One of the biggest shifts in sports social right now? Our job isn’t really to cover the sport. Yes, coverage will always matter to a degree. But if you’re buried in play-by-play, media scrums, and basic blocking tackling, you’re never getting to great. Real growth comes from building connection with fans and beyond. That happens through emotion, entertainment, access and personality. Sounds simple. Almost no one does it consistently. Why? Because it means getting comfortable with the uncomfortable. Saying no to things we’ve always done. Getting a different kind of buy-in from athletes and leadership. Protecting the brand, but still letting the work be fun. Getting to great means we stop overthinking. We trust our gut. We get out of the sports echo chamber. We don't take ourselves too seriously. And we have a pulse on what stops people in their scroll.

USA. A Mexican restaurant. We had not yet ordered anything, and the food was already arriving. Chips. Salsa. Unrequested. Free. I stopped the waiter. "We have not earned these." "They just come with the table, man." They come with the TABLE. In my land, hospitality is a debt. Every gift creates an obligation, weighed carefully, returned in the proper season with interest of feeling. Here, the gift arrives before you have even proven you can pay for dinner. This is not an appetizer. This is a declaration: we trust you. Eat. I ate with the gravity the moment deserved. And then — I must report this calmly — the basket emptied, and a new one appeared. "Did we…?" "Refill," the waiter said. "It's bottomless." Bottomless. They have wells of salsa. The supply lines of this nation are beyond anything my ancestors imagined. My friend warned me. "Don't fill up on chips, dude." Too late. I had accepted three baskets. Honor demanded each one be finished — an unfinished gift is an insult. By the time my actual food arrived, I was a ruined man. I was not hungry. I was not comfortable. I had been defeated by a courtesy. Generosity that arrives before the request cannot be repaid. It can only be survived. I know the rule now. I have made my peace with the basket. One basket. Two at the most. Who am I deceiving. There is no number of baskets I would refuse. The trust of a nation is in that salsa, and I intend to honor all of it.

People who cut out soda entirely, what did you start drinking instead?