spite-stealing pieces and sabotaging the progress of the other.

I had to tell #1 to stop sandbagging her sister’s build, because this was a birthday gift for her, and that she did get to have priority over its build.  In response to this, #1 began moping that today is a bad day and that I am sad. 

Then she began stating that she was going to write in her diary that today was a bad day and that she was sad, and mythical wife and I were a little perplexed at where she learned the concept of diary keeping from in the first place.

Moments later, she wandered into the kitchen, and I could hear her get a sheet of paper, the pop of a lid coming off of a marker, and the sound of scribbling as if she were writing something down.  As much as her choice of words were being overly dramatic, I was proud to hear that she was sounding out words and clearly writing something instead of just scribbling the the doodles that manifest in her head, as much as I love every piece of art she draws.

A few minutes later, she brings the “diary” entry shown above to us, and it says:

Dear diary I had a bad day my sister did not share I am sad about that

Needless to say, mythical wife and I were quite amused at the excessive melodrama generated by our six-year old.  I mean she is half-Korean, and if there’s one thing Koreans are good at doing is, is being dramatic.

But naturally, my mind immediately went in the direction that this was basically the formative seed of what would eventually turn out to be future brogging.  It starts with marker on letter paper, eventually it will manifest into keyboard and monitor, and given the rapid advancement of technology, the tech of the future will probably just be able to read her thoughts and manifest words directly onto her future brog where hopefully she’ll have more than zero readers.

But it all starts somewhere. 

Even if it’s from a bad day that she is sad about.

Revisionist history is fun not

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I don’t know why I get set off so easily by news from the airline industry.  Maybe it’s because I’m constantly frustrated by the endlessly elevating cost of travel, compounded by all of the traveling I wish I’ve done that I struggle to try and make reality.  Maybe it’s because the industry is so full of bullshit that’s so easy to sniff out, where companies are getting richer by the second while consumers have long been left in the dust at being able to keep up with rising costs.  Maybe it’s because of years of having flight privileges and then not has me with some resentful shell shock at what it costs for the rest of the world to travel and it manifests as vitriol toward in the industry.

Maybe it’s just all of the above to varying degrees.

Anyway, I read this article about how airline travel costs aren’t coming down in spite of the plunging costs of jet fuel, and this is one of those situations where an explanation isn’t needed at all; most of us in the world know and accept that the airline industry is just a bunch of greedy fucks who will continue to increase and increase costs and that going backward is absolutely not an option.  But an explanation is given, courtesy of Delta’s CEO Ed Bastian, and naturally all it does is incite anger and frustration to anyone like me, stupid enough to read it.

However, the worst part is that from the time I originally read it, to the time I’m taking the time to write about it, the original post as well as all links, feeds and summaries about the original post have all been since edited, to make Bastian look like not quite the disgusting money-grubbing corporate asshole, because there was a quote originally that basically blamed the rich for why fares will indefinitely remain high, because the affluent don’t want to run the risk of the poors getting on their hallowed Delta jets.

It really was a sight to behold, a masterclass of white man CEO-ing, where Bastian completely dodged accountability, threw his richest customers under a speeding bus, acknowledged the class disparity in the world by also blaming the poors for existing, all while not even trying to stop spinning bullshit about the dollars and cents that make Delta and all the other airlines are grubbing for with every ounce of energy they have.

Revisionist history truly is an incredible thing.  Clearly, smarter people than Bastian quickly realized the disgusting horror of his original words and cashed in a whole lot of favors for them to be able to scrub the entire fucking internet so quickly to revise his words to not necessarily stop blaming the rich, but to soften the accusations that the poors are why the rich are the reason why fares remain high.

The funniest (ironically) thing about this whole thing is that it was wholly unnecessary for Bastian or any CEO to even pipe up about this whole thing.  It’s one of those things most people already know and have begrudgingly accepted the fact that airline costs will never, ever, ever come down because the industry, much like all other corporations, really like money, and when they get used to seeing how much of it comes in on account of a hike, they would rather eat their young before bringing it back down, regardless of if the reason for the increase swings back downward or goes away outright.

Not only did anyone not have to say anything about this, no airline really even has to do anything in order to try and placate airline travelers.  Like, Delta tries to justify keeping their airfare costs astronomical by introducing the most minimal of perks, like a discount or reduction of bag fees, or a tweak to boarding process – but only for those in first or business class, and possibly the less pleeb-ey pleebs in economy plus.  With absolutely zero consideration for the economy and Spirit basic class, whose nickels and dimes are the real reason why the company makes a gozillion dollars a year.

Yeah, Delta doesn’t even have to do that, because the whole airline industry is full of collusion, and if all carriers agree to the same uniform set of draconian in-flight privileges, then nobody is required to deviate from the status quo.  In fact, the fact that Delta is doing such is only going to piss off the people operating United, American and any of the other carriers that will most likely have to tweak their operations in order to fight for the five passengers per flight who are fickle enough to pick one over the other on account of such trite perks.

And then of course, these too will disappear in the future, regurgitating and recycling the droll state of airline traveling for consumers, and then the whole thing will restart itself in 12-18 months, but with fares another $40 higher across the board.  Because of inflation, fuel costs, too many poors getting on, etc.

God bless ‘Murica

My Español education has led up to this

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I try not to live a life of too much envy, but if there’s one thing that I am often green with envy of, are polyglots and their abilities to be able to competently communicate with people of various nationalities in their native tongues.  Fewer things are as cool to me than seeing people who are able to change linguistic gears at the drop of a hat, multiplied by how competent they are at each language not native to them.

The more languages a person can bust out, usually the more envious I am, and there’s this one dude on the internet who probably makes his living through reaction videos of himself going around, mostly preying flexing on the Chinese, surprising them with Mandarin or Cantonese after putting himself in these deliberately orchestrated scenarios.  He speaks a large number of languages competently, but he seems to have his niche creating content surprising Chinese people, which makes me resent this rare form of white privilege he’s capitalizing on, but at the root of it, I’m just jealous that he’s able to speak so many languages.

Now I can say that I can speak a number of languages myself, but none remotely close to my ability to read and write English.  My Korean is adequate enough to be able to survive in Korea, but I wouldn’t be able to brog or be writing too many emails in Korean in a professional capacity.  I think I know enough Japanese to be able to go to Japan and not be completely invalid to the locals, and I’ve been determined to learn Spanish, seeing as how it’s probably the most utilitarian secondary language to know living in America.

Needless to say, I’m not going to be producing polyglot content any time soon.

At the time I’m writing this, my Duolingo streak is up to 556 days, entirely on Español.  I can count on one hand how many days that I’ve been forced to freeze, and every single one of them has been on account of being on cruises over international waters, and therefore being incapable of logging in to complete a single lesson.

Maintaining a streak is about the easiest thing in the world for someone like me to do.  Committing at least 30 minutes a day for most of that duration is a different story, but I think I’m doing a pretty good job, and even on days in which “I’m away” I still make sure to get in as much Duo as I can.

I think I’m still very much a novice at the language, repeatedly tripped up by verb conjugation and utilizing the correct form of them for all the variables that can change their use, but for the most part I’ve felt my confidence grow throughout the last two years at being able to actually engage a Spanish speaker, and I know that if I’m not already there, I’m going to hit a wall where I won’t ever develop further unless I actually use the language among others, on a routine-like basis.

Either way, the whole point of this post is to build up to the fact that the culmination of my current track has led up to a milestone occasion, in a slightly not necessarily just ironic sense: I was able to download the Telemundo app, navigate through the 100% Español log in process, and successfully get the Spanish broadcast of Copa Mundial de la FIFA going because mythical wife had heard that the Spanish broadcast was way more entertaining than FOX’s English broadcast, plus without the cringey right-wing ads they inject during half and hydration breaks.

It did not disappoint, even if we noticed that any goal scored by Argentina got three elongated gooooooooooollllllllls from Andrés Cantor while goals scored by anyone else just two.

This, is almost up there with being able to speak with and haggle with Mexican shopkeepers in Cancun over another La Parka mask for my collection of La Parka masks, as well as being able to respectfully dap up and ask Mexican tourists in Seoul if they were having a good time in Korea, after the Korea vs. Mexico World Cup match.

Tiny interactions, sure, but positive ones, and ones that I wouldn’t have had the thought to even entertain engaging, had I not taken the forward step to learn another language in the first place.

Ultimately, the level of comprehension I’d love to be able to achieve is, like Nate McLouth doing an interview entirely in Español good at Spanish, but at the same time there’s also that concern that if my Español proficiency were to surpass my Korean, it would be pretty disgraceful in some sense.

Either way, neither is going to ever really improve if I don’t use them, and I feel like if I didn’t have so many obligations in my life, and were independently wealthy, among the things I would do to pass the days in the absence of needing to work, learning moar languages would definitely be up there.

But hey, hurrah for my improvement in Español, y con suerte seguirá mejorando.

Asian tech addiction is real, man

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Whilst on my cruise, I purchased a 24-hour internet package, for one device.  It was $29 added to my folio, and to the credit of blatant cash grab, the internet speed was adequate, and I was able to accomplish the one reason that I had purchased it for: to neurotically be able to post a singular theFacebook post on a completely self-mandated and arbitrary date, which was the Father’s Day blet photo that I’ve long decided that June 26th is the date every year in which I post it so that I may be able to neurotically use the Memories feature in future June 26s and view them sequentially despite the fact that I have no less than 2-3 other ways in which I could do the exact same things and not have spent $29 extra on my cruise.

Also, I was able to use it to extend two days of my Duolingo streak without having to utilize any streak freezes, despite the fact that I had dropped 3,000 gems on a 7-day streak freeze which was already in effect for the explicit purpose to protect my streak whilst on the cruise. 

But also mythical wife was able to log into her account on my phone and do the same thing, which was probably the only fortunate use of it, since she didn’t have the same amount of freeze protection that I already did.

And honestly, that was probably the most useful use of the data beyond my completely arbitrary need to post Father’s Day blet photo on June 26th.   Otherwise, I found myself mindlessly dicking around the internet like I normally would do with a permanent umbilical connection to it whenever I get bored, and in a way I was glad to be rid of the internet again once 3:21pm rolled around the following day and my 24 hours of access had expired.

For all the criticism and self-loathing I opine about ‘Muricans and being American myself, there is one trope that I can give some credit to in a positive light; which is how there are lots of Americans, and I like to include myself among them, that occasionally acknowledge how toxic and how much trash internet connectivity is capable of being, and feel the need and want to disconnect and be free of connectivity from time to time, and live in the actual moments of time and present.

Because that doesn’t seem to be the case with Asians, whom on my travels, witnessed probably like 90% of the time, Asian people were glued to their phones, eyes down, being phone zombies, and being connected to the internet.  It didn’t matter if they were Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, Singaporean or Indian, the vast majority of people I witnessed over two weeks in Asia, were simply glued to their phones as if they were physically attached to their beings.

The image above was snidely taken at the Gardens by the Bay in Singapore; beautiful place, meticulously curated and meant to be a globally recognized destination landmark for tourists and travelers.  The motherfucker on the far right actually had a laptop propped up on the railing, and was on some video conference and was simultaneously doing some calisthenics, and of course I was easily able to capture some bros on their phones – in the middle of a horticultural exhibit showing trees and plant-life from four different continents and six different ecosystems.

There’s a part of the Jurassic World exhibit called the sky bridge that the place doesn’t do a good job of explaining in advance, but it’s basically 25-stories up in the sky, on a suspension bridge that is made of mesh, so you can see through it while you’re way the fuck up in the air, and the surface is meant to rock a little bit, which is all meant to say it’s high as fuck and if you have any issue with heights or don’t realize you have an issue with heights, it’s absolutely terrifying.

However, that doesn’t stop idiot tourists from stopping in the middle of, and clogging up the pathways, in order for them to get their selfies, live-stream their journey, or be video-calling their friends and families, while there are other, tense and on edge patrons just trying to traverse it as quickly as possible and get to solid ground.

Being human obstacles to those with realized anxieties, all for the ‘gram, or whatever self-important self-broadcasting medium they feel the need to document for their zero viewers.

But circling back to the cruise, and the data package that I had purchased, if Disney Cruise Line made an extra $29 off of me for one day and one device of internet, I have to imagine the likely closer to $100K than $50K they made on all the other Asian motherfuckers on the boat that probably had the full comprehensive internet packages for all their devices for all family members in their cabins, because pretty much at no point on the boat was I seeing anyone other than mythical wife and myself, incapable of being able to be online.

We’d look for quiet areas to sit and read, or enjoy the ambiance of the ship, at the numerous bars, lounges and pool sides, but there would always be some fuck(s) from China or India around, prattling on in their native tongues to someone on the phone, completely disregarding the existence of others around them that might not want to hear their dumb conversations.  Kids actively playing RTS and MOBA games on their phone, naturally with no headphones.  And no shortage of people with their selfie sticks and tripods set up in order to Hey What’s Up Guys livestream and film content for their shitty channels that nobody watches.

As annoying as it was, it was also rather fascinating to see the differences of internet addiction in Asian culture, as it is with Americans.  And yeah, ‘Muricans are no paragons of good manners in their own right, and I can’t speak for many beyond myself, but we do more often grow exasperated with connectivity from time to time, and simply want to enjoy things in solitude and without the need to humblebrag it to the rest of the world.  It all just seems so petty and pointless, and when the day is over, the hours have passed and the minutes expired, nobody fucking gives a shit. 

Even the zombies that are producing it.

Wonder what the Mormon faith feels about enabling, Bryce?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Philadelphia Inquirer: video emerges of MLB star Bryce Harper giving personalized message to FanDuel gambling addict, with implications that it was done so to continue to encourage gambler to keep pissing away money

Personally, I enjoy gambling despite the fact that I don’t do it nearly as much as I did when I was in my twenties.  Obviously, I am an enthusiast of sports as well, seeing as how a good 40-50% of my brog’s content is usually related to sports, or at least is full of sports analogies, flexing the encyclopedic wealth of sports knowledge I like to believe I have.

However, gambling on sports, is something that I don’t do.

Because I have never won a sports bet in my entire life.

Like really, I can trace it all back to the three times in which I’ve bet actual money on sports, with all three ending up with L’s:

  • In 1996, I bet a classmate, ice cream (35¢), that the Pittsburgh Steelers would defeat the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl XXX. Honestly, this was a reckless bet that only a 5th grader would be capable of making, seeing as how my NFL knowledge was nowhere as comprehensive as my NBA knowledge, and I was just mostly just being a contrarian and banking on the fact that there was no way the Cowboys would win a third Super Bowl in four years.  I was wrong
  • In 2006, I bet ($50) on I think, BoDog, that the Washington Redskins would defeat the Seattle Seahawks in the divisional round of the playoffs. The Redskins were surging, powered by their white-on-white jersey combo, coming off of a big wild-card weekend win against the Buccaneers.  Furthermore, Seattle RB Shaun Alexander was out with a concussion, and I thought the Seachickens were ripe to be upset by a Redskins team with momentum.  I was wrong
  • In 2008, I bet ($20) in Las Vegas, that the Tampa Bay Rays would beat the Boston Red Sox in game 5 of the ALCS. Scott Kazmir was starting and he was an absolute Red Sox killer, and to his credit, he did hold Boston to 2 hits, 0 runs in six innings, but between the 7th, 8th and 9th innings, the Tampa Bay bullpen imploded, allowing 8 runs, including a walk-off hit in the 9th that proved me wrong and made me vow to not bet on sports anymore because what could be more emblematic of such a message than a playoff team blowing a 7-0 lead in three innings.  Humorously, I had seen that there was a bet for a five-inning official game wager, and had I done that one, I would’ve won, but the potential to win a whole $5 moar dollars led me to the full nine-inning bet instead, and look where that got me.

The point is, I’m no stranger to gambling, but gambling on sports is just something I don’t do.  I’m fortunate that in spite of the competitive nature I can sometimes exhibit, I (hopefully) don’t have that facet of my brain that snaps and goes off the deep end when it comes to gambling and I’ve always been able to restrain myself from making any dives into oblivion when it comes to the pitfall of one more time that unfortunately befalls many others.

Like this poor dude in the article who has wagered over $18M* through FanDuel betting, and has lost $2M over the last 5-6 years, which doesn’t sound that bad as far as the ratio of what he’s bet versus what he’s lost, but considering he’s lost his house and contemplated suicide, there’s a lot of murky details in the dark water that would really help if were made clearer.

*unclear in the scope of the story of how much of this $18M is actual money and not promotional or bonus funds because it does matter in the grand spectrum and could be misleading if left unclear

The last thing I’d want is to miss paying any sort of bill because of gambling, much less my mortgage, to the frequency in which I fall into foreclosure and ultimately lose my family’s home.  This is a stark reminder of the potentially fatal consequences of gambling addiction, and I’m always astonished at how most everyone knows this, but we’re still in the present reality where it’s very much not just a meme:

Welcome back to SportsCenter presented by ESPN Bet, for more on the Ohtani situation we go to our FanDuel MLB Insider Jeff Passan at our DraftKings Studio in Los Angeles brought to you by Caesar’s Sportsbook

The crazy horrific variable about this whole story is the involvement of an actual, high-profile, top-tier professional athlete in Bryce Harper, where the high-level narrative that is perceived is that he made a personalized video at the encouragement of FanDuel, to passively encourage this addict to continue gambling, because he’s getting a very special incentive because of his spend history.

There is absolutely zero manner in which this is not a horrible look for FanDuel, for MLB, for the Philadelphia Phillies, and especially for Bryce Harper, on several levels, including one that I’d like to isolate being, his supposedly devout Mormon faith.

Yes, I think all religions are full of shit, and Mormonism is probably no exception when it comes to gray areas and loose interpretations, but the Church of LDS supposedly is opposed to all forms of gambling, so it’s really weird and unnerving that a Mormon like Bryce Harper that has the influence (money, status) to get married at one of their sacred castles, is basically an accomplice to enabling a gambler to continue to ruin the lives of himself and his family, and there’s nothing that can be done or said at this amount of evidence where anyone comes out looking good from it.

It’s like, because Harper himself is not doing the actual gambling, it’ll be swept under the rug as something harmless, and that he and his faith are not responsible for those who do, and that there’s no explicit rule against enabling, which is precisely what he is doing and what the intention of the video was meant to do.

Also, want to iso this, because wtf:

your host Bryttanni at FanDuel

I mean we’ve all seen some truly Mr. Garvey names in our lives these days, but this one actually manages to stand out.

I’m really curious to see how this pans out, or if Harper, the Phillies and MLB are just going to keep their lips zipped, and hope for it to go away, especially when the inevitable strike and lockout is going to take place in the winter because all the owners and all the players are a bunch of greedy fucks and I’m inclined to blow the whole sport out of existence in spite of how much I love the game, just because it doesn’t seem like there’s going to be any other way to eradicate the greed and corruption otherwise.

But at least Harper, and anyone else entwined with FanDuel or any other gambling racket will have a way to make some coin on the side when next season is cancelled due to work stoppage, and I’m sure no more degenerate gamblers are going to suffer and possibly die in the process.