Aug. 21-Aug. 27: A Rare, Mid-Summer Week Dominated By Sports
The NBA proves it’s the league that never sleeps, Donald Trump drops another Friday (news) dump, and Mayweather and McGregor fight for the sake of pugilism and capitalism.
Welcome to the Zeitgeist Chronicle. Every week we catch you up on the past week’s most interesting pop culture and news events. Sometimes it’ll be what everybody’s talking about, other times it may be something that’s not, but should.
The NBA Challenges The NFL For Ownership of August
The days of the NBA being an 8-month league are a thing of the past. In a time where the most valuable commodity to corporate entities is our attention, sports league have battled for ownership of the calendar. The NFL used to reign supreme, but the NBA has challenged, if not surpassed them. Outside of the months of their respective seasons, July is now dominated by NBA Free Agency, and while August has been traditionally dominated by the NFL’s pre-season, it’s starting to lose its grip.
In what has been an already crazily-eventful off-season for the NBA, another bombshell was dropped on fans, this week, as Kyrie Irving was traded to the Boston Celtics for Isaiah Thomas in yet another league-altering trade involving an all-star. Irving’s desire to be traded out and away from LeBron James was made public in early July, and it became obvious that the situation was untenable and that Irving would undoubtedly not be on the roster when the season tips off in mid-October.
While complications that could jeopardize the trade have reportedly arose, the trade will likely still go through, as we’re past the point of no return. Irving allegedly refuses to show up for Cavaliers’ training camp, and Thomas is allegedly feeling “emotionally wounded” by the trade. Having the trade rescinded (in a way that would dwarf DeAndre Jordan’s infamous change-of-heart) would put both organizations in an awkward position with their all-star PG’s. The league, however, would benefit, as it could further steal attention away from the NFL.
Trump Drops Another Friday (News) Dump
We’ve made a point, in recent weeks, to highlight that much of the news surrounding White House staff have been dumped on us on Fridays (Scaramucci hiring, Spicer resignation, Priebus ousting, Bannon firing), the day of the week where the media-savvy can “hide” — if that’s even possible in this day and age — news stories, as the public enjoys their weekend. This Friday’s dump, however, was particularly large and splashy.
Within about a 2 hour span, news broke that Trump had formalized his previously-announced (on Twitter) transgender military ban; exercised his presidential power to pardon overt racial profiler, anti-immigration advocate, and former County Sheriff Joe Arpaio; and fired (undoubtedly at the request of Chief of Staff John Kelly) White House advisor and Steve Bannon-cohort Sebastian Gorka, all while a massive hurricane was introducing itself to Texas and North Korea was executing missile tests yet again. TGIF.
Combat Sports Take The Spotlight
They finally fought. The UFC’s superstar Conor McGregor stepped into a ring with Boxing’s superstar Floyd Mayweather. The result — Mayweather by TKO in the 10th round— was not surprising, but the actual fight was better than most had anticipated. McGregor was able to land more strikes on Floyd — known as a defensive fighter — than Manny Pacquiao did; granted, Floyd is older now and coming out of retirement.
Leading up to the fight, there were several narratives that loomed over the fight. There’s the “Who’s Worse?” narrative (Floyd has a history of domestic abuse and McGregor’s becoming known as a racist), the “Great White Hope” narrative, and the Mixed Martial Arts vs. Boxing narrative, but we somehow got an ending that was good for both Mayweather and McGregor.
Floyd reached the record-breaking 50–0 milestone, Conor (who’s 0–1, now) stood toe-to-toe with Boxing’s best, earning the world’s respect, and both men walked away with huge cheques. People will always argue against pugilism, but that would be missing the forest for the tree, because the real “ism” that this fight was about was capitalism.
