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Chicago’s Underground Podcast Reflection

Entering the podcast realm was something I’ve been thinking about for a while because I love podcasts. I am an avid podcast listener, and heard about an app called Anchor, which was a free way to create, record, and edit your own podcast.

I was interested and joined right away. The title Chicago’s Underground came to me one day driving home from work. I often will reflect on my day from work with an interview with myself – checking in on my thoughts, feelings, and experiences I lived through. I have a strong love + passion for Chicago, and have various ways I think I could use this platform (hence the underground). After playing around with it a few months ago, I put together a podcast based off of an interview I completed from another class with the owner of a nutrition company in Lakeview East Chicago. Without giving time to experiment, I wouldn’t have known how to properly put together a podcast. The app itself is easy to navigate, but it was beneficial to practice before hand.

For this particular podcast called “Restricting Student Athletes in 280 characters or less,” I began with making a decision on what to talk about. We were given the complete freedom to choose what we wanted to talk about. With extensive research on free-speech with student athletes for my sport law class, i was very committed to talking about it on the podcast.

The difference I needed to make sure I implemented in my podcast as opposed to a law class was the casualty I wanted my podcast to have. It was possible to do this by keeping it real and genuine, laughing, not editing every single mistake I made, and creating it to sound like a conversation with myself and my listeners as opposed to me just reading from a paper.

Podcasts are a trend I’m overly excited to now be apart of. Go listen to Chicago’s Underground, streaming on Spotify + Apple Podcasts, if you haven’t checked it out yet!

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The Last Dance

Being a ’98 baby had it’s perks. I was born a Chicago Bulls fan, no questions asked. Right out of the womb I was dressed in a Bulls onesie, pictured next to a basketball, and grew up watching Space Jam on repeat with my older brother.

The first episode of The Last Dance was released on April 19, 2020. It is a 10 part American sports documentary miniseries directed by Jason Heir and co-produced by ESPN Films and Netflix revolving on the career of Michael Jordan, focusing on his final season with the Chicago Bulls. It also includes commentary by Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, and Steve Kerr.

The way The Last Dance was organized told a story of Jordan’s progression from UNC collegiate athlete to NBA superstar, leading the Chicago Bulls to six NBA titles. Jordan spent 15 seasons in the pros, averaging more than 3o points per game. He won 6 championship titles and 6 MVP awards throughout his career. Nothing was left on the court: Jordan’s blood, sweat, and tears were portrayed through videos and the words he spoke while reflecting back on previous memories with the bulls.

Pictured above in colorful print, Jordan is smoking a cigar after his first championship win in 1991. In an interview, Jordan says he use to smoke a cigar before every home game, becoming part of his game-day ritual. Some remember Jordan for his famous dunk tag-lined ‘air Jordan,’ while others remember him for always having a cigar hanging out of his mouth.

If The Last Dance came out in 2020, and Jordan’s reign was over 20 years ago, how was this possible? The media knew how special Jordan was, and they captured everything. When you watch this so-called docu-series a second, third, maybe even a fourth time, you start to pick up on the little things as opposed to the storyline. You notice the order, the choice of music, the people chosen to be featured, when certain footage was chosen, the celebrations, the scandals, all of it. It’s rumored that Jordan had final executive say on it, but there was strategy behind the decisions made upon media cuts.

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Fantasy Football during a Pandemic

September 10th, 2020.

A date many have been waiting for since Super Bowl LIV in February. After going through many months without any sports to be streamed online, to all sports being broad casted at the same time, it became difficult for viewers to choose which sport to follow up on. One thing became certain during quarantine, sports are a huge part of American society. From golf to the UFC to the NFL, all are appreciated and were well missed.

Another fan favorite missed was the joy and friendly competition of Fantasy Football. Fantasy Football is a competition where those who participate select players from the league to be drafted to their team, and score points according to the actual performance of these players. It can be played on various platforms such as ESPN, Yahoo, NFL, and CBS. The participant uses their analytical skills, knowledge of the NFL and predictions to compete against their weekly opponent.

Participating in Fantasy Football could be completely free, or it could be played for some monetary advantage. When it was announced the NFL season would continue as usual, I just so happened to be working a private party at work. I witnessed a group of 10-15 wealthy individuals set up shop in a card room at the country club I work at. Each individual had detailed print outs of statistics of various players in the league, a laptop with private screens, and a few even brought fantasy gerus along with them. (Is that even legal?) With amazement I watched these gentleman and one woman go around the room one by one pitting against each other who they were going to draft. At the end of the draft, I found out this particular group was playing with a buy in of about $20,000 each. That’s almost half a million dollars for one fantasy league. It’s possible a few of these individuals are in multiple fantasy leagues.

Total fantasy contest revenue in Pennsylvania reached 25.87 million U.S. dollars in 2019, an increase of 70 percent in comparison to the previous year. DraftKings generated the highest amount of revenue, bringing in over 13.36 million U.S. dollars in the 2019 calendar year. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1089263/fantasy-sports-pennsylvania/#statisticContainer

What does the pandemic have to do with the story I just shared? Well, as you know, COVID impacted every single sport in one way or another. The NFL created a 71 page package of health and safety protocols. In this includes testing the players every day. Attendance at stadiums are to be decided individually, but all fans and coaches are required to wear masks. Players are still living at their own homes and travel with their teams. Being around their teammates requires each player to hold themselves accountable for making responsible decisions outside of the football facility.

Let’s say one player tests positive for COVID. They are then put into a quarantine period until they then test negative. They’re not contributing to the team and definitely not contributing to the fantasy league where they may be put as the starting running back, quarterback, etc. Just as the coaches have to adjust to the new lineup they are faced with, players of Fantasy Football are forced to make adjustments to their team that aren’t ideal. It’s similar as if their player had become injured. It’s out of their control. With millions of dollars at stake, let’s hope COVID will stay away from NFL players.

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/10/911537213/even-in-a-pandemic-the-nfl-is-ready-to-dominate-the-sports-landscape