The Sickos vs Deion Sanders

Good morning, and thanks for your continued support of Extra Points.

Way back when I used to work for Vox Media, I remember hearing about a big meeting between the college football editorial team and the corporate side. The Vox corporate leadership was frustrated with the growth of their flagship college football podcast, Shutdown Fullcast. The executive, believing that the show’s content was too niche, pointed to an image the team made to promote a live show in Birmingham, Alabama.

“I don’t even know who this is!”, the executive complained.

This, of course, is Nick Saban. I’m sure also didn’t know who Paul Finebaum is either, but it was Saban, specifically, that she called out.

I’m hardly an unbiased observer here, of course, but I think it’s fair to say that Vox fumbled the bag with their college football team, eventually laying virtually everybody off (including me).

But this executive was not a stupid person. She was a very competent leader who had done a good job leading and growing other editorial brands. But she was a Coastal Person, along with almost all of our old senior leadership…and they were all trying to sell ad and sponsorship packages to other Coastal people.

They weren’t college football people. Nick Saban is wealthy, powerful, and successful…but college football famous and famous famous aren’t the same thing.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, thanks to Colorado.

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