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High School Football Week 7: Elkhorn South faces Omaha Creighton Prep on Golden Spike Sports
Lucky number 7!
Netflix’s Summer of Bummer
(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. Please subscribe.) Today, I’ve got a guest post from longtime friend of the newsletter, Brandon Katz. I’ve been trying to find time all summer to look at Netflix’s straight-to-streaming film slate, but between a pre-planned trip and Nielsen moving up their streaming data timeline, I’ve been swamped. So I reached out to Brandon, one of my favorite fellow analysts, to write about it. And I feel like he captured the tone and data focus of the newsletter perfectly. You can connect with Brandon on LinkedIn and Twitter. Enjoy! Don’t worry, folks. You’re in safe hands with me. To ease any anxieties about an interloper in ESG’s domain, I’ll start by stealing one of his best framing devices: headlines. Box office flops are covered in the same way the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles eye pizza: with cartoonish insatiability. I would know. I’m a former reporter who wrote nearly identical headlines: Yet, intentionally or not, streaming misses get treated with kids gloves, filtered through a rosy lens: In the last six years, U.S. streaming viewership has become nearly as transparent as the box office, but the data often arrives weeks later, in a number of less intuitive metrics, and with nary an official budget to be found. This plays into the Wall Street-whispering narratives major streamers have been cultivating for years. They get a pass in a way that theatrical studios simply don’t. Subscribe Netflix’s Summer Slate Not a single Netflix original film released between May and August this year opened above 20 million U.S. TV hours, per Nielsen. That benchmark usually serves as the EntStrategyGuy’s floor for a streaming hit on Netflix. None of these films enjoyed a hit-cementing single week of 20-plus million hours during their runs. Netflix’s two best films were true crime docs, Maternal Instinct (16.5 million hours) and The Crash (19.7 million), the best overall week for a film this summer. Great for most other streamers, but not necessarily what we’re used to seeing from Netflix. For an overly-dramatic comparison, Happy Gilmore 2 opened last summer to around 47 million hours (celebrity cameos, baby!). Zooming out, the picture looks even worse. In 2026, Netflix’s five biggest scripted summer films posted the lowest average (28.6 million hours) and median (28.8 million hours) eight-week viewership totals of the past four years. Now, it’s unrealistic and unfair to expect Netflix to deliver a _KPop Demon Hunters-_sized hit every year. But it’s also not ideal to see the size of their hits shrinking over the last few summers. Let’s quickly run through some of the notable summer misses. Jennifer Lopez and Brett Goldstein’s perfectly fine romcom, Office Romance, fell off the charts after 20 million hours in its first two weeks. Top films usually last for four-plus weeks. Starry titles ideally don’t decay that fast either. Homegrown star Millie Bobby Brown couldn’t prevent the snappy Enola Holmes franchise from diminishing returns. At 14.3 million U.S. hours, the third film posted roughly half of what the first two films did in their first two weeks. What’s on Netflix calculated that per-day global views were down nearly 60% from the second movie. The Whisper Man did okay with more than 36 million hours over its first four weeks. But I expected a little more juice from a film featuring Robert De Niro, Michelle Monaghan, and Adam Scott. Kevin Hart’s Ladies First collected just 11.2 million hours total across two weeks. That’s a big miss for one of Netflix’s go-to stars. Plopping into the same bucket are Sunny Sandler’s Don’t Say Good Luck (10.3 million in two weeks) and John Cena’s Little Brother (17.5 million). Meanwhile, English-language originals Color Book (June 19), In the Hand of Dante (June 24) and Heartstopper Forever (July 17) never sniffed Nielsen’s Top 10 at all, despite needing only 2 to 5 million hours to land in the top ten most weeks. (By my count, eleven English-language scripted original films released between May and August did chart). It’s only fair to mention that Swapped (1-May) posted nearly 42 million U.S. hours over five weeks (the longest Netflix original run this summer) and is currently their eighth most-watched English-language film ever worldwide. Remarkably Bright Creatures (37 million, 4 weeks) and Voicemails for Isabelle (27 million, 4 weeks) weren’t bombs either. Still, overall, I think it’s fair to say this was a quieter summer season than we’re used to seeing from the market-leader. You might not realize that given the language commonly used in public analysis. The Twist Despite the starkly black-and-white tone of the coverage, here’s the twist: when many box office bombs arrive on streaming, their viewership looks a whole lot like many of Netflix’s supposedly successful summer releases. Hmm, where have we heard that one before? Masters of the Universe topped out at $65 million stateside against a $170 million budget_._ I’ll admit, Skeletor ripping sleeveless curls as a gym bro and bodyslamming Adam’s co-workers was funny. But, much to the chagrin of my bank account, my laughter doesn’t launch franchises. Yet the He-Man reboot opened to 19.6 million hours (from a Wednesday five-day opening instead of just one weekend), on par with Hoppers on Disney+ (19.4 million). It put up nearly 47 million hours over its first six weeks, bigger than all of Netflix’s summer releases. Pretty darn healthy and likely to land among the 25 most-watched movies on streaming this year. Sticking with Amazon, The Sheep Detectives just barely broke even at the box office with $133 million worldwide (and only $66 million domestic). I never expected cloven-hooved, cud-chewing mammals to be able to bring me to tears. Yet that’s exactly how I found myself at the end of this surprisingly affecting movie (#NoShame). It was likely the unexpected quality in a family-friendly film that powered its streaming over-performance. Sheep Detectives delivered a solid run for Prime video netting 26.2 million hours! How about franchise IP? Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu had the lowest opening ($81 million) and lowest-grossing Disney-era live-action Star Wars film ($178 million domestic). One day before release, its Heat score (19.8%)—audiences who list their interest as a 7/7—fell behind blockbusters Wicked (21%), Superman (23%), Fantastic Four: First Steps (23%), Michael (23%), Toy Story 5 (26%) and Avatar: Fire and Ash (27%), according to Greenlight Analytics. The urgent enthusiasm just wasn’t there. On streaming, Mando opened to weeks of 12.1 million, 6.1 million and 2.7 million hours (21 million total) over its first three frames. Not the numbers Lucasfilm was hoping for nor the numbers of a streaming hit. But they’re in the same vicinity as some Netflix summer releases with $345 million at the global box office to offset a smidgen of the pain. Final Thoughts So why oh why does this nuance gap exist? Four key reasons: Data Literacy: A “$100 million opening” just makes sense. After decades of box office reporting, even casual movie fans are well-versed in the benchmarks of hits and home runs. There’s an immediate shorthand. But “16.5 million” hours doesn’t land nearly as cleanly. Despite leaps of progress, the streaming ratings era is still in its infancy compared to theatrical. The EntStrategyGuy and I met thanks to a late 2010s group chat of data nerds hungry to find a shred of certainty in nebulous streaming performance. I’m not surprised to see “No. 1 on Netflix” still getting misconstrued out in the wild. Timing: By Friday morning, we have the box office’s Thursday night previews totaled, allowing us to better project the weekend’s expectations. From there, ticket sales are reported daily. By Sunday, the film’s fate is usually finalized, at least in terms of public perception. In streaming, Nielsen recently improved its delay to…two weeks. The medium isn’t forced to contend with instant gratification as harshly. Financials: Theatrical film budgets are a mere Google away. Profit and loss is calculated in the cold and unforgiving naked light of day for all to see. But finding the vast majority of streaming exclusive movie budgets requires the forensic investigation skills of a Criminal Minds detective. Also, it’s very difficult to calculate how much revenue/value a straight-to-streaming films provides a streamer. This is why there are so few stories about streaming original movies “losing X amount of money”. On top of that, marketing budgets are far greater for theatrical movies than streaming exclusive movies, which leads to earlier and better awareness. This then translates to a wider pool of potential interest. Narrative Control: Netflix is the only major streaming service to publish weekly first-hand viewership data and annual engagement reports. Naturally, some headlines borrow their first-hand framing**.** Other streamers benefit from their comparative lack of transparency. They may occasionally announce vague performance platitudes such as Apple TV’s Mayday becoming its “biggest film debut on the platform to date over its first 18 days,” and that it ranked No. 1 with left-handed viewers in its first weekend. (Fine, I made up that second one). But, for the most part, they keep first-hand viewership shrouded in mystery to avoid bad press. Especially for outlets that demand multiple articles per day from their writers, it’s an easy (and understandable) way for some reporters to hit their daily article quota by just repeating what the streamers have told them. TL:DR version: Streaming-exclusive movies are asked to do different things than theatrical movies, but that doesn’t mean they should escape judgment. Both still need to draw enough eyeballs to justify their cost within the proper performance contexts. The more cleanly we can inject a little nuance into streaming analysis, the better we’ll understand the audience and content trends that drive this industry. And that’s what all of this is really about: knowing what audiences actually want! Brandon Katz is the Director of Insights & Content Strategy at Greenlight Analytics where he focuses on evaluating the ever-fluid media landscape to unearth understanding, opportunity and value. Greenlight Analytics is the entertainment intelligence consulting company redefining how Hollywood finds, understands, and activates audiences. Prior to joining Greenlight Analytics, he served as the senior entertainment industry strategist at Parrot Analytics, and as a full-time entertainment industry reporter covering the Xs and Os of Hollywood, most notably with TheWrap and the Observer.
Badgers' Grady Deering gains confidence through experience
A happy-go-lucky Wisconsin men's hockey player opens the season on a high note. His team now faces Minnesota State.
Jose Mourinho talks Negreira Case and ‘bad luck’ with referees
The Special One has shared his own very special thoughts.
Why are dengue cases surging in Florida this year? An 'unlucky' combination of factors, experts say
Dengue fever infections are booming in Florida this year, with more local cases than usual and the state's first dengue-related death in nearly a century. Why?
Julian Champagnie Breaks Silence on Losing Starting Role With Spurs
The San Antonio Spurs signed Tobias Harris this offseason, slotting Julian Champagnie to the bench. As the Spurs figure out their starting lineup, the team has to navigate egos. Luckily, Champagnie is putting winning over everything.
Packers vs. Bears Week 5 TV Broadcast Map
Most of the Eastern Time Zone is out of luck when it comes to watching the Packers on local TV this week.
Pens Points: Crosby meets Ovechkin for first of final battles
Following Monday’s announcement that this would be Alex Ovechkin’s final NHL season, Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals fans likely peeked at the schedule to see how many more times the two generation-defining rivals would face off. Luckily for us, tonight is the first of four final regular season matchups between Ovechkin and Crosby. Puck drop […]
Actor, 'restaurant kid' Ming-Na Wen reflects on the Asian American experience in 70 recipes
Ming-Na Wen's acting breakthrough was in the 1993 film adaptation of Amy Tan’s novel “The Joy Luck Club.” | KCBS All News 106.9FM and 740AM
Actor, 'restaurant kid' Ming-Na Wen reflects on the Asian American experience in 70 recipes
Ming-Na Wen's acting breakthrough was in the 1993 film adaptation of Amy Tan’s novel “The Joy Luck Club.” | NewsRadio 1080 KRLD
Why I Don’t Think Ride Or Die Should Have Been Cancelled (And What Company Should Save It...)
(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) So…I recently came across a Reddit thread, talking about films on streaming, wondering why there are no reliable sources out there for streaming ratings data. Sigh. Honestly, as annoyed as I am that so many still don’t realize that we have streaming ratings, I somewhat get it. Until now, there was such a long delay between when a show or film came to streaming and when we got its viewership data; I understand why people were confused. (But, as you know, this just changed.) Also, even back in the day, how many people knew how well films did on television? Luckily, as a reader, you’re in the know. Okay, on to this week’s issue. I want to take a look at Prime Video cancelling Ride or Die and whether I agree with that decision. Overall, we didn’t have any breakout hits (no TV shows landed over 20 million hours according to Nielsen) but we have a lot of steady performers on the streaming charts. Plus, we’ll look at where $50 million in missing box office dollars went. (Spoiler: straight-to-streaming.) All that, plus new episodes of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, Supergirl heads to streaming, a new YA show does well on Netflix, the viewership for the Daily Wire’s $50 million fantasy show, what TV show hit-maker can’t make streaming hits, CD sales, all the flops, bombs and misses, and a whole lot more. Let’s dive right in! (Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership ranks, Luminate’s Top Ten Data, JustWatch and Reelgood interest data, Samba TV household viewership, company datecdotes, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen’s data covers the weeks of September 7th to September 13th, 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Television - Ride or Die Is a Hit…But It Got Cancelled? What The Data “Says” I hate the phrase “here’s what the data says”, even though sometimes I find myself using it. If data just told us everything, we data folks would be out of a job! Data is often messy, complicated and nuanced. When it comes to strategy, many of the best decisions can’t actually use “data”, since it’s vastly too complicated to model. Anyways, I’ve been singing the praises of Prime Video’s Ride Or Die this summer, a show that did very well for them. And yet…it got cancelled. Now, usually when a show gets cancelled, a bunch of websites say “a hit show got cancelled”... Here’s the thing, though: in this case, they’re right! The data “says” that this show was a hit. Specifically, out of 522 first seasons to make a week on the Nielsen charts since 2020, it’s the 75th biggest. On Amazon, Ride or Die is eighth out of 41 first seasons: That’s top 15th percentile all time, almost exactly, which is my definition of a “hit”! I mean, outside of Reacher, Amazon needed a hit this summer! (Admittedly, Off Campus did well for Amazon in the spring, but Ride or Die performed even better.) So what happened? Why did Amazon cancel one of their rare 2026 bright spots? Well, Deadline reported a reason—which I’ll get to—but I’d break it down into three relevant questions: What is a given streamer’s reasoning? Is that reasoning sound? Could the stated reason not be the real reason? According to Deadline, Amazon felt the show “over-indexed” in middle-aged women. (This was based on leaks from within Amazon.) The logic is this: Amazon already reaches this demographic because of unlimited two-day shipping bundled with Prime, so they don’t really need more shows like this. Now, it’s my job to ask if that’s a good reason, and I’ll be honest, in this case, I don’t think it is. Sure, this show may “over-index” in middle-aged women—I’ll just assume that’s the case here—but I think folks often oversell how important over-indexing actually is. When a show is a “hit”, it isn’t a bit bigger than its rivals; it’s usually multiples bigger. For example, Elle only made the charts for two weeks at 8.3 million hours each. So Ride or Die was 80% bigger in its first two weeks, and likely had a much stronger hold, with its terrific 13 million hours in week three. Ride or Die was nearly three times bigger than Sterling Point through three weeks too. And that means that _Elle, Sterling Point a_nd other Amazon YA shows need to not just over-index a little with younger women (assuming that’s who Amazon prefers over middle-aged women), but massively over-index. Otherwise, more people in that demo (and a bunch more besides) likely watched Ride or Die. (I’ll try to explore this concept more in a future article.) And don’t get me started on how Ride or Die did compared to a certain (very, very popular, possibly the world’s most popular) YouTuber’s reality show…which didn’t make the charts after its first week and likely cost much, much more than Ride or Die. All to say, Amazon-MGM Studios/Prime Video can tell reporters that this show didn’t reach the right audience, but that excuse feels weak to me. So this leads to the third question: could other reasons have come into play? Yes! Renewal or cancellation decisions rarely (I’m tempted to say “never”) boil down to one variable. At its simplest, it’s two things: budget versus viewership. But often factors like critical acclaim, ownership and, yes, personal opinion come into play. In this case, Amazon has a new executive running things, and this show isn’t owned by Amazon-MGM Studios (unlike Elle). And yes, it may not have indexed with the right target viewers, too. Likely all of those factors came into play.1 My guess is ownership ended up mattering most. Amazon doesn’t own Ride or Die. It’s actually produced by another major studio. Fortunately/allegedly, this show is being shopped around. I can think of one brand new CEO who should consider it for one of his two major streamers…especially if he wants to rebuild goodwill in Hollywood. His name is on this list of exec producers of Ride or Die… If David Ellison needs some goodwill—and he does—rescue this female-led show tomorrow and grab some good headlines for a day. The data justifies it. Quick Notes on TV We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out… How The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives latest season did on Hulu, post-controversy... Whether Supergirl soared on HBO Max... Why the box office is losing money due to the streamers... The viewership for the Daily Wire’s $50 million fantasy show... Updates on The Gentlemen, Lanterns, Outer Banks, King of the Hill and more... What former hit-maker has three streaming flops in a row... Whether The Mandalorian and Grogu popped in week two... All the flops, bombs and misses... And a whole lot more... ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support. If you want an idea of just how much content you’d get in a full issue, check out this older issue. Coming Soon! Oh man, we’re almost caught up! We just have two more issues, then the streaming Ratings Report will be coming out just two weeks after a TV show premieres! Next issue, I’ll be looking at the first two weeks of the NFL Thursday night games on streaming, a huge new spinoff, Reacher’s Neagly on Prime Video, and the latest edition of Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story on Netflix, the return of Slow Horses on Apple and MobLand (quietly one of their biggest shows) on Paramount+, and Dancing with the Stars on both ABC and Disney+. Plus I’ll take a look at animation for adults in 2026. The week after, a ton of movies are coming to streaming: Toy Story 5 on Disney+, Backrooms on HBO Max, Jackass: Best and Last on Paramount+ and The Breadwinner on Netflix, plus a Unabomber film on Netflix and a romcom on Prime Video. Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey have a show on Apple, along with a game show inspired by Willy Wonka that everyone seems to hate. Long term, some crazy (but hopefully crazy like a fox) IP news. FX ordered a new Sons of Anarchy show from Charlie Hunnam, but it’s not about the biker gang. No, it features the show’s cast playing themselves in a new “meta-thriller”. Huh. And a lot of the cast is coming back. Next, Ryan Gosling is producing a Flintstones movie about a “grown-up Bamm-Bamm Rubble”. Also, huh. This one is in “early development” so we’ll see what happens. Both projects are based on IP, but also seem to have crazy takes on the IP, which I like.
A week of politics, preaching and personalities
Students at UW-Whitewater know what they’ll see as they walk across campus. A couple oversized squirrels in the grass, students shuffling from classes and, if you’re lucky, a few spaced out tables handing out fun prizes. But for students, the week of Sept. 28 looked a little different. As the 2026 Wisconsin governor’s race continues...
Rapper Lucki alleged stabbed in bloody brawl outside ComplexCon
Video appears to show the rapper with a laceration below the jaw. At least four people were hurt in a knife attack, police said.
Rapper Lucki reportedly injured following confrontation at ComplexCon in L.A.
According to multiple sources, rapper Lucki was injured after a confrontation at ComplexCon, which is taking place at the Los Angeles Convention Center. TMZ reports that Lucki was involved in…
Man refuses to defend his brother’s bad business decisions at their dad’s formal hearing after years of cleaning up every overpromise he made
A 38-year-old who has spent his entire career quietly fixing his older brother's overpromises just refused to walk into a formal hearing and help present those promises as bad luck. His family is not ...
Questions persist around horse deaths at Humboldt County Fair
The events attending veterinarians said the incidents were ‘bad luck accidents,’ but also pointed to laxness of rodeo regulation versus horseracing.
Solo Reload Victory Cup in NA West: Event 1 Event 1 Round 1
Battle your way to Platinum in Reload Ranked to be eligible for the first and second Events of the Season, Diamond for the third, and Champion for the final Event of the Season! Compete for the opportunity to win a cash prize! Reach Round 2 (top 1600 in EU; top 800 in NAC; top 320 in OCE, ASIA, ME, BR, and NAW), where every player who earns a Victory Royale will earn $100 USD. Good luck and have fun!
Michigan State at Wisconsin: Three Best Bets
After a string of bad luck, find out which player props and alternate spreads offer the best value as the injury-riddled Spartans face a surging Badgers squad.
Monthly Strum Club & Potluck Returns To York House Oct. 6
LYNDON — Catamount Arts announces the return of the monthly Strum Club to York Street Meeting House, beginning Tuesday, Oct. 6. The community is invited to a potluck at 5:30
Elon Musk to return his attention to government, advise Pentagon on future of war
Musk will join Anduril founder Palmer Luckey and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on a panel for what the Defense Department is calling Project Meridian.
Stallone at 80 reflects on 'Rocky' 50 years later: 'I am a lucky dog'
Sylvester Stallone, known for his iconic role in "Rocky," reflects on his journey from underdog to Hollywood legend | WWL
Stallone at 80 reflects on 'Rocky' 50 years later: 'I am a lucky dog'
Sylvester Stallone, known for his iconic role in "Rocky," reflects on his journey from underdog to Hollywood legend | KCBS All News 106.9FM and 740AM
Frederick County business wants to turn plastic waste into filament for 3D printers
Primo3D is collecting 50 pounds of waste plastic from Meredith's Good Luck Tavern to test their prototype waste-to-filament machine. Founder Drew Primo hopes to scale up the process and give residents a place - other than the recycling bin - to put their plastic.
From pot-luck to store shelves: How a Utah family of 7 grew an unexpected salsa business
Nico Barber developed a salsa recipe as a missionary in the early 2000s. It wasn't until 25 years later that he finally started selling it.
[NAC] FNCS Solos Qualifiers in NA Central: Qualifier 1 Day 1 Round 1
Drop into the FNCS Solos! The competition kicks off with Round 1, featuring two three-hour sessions—Day 1 and Day 2—with up to 11 matches per session. Eligible players must rank within the top 200,000 on the overall Power Rankings Leaderboard. Players ranked in the top 2,000 may skip Round 1 and automatically qualify for Round 2; however, choosing to compete in Round 1 forfeits that automatic qualification. After both Round 1 sessions conclude, scores from Day 1 and Day 2 will be combined. The top players on the cumulative leaderboard will advance to Round 2: Top 8,000 EU; Top 4,000 NAC; and Top 2,000 OCE, ASIA, ME, BR, and NAW. Round 2 consists of one three-hour session with up to 11 matches. At the end of the session, the top 1,000 players in each region will advance to Round 3. Round 3 also features one three-hour session with up to 11 matches. In Qualifier 1, the top 100 players on the Round 3 leaderboard will advance to Fast Track. In Qualifier 2, the top 108 players will advance to Heats. Good luck and have fun!
Palmer Luckey says AI won't make a founder's job easy
The Anduril founder said AI can automate technical work, but founders will remain on the hook for legal issues, people, and key business decisions.
Lucky Strike Entertainment: A Weak Consumer Leads To Downside Risks
Lucky Strike Entertainment rated SELL: premium EV/EBITDA, high leverage, weak demand, and negative FCF. Click for more on LUCK stock.
How to secure Hilary Duff presale tickets for 2027 ‘Lucky Me Tour’ before they sell out
Four separate presale windows open this week ahead of the general on-sale.
Everton's Season Review Data Edition: Have The Toffees Been Lucky?
The data can tell us one thing, and the eye test another. Have Everton been lucky so far this season?
Surprising Maple Leafs Player Clears Waivers
The Toronto Maple Leafs wrapped up their preseason contests on Wednesday with their final split-squad game against the Ottawa Senators. After the games, the Maple Leafs sent down eight players who had the possibility of being claimed off waivers.Veteran forward Steven Lorentz was among those eight players; however, luckily for the Maple Leafs, he cleared […] The post Surprising Maple Leafs Player Clears Waivers appeared first on HEAVY.
How to Protect Yourself From Wildfire Smoke
New evidence suggests wildfire smoke is particularly harmful. Luckily, there are ways to stay safe.
Jays Edge Reds 6-5
For most of the night, this looked like a typically frustrating 2026 Blue Jays loss. The starting pitching wasn’t very good, the bullpen did enough to keep them in range, and while the offence produce traffic on the bases it failed to turn that into runs. Luckily, things flipped late. The offence woke up and […]
[NAC] Override Series: Persona 5 Royal Cup Reload in NA Central: Session 1
Take their hearts! Compete for a chance to earn Persona 5 Royal cosmetic rewards. Good luck and have fun!
LISTEN: The Delicate Art of Releasing a Hit Streaming Series
If you’re a streaming service lucky enough to have a hit series on your hands, congratulations — now the hard part begins. Keeping that series on the air, let alone growing its audience over time, can...
Ranieri: ‘Luckily’ young Italian footballers get playing outside Serie A
Italy technical director Claudio Ranieri is focused on developing young players, but insists youth coaches must be paid more and notes that, ‘luckily’, many youngsters are gaining valuable playing...
Harvest Festival returns to Littleton Museum
As trees begin to shed their leaves and fall sets in, many are searching for autumnal festivities to celebrate the season. Luckily, Littletonians don’t need to search far from home,
Minnesota Vikings News and Links: Three In A Row?
The win vs the Bears in those conditions was what the team needed. They were fortunate to get the punch out on the goal line for sure. But that was a well timed punch so it was just not blind luck. A little luck though. If the Bears score, I am not sure the offense […]
'I loved it' - Robertson grateful for United spell
Before the Champions League and Premier League titles, Scotland captaincy and Liverpool hero status, Andy Robertson was a skinny teenager starting his professional career at Tannadice. Dundee United plucked the then 19-year-old left-back from fourth-tier Queen's Park in June 2013 and paid him a few hundred quid a week. Within months he had earned a first Scotland call-up and by the end of the season he was off to Premier League Hull.
MLB's CC Sabathia Shares Health Message, Talks Hall of Fame
MLB star CC Sabathia joins TODAY to share a message about the importance of understanding your cholesterol numbers and shares his own health scare. “I was pitching in the big leagues and had no idea I had this blockage and just got lucky enough to be able to catch it,” he says. He also opens up about being inducted into the Monument Park Hall of Fame at Yankee Stadium. “It means more than going into the Hall of Fame…To be able to come to the Bronx, put on the pinstripes and succeed here…feels great.”
Aaron Boone Gives Surprising Yankees Wild Card Rotation Update
The New York Yankees have a huge Wild Card series coming up against the Boston Red Sox for a chance to compete for the World Series. Aaron Boone has lucked out with a tremendous MLB pitching staff of superstars giving NY a viable chance in every series. However, a new quote from Boone claims that […] The post Aaron Boone Gives Surprising Yankees Wild Card Rotation Update appeared first on HEAVY.
Lawrenceville hosts Around the World in the DTL this weekend
Presented by the city of Lawrenceville and the wildly popular International Night Market, Around the World in the DTL is set for this weekend on the Lawrenceville Lawn on Luckie
Singer and actress Hilary Duff announces San Antonio concert date
Duff’s “The Lucky Me Tour” will stop at Frost Bank Center in November with Tegan and Sara opening.
Hilary Duff to perform in Hershey next year; here are the details
Beloved early 2000s actor and pop singer Hilary Duff recently announced that she would extend her "The Lucky Me Tour," adding a Hershey stop among 31 other dates.
Fiber is both diet fad and fixture for good health – a doctor explains why there is no one-size-fits-all way to increase your intake
Americans aren’t getting enough fiber in their diets. Luckily, there is a plethora of ways you can increase your daily dose of fiber without upsetting your stomach or breaking the bank.
Liverpool's plan for injury-stricken star is a massive boost
Liverpool have been rather unlucky with injuries as a club over the last 18 months. Since the start of the 2025/26 season, several of the Reds’ first team have suffered serious injuries that have si...
Police seek suspects accused of stealing alcohol from East Stroudsburg business
Stroud Area Regional Police are asking for the public’s help identifying two suspects accused of stealing alcohol from a business in East Stroudsburg.Police sai
Being run over by pitch roller was 'terrifying'
Townsend says he was lucky to only escape from under the roller with a few "bumps and bruises".
Help Was Nearby: Athlete, 25, Survives Near-Fatal Aortic Tear
When Danny Cruz, 25, suffered a near-fatal tear in his aorta, he was lucky help was nearby—at Baptist Health Bethesda Hospital East and at Boca Raton Regional Hospital, where Bradley Taylor, M.D., performed life-saving surgery.
[NAW] Champion Focus FNCS Cup Battle Royale : Session 1
Stay focused. Play like a champion. Compete in the Champion Focus FNCS Cup for a chance to earn Champion Focus cosmetic rewards. Put your skills to the test and keep your sights on victory. Good luck and have fun!
Analysis: Eagles unlucky to not gain win
This was a good test for boss Pierre Sage, with the Eagles playing on Thursday in the Europa League and having three days less preparation time than Leeds. Crystal Palace created the first chance of the match, only for Quinten Timber to fire over from 25 yards, before Adam Wharton and Tyrick Mitchell had their only other chances of note in the first half, with both strikes deflected and easily dealt with. Palace had conceded a late goal to lose 3-2 to Ipswich Town last weekend and it would have been harsh on them if something similar had happened here.
🔥 Fiery Madrid derby! Atlético star lucky after horror tackle
In the Madrid derby, things got heated almost as expected. Just six minutes in, Atlético coach Diego Simeone was shown a yellow card after protesting too aggressively to the referee.Shortly before ha...
D-backs anthem trumpeter makes AMAZING recovery after horn malfunction
PHOENIX -- During their run to the World Series championship in 2001, the Diamondbacks believed trumpeter Dr. Jesse McGuire was regarded by the organization as a good-luck charm when he performed the national anthem. McGuire performed the anthem numerous times during that postseason, including before Game 7. And every five
Brighton 3
It’s been a while since Arsenal put in a “file and forget” performance but that is what they’ll need to do with today’s showing at Brighton. The Gunners, to a man, were well off their best. Brighton were energetic and more than a bit lucky. Combine those two and sometimes it can look like today’s […]
Override Series: Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Cup Zero Build in Europe: Session 1
Keep running on the edge. Chase the win. Team up as a trio and compete for a chance to earn Cyberpunk: Edgerunners cosmetic rewards. Good luck and have fun!
Sal Frelick on the plucky Brewers and Jackson Chourio's emergence
Sal Frelick drove in the winning run in the 10th inning of the Brewers' 6-5 win over the Orioles on Sept. 18 in Baltimore.
Defence firm Anduril says US delay on Taiwan arms sales affecting its business
US defence tech firm Anduril's founder Palmer Luckey said on Saturday that President Donald Trump's delay in approving arms sales to Taiwan is affecting its business and that he has discussed this with Trump.
Defence Firm Anduril Says US Delay on Taiwan Arms Sales Affecting Its Business
By Ben Blanchard TAIPEI, Sept 19 (Reuters) - US defence tech firm Anduril's founder Palmer Luckey said on Saturday that President Donald Trump's delay in approving arms sales to Taiwan is affecting its business and that he has discussed this with Trump. The $14 billion package for Taiwan has been ...
The science of grief and how it can impact physical health
If we are lucky enough to live full lives and form meaningful relationships, chances are, we will also experience loss, and with it, grief. As common as grief is, it’s also mysterious. Horizons guest moderator Ali Rogin explores the science of grief with Liz Gleeson and Dr. George Slavich.
The science of grief and how it can impact physical health
If we are lucky enough to live full lives and form meaningful relationships, chances are, we will also experience loss, and with it, grief. As common as grief is, it’s also mysterious. Horizons guest moderator Ali Rogin explores the science of grief with Liz Gleeson and Dr. George Slavich.
‘Never hurt nobody’ – Pat McAfee addresses ESPN smoking allegations
Pat McAfee is certainly proving a divisive figure among NFL fans this season due to just how much air time he is getting on ESPN. The former NFL punter has been catapulted into presenter jobs since his retirement, but some now feel he is pushing his luck.
Science council plots diplomacy push for fractured world
Peter Gluckman says the multilateral system needs new tools to survive an age of rivalry
UCF Has Had Terrible QB Injury Luck Since 2021 Season
From Alonza Barnett III to Dillon Gabriel, recurring late-game injuries have derailed the Knights' momentum, forcing coach Scott Frost to navigate another season behind backup arms.
$25K grant expands funding for Hendersonville downtown business improvements
Downtown Hendersonville businesses will have a new opportunity to fund storefront improvements, murals and other projects through a $25,000 grant.
Book Review: The Messy Business of Making Science Happen
Roberta Kwok’s “Lost in Curiosity” makes the case for luck and hard work over eureka moments in advancing science.
'It's my responsibility'
Tottenham boss Roberto de Zerbi has apologised for Tuesday's limp Carabao Cup exit at the hands of Liverpool, but says it is "unfair" that his team are in "this unlucky moment". Spurs' hopes of a morale-boosting cup win to distract from their winless and goalless opening four Premier League games were short-lived, and even Conor Gallagher's header - their first goal against top-flight opposition this season - came while already trailing 2-0 and did not change the outcome.
Why Yankees have 'unfortunate' MLB postseason seeding situation
This is an unlucky situation for the Yankees.
Dave & Buster's Retreats 12% on Sales Miss; Six Flags Slips 2%, Lucky Strike Entertainment Falls 1%
Dave and Buster's shares cratered after a rough quarter, but management is pointing to a trend that could change the story entirely for patient investors watching the entertainment sector stumble.
Dave & Buster’s Retreats 12% on Sales Miss; Six Flags Slips 2%, Lucky Strike Entertainment Falls 1%
Dave and Buster's shares cratered after a rough quarter, but management is pointing to a trend that could change the story entirely for patient investors watching the entertainment sector stumble.
Is collagen a lie?
Collagen powders, gummies and pills have boomed in popularity in recent years boosted by claims that they smooth wrinkles, promote glossy hair and help with joint pain. Amid the noise it can be hard to figure out whether there’s any actual science behind the promise of looking younger for longer. Luckily Dr Xand van Tulleken has spent the past three years writing Make me well: a quest to understand the confusing world of wellness, and his chapter on collagen dives deep into the evidence. He tells Madeleine Finlay what collagen does in the body, how we can get it without splashing out on expensive supplements, and why getting to the truth behind wellness claims can be so hard
List of DVD release dates for Sept. 8 and beyond
Following is a partial schedule of coming movies on DVD. Release dates are subject to change: SEPTEMBER 15: Stop! That! Train! 15: Lucky Strike 15: Lion Fist 15: Two Prosecutors
🚨 Champions League: 2028 and 2029 final venues confirmed
On Tuesday morning, UEFA officially announced the stadiums that will have the immense honor of hosting the Champions League finals in 2028 and 2029.The lucky venues are the Allianz Arena (Munich) in 2...
Will Netflix’s Latest Horror Film Save Its Summer? And Introducing a New Data Source...
(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) All month, I’ve been polling you, my readers, on how we think the summer’s biggest blockbusters will do when they eventually land on streaming, and I wanted to share the results. First up, how readers think The Odyssey will perform when it comes to Peacock... People are pretty bullish that The Odyssey will smash it for Peacock. I don’t know that it will have as much rewatchability as Wicked did for kids, but we’ll see. It is now Universal’s highest-grossing film of all time. One note: almost half of Christopher Nolan’s films weren’t available for streaming the week The Odyssey came to theaters, including some of his biggest films like Inception, Dunkirk, Tenet, Oppenheimer and Insomnia. If you did want to watch the others, Prime Video had Memento and The Dark Knight trilogy, HBO Max only had The Dark Knight trilogy (even though Warner Bros. produced most of Nolan’s films), Hulu had The Prestige and Interstellar, and Paramount+ had Interstellar. So you needed at least two streaming subscriptions to catch the rest. Warner Bros. whiffed right here. I know they have long term licensing deals, but they should have tried to get as many Nolan films on HBO Max for launch as possible. Here are the results for Spider-Man: Brand New Day: The audience is a bit more mixed on this one, with everyone agreeing Spider-Man will swing to a big opening, but not necessarily elite or best all time. On to this week’s issue. Netflix continues searching for a hit straight-to-streaming summer film and Lioness and Ted Lasso allow me to look at the difference between a “hit” and a ‘hit for them”. All that, plus new YA/teen melodramas on Prime Video and Netflix, the House of the Dragon finale, USA Network claims a big opening, more big NFL ratings, all the flops, bombs and misses, and a whole lot more. But we start with a fun new data announcement. Let’s dive right in! (Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership ranks, Luminate’s Top Ten Data, JustWatch and Reelgood interest data, Samba TV household viewership, company datecdotes, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen’s data covers the weeks of August 3rd to August 9th, 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe A New Data Source: Reelgood’s Data on Content Libraries Here’s a fun new treat for you. Reelgood—an online service and app that lets users track where shows or films are streaming—is providing data every month for the Streaming Ratings Report on the size of each streamer’s catalogue, along with the new shows and films for each streamer. Yay! Previously, I had pulled “new shows on streamers premiering on the first of the month”: While I liked that data cut, it was a big wonky since it didn’t show all of the new shows or movies that came to a streamer each month. Instead, I would have preferred something like this from Reelgood’s annual report: And now we have it! I’m going to feature Reelgood’s data monthly, showing both total catalogue size and new shows and films appearing on the charts. That’s going to make these two cool new charts. First, here’s the size of various streamers’ film catalogues… (By the way, Reelgood offered to make the charts for me, but I like doing that task by hand to understand the data better.) They also provided data back to last year. Here’s the number of films timeline: And here are the new films on each streamer for the month prior to Aug: As I get used to this data, I plan to keep tinkering with how I display it, but I’m excited to feature it monthly. Today, I’m sharing the film charts; next issue, I’m going to feature TV shows by streamer. Now, in full disclosure, Reelgood is a sponsor of this little-newsletter-that-could. But in my constant quest to figure out what streamer various shows and films are on, I was already a Reelgood user before this sponsorship. I go to their website all the time, and their data is very accurate on where shows are (or have been). Plus, I’ve been sharing their weekly top ten lists for years now, pre-sponsorship. For me, this is a great win-win, since I get to amplify a service I love, and I get a cool new data source to play with. Now, normally folks don’t usually mention their sponsors directly, but as I wrote before, as I start featuring ads in my newsletter, I plan to be extremely open about who is sponsoring my writing so you can trust what I write. Television - Two Big Returning Shows Look Set to Take Over The Charts One key question when it comes to judging streaming shows is whether a show is a “hit” or a “hit for them”. To be clear, the former means a show that’s one of the top shows on streaming, no questions asked. The latter means a show is one of the biggest, for a given streamer. That distinction makes a big difference! It’s really good to be one of the biggest shows on a streamer; it’s much better to be the biggest on streaming, despite the size of a streamer. Because, as we’ve seen now, nearly every streamer—while lacking the number of subscribers or usage of Netflix—can make hit TV shows: Paramount released Landman, whose first and second seasons were among the top two TV shows the year they came out. HBO Max’s The Pitt’s second season is the biggest show of the year so far. Love Island USA was the top show in 2025 for Peacock. And, crucially for today’s discussion: Wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy back in 2023, Ted Lasso was actually the top streaming show of the year according to Nielsen! So even Apple TV (formerly +) can make hit shows. It just doesn’t make them that often. And looking at the Nielsen charts this week, we have two prime candidates for this discussion: That’s right: Ted Lasso returned to Apple TV for its fourth season. Did it return in all its expected glory? Sure, though right now it’s still just a “hit for Apple TV”, but we’ll see how long it lasts on the charts. Its ten episodes are coming out weekly. (Smart choice, Apple!) Ted Lasso started out strong, actually making the Nielsen charts the week before new episodes dropped, which is a rare feat. (Shows like Stranger Things or Bridgerton have pulled that off. That’s terrific company to join!) On Nielsen, it opened to 14.4 million hours in its first week, and 16.6 million the week of 10-Aug. Here’s how that compares to previous seasons: Apple put out that this is their biggest TV launch through two days ever, and looking at the chart and Apple TV’s viewership history, I’d believe it. Here’s Apple’s top shows for season two and beyond: Other data tells a (mostly) similar story. Ted Lasso made Samba TV and it has elite IMDb scores, an insane 8.7 on 465K reviews. The only outlier is Luminate, where the latest season only had 7.4 million hours, and no other seasons made the top ten. As you’ll see below, that’s well below some other solid, but not spectacular shows like Sterling Point, Ride or Die or Furious. I’d be surprised if Ted Lasso isn’t bigger than those other shows, but it’s fine for different data sources to occasionally disagree. And while it’s sucky to bring this up, given that Warner Bros. produced this show, I do wonder how the streaming wars may have been different if Ted Lasso landed on HBO Max initially instead of Apple. I don’t think one show can make or break a streamer, but given HBO’s brand, it could have helped bring people to that streamer much earlier in its lifespan. (Though yeah, I don’t love calling out executives for passing on hit shows, since that’s just the nature of the job. Even the absolute best execs will pass on lots of successful shows. The key is not greenlighting the under-performers/misses.) The other show I’m thinking about in the “hit or hit for them” category is Lioness from Paramount+. Like Ted Lasso, its first season missed the charts, but it’s grown its audience since then. Here’s how season three opened: We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out… How Lioness did on streaming... Two new melodramas for Netflix and Prime Video... Whether Netflix’s latest horror film saved its summer... Hulu’s Furious and Prime Video’s Ride or Die continuing their strong runs... The latest high profile showrunner to flop on streaming... All the flops, bombs and misses... And a whole lot more... ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support. Next week, we’ve got a double issue—since the week of 17-Aug had very few notable new shows or films—so I’ll look at HBO’s Lanterns, Prime Video’s Reacher, Netflix’s Tires, Outer Banks (which posted up huge numbers four years ago), an Aussie romance, and another baseball event (that didn’t resonate). And a bunch of movies like the latest dramedy from an Adam Sandler daughter, Don’t Say Good Luck, Camp Rock 3 on Disney Channel and Disney+, Michael on Starz, and more. Later this month, we’ve got a ton of shows and films to analyze! Movies will be the big story, featuring a box office bomb (Supergirl on HBO Max) and an “underperformer” (The Mandalorian and Grogu on Disney+) contending with a bunch of star-studded straight-to-streaming films like Netflix’s The Whisper Man (Adam Scott, Michelle Monaghan and De Niro!), Mayday on Apple TV+ (Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh!), The Runner (Gal Gadot) and The Last Sunrise (Eva Longoria and Maia Reficco) on Prime Video. Plus, a ton of TV shows have sophomore seasons coming out. Will The Gentleman put up big numbers on Netflix or suffer from a sophomore slump? Leanne and Beauty in Black on Netflix seem small, but they both might be bigger than you think. Hulu has a bunch of shows: a new season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives (the first after all the controversy last year) and the second season of Chad Powers (from Peyton Manning’s production company and starring Glen Powell). This one flopped last year; can it score a touchdown this year? Same goes for FX’s Adults, which I didn’t track last year; will it hit this year? Peacock’s The Office spinoff, The Paper and Apple TV’s Dark Matter also return for second seasons. And Netflix has more Untold specials featuring Vince Young, Raygun (that horrible breakdancer) and Mr. T. Long term, Paramount+ is rebooting yet another franchise, Clueless, and I’m somewhat bullish on this new show. The talent attached (Alicia Silverstone) and creative Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage (of The O.C. and Gossip Girl) also feel solid...if they make it funny like the original.
Please Stop Conflating Sports Betting Handle With Spending On Entertainment
Editor’s note: The Cashout for paid subscribers will publish on Tuesday. Every September there’s a huge uptick in how much people bet on sports with the start of football season. Which means it’s time to get ahead of a ridiculous narrative before it picks up steam on social media or in mainstream media. Subscribe Every few months I see some version of this: [ Charlie Bilello@charliebilello Americans bet over $165 billion on sports last year, which is more than they spent on movies, books, concerts and sports tickets - combined. 1:00 PM · Jun 28, 2026 · 4.1M Views 258 Replies · 674 Reposts · 4.23K Likes ](https://x.com/charliebilello/status/2071217050328895935?s=20) Fortune published this in July. The headline and start of the story tell the same narrative (emphasis added): Gambling becomes America’s favorite pastime as Americans spend more on sports bets than movies, arts, museums, and music combined: The North American box office totaled $8.87 billion in 2025, which is still 22% below pre-pandemic levels. Recorded music revenue hit a record $11.5 billion. Live music like concerts and festivals brought in $18.51 billion. Meanwhile, book publishers tracked by the Association of American Publishers reported $14.6 billion for the year. And the U.S. museum industry generated an estimated $16.4 billion. Add it up and the total comes to roughly $70 billion, which is less than half what Americans wagered on sports. The story, to its credit, goes on to tell us why sports betting is entirely different, although people who only read headlines will miss that nuance. (The tweet above definitely skips over the nuance.) I will mostly be preaching to the choir here, but it’s worth saying out loud: Wagering money on sports is not the same thing as spending on entertainment from a financial perspective. When you spend money on a movie or concert ticket, that money is gone. You exchanged money for an experience. It’s a good trade! I get to have fun for “x” dollars. (Unless the movie sucks, I guess.) When you bet money on sports, the money is not necessarily gone every time you wager it. It could be gone, but sometimes it’s not and you actually get more money back! That’s not “spending” money or something you should try to compare directly to entertainment spend. A far better comp would be how much people lose at sports betting. That number was more like $17 billion in the US last year, at least for state-regulated sportsbooks. Why are we trying to equate handle and entertainment spending? I dunno. It makes for splashy headlines, I guess. Now, people should be betting for entertainment, and not because they expect to win in the long term; no doubt about it. Anyway, here’s hoping I don’t see people saying Americans “spent” hundreds of millions of dollars on sports betting this fall. Mindway AI and DraftKings Expand Responsible Gaming Drive with Launch of Gamalyze American Football In time for the NFL kickoff, Mindway AI has expanded its partnership with DraftKings to launch Gamalyze American Football the second title in the neuroscience-based Gamalyze Sports collection. Following the success of Gamalyze Football (soccer) during the FIFA World Cup, this gridiron-themed update replaces static questionnaires with immersive, stadium-inspired gameplay. Backed by 10+ years of Aarhus University research, Gamalyze evaluates real-time decision-making to deliver instant, unbiased player risk assessments. Integrated into DraftKings’ platform and nationwide activations, it engages fans when excitement peaks. Ready to upgrade your player protection? Contact Mindway AI to try Gamalyze Sports today. Gambling news roundup 🚨The important stuff 1st NFL Sunday of Season ‘Champagne-Popping Day for Bettors’ (Covers): “The first NFL Sunday of the season was a champagne-popping day for bettors, while the book was left cleaning up the corks,” Caesars’ head of football Joey Feazel said prior to the Sunday night game. “Caesars Sportsbook reported that Detroit’s Jahmyr Gibbs, Baltimore’s Derrick Henry, Indianapolis’ Jonathan Taylor, and Atlanta’s Bijan Robinson were among the top five most-bet players to reach the end zone, and all of them cashed tickets.” [ Ben Fawkes@BFawkes22 A @CaesarsSports oddsmaker on how Week 1 has gone so far: “The first NFL Sunday of the season was a champagne-popping day for bettors, while the book was left cleaning up the corks.” ➡️8 of 10 most popular anytime TD scorers cashed 1:31 AM · Sep 14, 2026 · 276K Views 16 Replies · 16 Reposts · 615 Likes ](https://x.com/BFawkes22/status/2099310001927995849?s=20) 🔍 Are we already getting a “customer-friendly results” narrative in Week 1? NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell spoke with CNBC about the prediction markets industry: “We think that there needs to be stronger regulations into the predictive markets,” Goodell said. “We want to see that to protect the integrity of our game. We want to make sure we’re protecting the consumers that are on those platforms for the NFL. So, we’re continuing to have conversations with them and talk to them about the things that we think they need to do to strengthen that so that they could be potential partners at some point in the future.” More on the NFL + PMs: [ Straight to the Point Quid Pro Quo The NFL has asked Kalshi and other prediction markets to remove certain easy to manipulate markets. Does a potential partnership hang in the balance… Read more 6 hours ago · 19 likes · Steve Ruddock ](https://straighttothepoint.substack.com/p/quid-pro-quo?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web&embedding_publication_id=1472492) Kalshi was on my podcast?: Kalshi was on my podcast [ The Event Horizon Episode 32: Talking Prediction Market Enforcement With Kalshi’s Robert DeNault Kalshi? On my podcast? Yep… Listen now 5 hours ago · 6 likes · 1 comment · Dustin Gouker ](https://nexteventhorizon.substack.com/p/episode-32-talking-prediction-market-enforcement-kalshi?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web&embedding_publication_id=1472492) DraftKings Enhances Responsible Engagement Efforts With New Customer Initiatives, Tools and Education (press release): DraftKings Inc. today announced a series of new initiatives designed to promote responsible engagement and increase awareness and use of the tools and resources to help customers make informed decisions and engage responsibly. The efforts include a new digital advertising campaign featuring Kevin Hart and Nick Jonas that promotes responsible engagement, a PGA TOUR sweepstakes that promotes customer engagement with responsible engagement features, the launch of Gamalyze American Football in collaboration with Mindway AI, and new custom cool-off options that give customers enhanced flexibility when choosing a cool-off period. The initiatives build on DraftKings’ commitment to making responsible engagement an integral part of the customer experience and providing players with accessible tools and resources that help them make informed choices about their gaming experience. “At DraftKings, responsible engagement is embedded in how we operate and is essential to building trust with our customers and our long-term sustainability,” said Lori Kalani, Chief Responsible Gaming Officer at DraftKings. “We’ve continued to invest in tools and resources that give customers enhanced access to information about their play and more choices for managing how they engage. From My Budget Builder and My Stat Sheet to player-set limits and new custom cool-offs, we’re continuing to evolve our approach while promoting awareness and use of the tools and resources available to help customers play responsibly.” … DraftKings is launching a new digital advertising campaign featuring Kevin Hart and Nick Jonas that continues the pair’s road trip and promotes responsible engagement and awareness of the tools and resources available to help customers make informed choices about their gaming experience and engage responsibly. The campaign was initially launched on Sep. 10th and will reach customers through digital channels, bringing responsible engagement messaging to fans in an engaging way. bet365 Launches “The Matchup,” a New Weekly Video Podcast Hosted by Super Bowl Champions Chris Harris Jr. and Emmanuel Sanders (press release): "bet365, a global leader in online sports betting and gaming, today announced the launch of “The Matchup,” a new weekly video podcast hosted by former Super Bowl Champions Chris Harris Jr. and Emmanuel Sanders. Featuring current and former NFL players, the original series marks a significant, intentional investment in football as bet365 works to become a go-to destination for U.S. bettors throughout the season. “The Matchup” premieres September 10, with new episodes released weekly in both video and audio formats. Full episodes will be available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever podcasts are available, with clips and additional content rolling out across YouTube, X, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and TikTok. The show is being produced by Last Row Digital Media. Each week, Harris and Sanders will be joined by guests from across the game to break down the biggest NFL matchups, unpack the latest league news and share perspectives that go beyond the box score. By bringing together two former players with distinct perspectives and firsthand experience, “The Matchup” will give audiences timely context and a deeper understanding of the teams, players and storylines shaping the week ahead. “Every great football conversation starts with a matchup—who has the edge, what everyone is overlooking and what could change the game,” said Chris Harris Jr. “Emmanuel and I have experienced the game from different perspectives, and we want the audience to feel like they are part of the conversation and leave every episode knowing more about the week ahead.” Today’s iGaming companies face new litigation threats as expansive consumer protection statutes spark lawsuits with sky’s-the-limit aspirations, sometimes backed by private funders. Clients of Ifrah Law have a staunch defender in Robert Ward – an agile litigator and case tactician who responds to the changing state of play with creative legal defenses and efficient case-closing strategies. Robert draws on federal clerkship experience and appellate defense work to advise iGaming clients on litigation exposure, white-collar risk, and regulatory defense across multiple jurisdictions. Read More: Robert Ward on Helping iGaming Clients Outmaneuver Lawsuit-Obsessed Adversaries 🔮 Prediction markets Update on legal action in Connecticut: [ Daniel Wallach@WALLACHLEGAL Connecticut says gaming service license holders which received subpoenas over sports prediction markets “are not under investigation” by the @CTDCP but may possess information that could assist the state “in evaluating the conduct of prediction market platforms.” 2:31 PM · Sep 13, 2026 · 844 Views 5 Likes ](https://x.com/WALLACHLEGAL/status/2099143914271670576?s=20) American Gaming Association Opposes CFTC Bid to Block New York Prediction-Market Enforcement (DeFi Rate): “The brief points to the Ninth Circuit’s Aug. 28 decision in KalshiEX LLC v. Assad, which the AGA says supports New York’s authority to regulate sports contracts as gambling. It also cites Kalshi advertising, product comparisons and reporting on Kalshi’s sports volume to argue that the economic product resembles a sportsbook wager more than a conventional financial hedge.” [ Daniel Wallach@WALLACHLEGAL AGA intervenes in CFTC v. NY case to oppose CFTC request for preliminary injunction, says the CFTC’s arguments “obfuscate a simple truth: prediction markets offer sports betting.” Highlights CA9 decision, @DustinGouker (6x), and $1.32 billion in OSB taxes for NY (0 from PMs). Daniel Wallach @WALLACHLEGAL High stakes hearing on Monday in CFTC v. New York State. If SDNY judge Lorna Schofield denies the CFTC’s motion for preliminary injunction, the New York AG would have a clearer path for securing a state court geofencing order against Kalshi, Coinbase, and Gemini Titan. 2:08 AM · Sep 13, 2026 · 4.78K Views 1 Reply · 2 Reposts · 8 Likes ](https://x.com/WALLACHLEGAL/status/2098957043474280584?s=20) Gaming Commission remains member of gambling council after questions raised over ties to Kalshi (Mass Live): “The Massachusetts Gaming Commission will not follow the leads of gaming regulators in Ohio and Michigan and drop ties with the National Council on Problem Gambling over its new association with Kalshi.” Sponsor’s messageTrusted Voices: Conversations About Betting is designed to equip adults, including parents and coaches, with tools and resources to talk to young people about gambling, including information on warning signs, risks and proxy betting. The program is led by retired professional basketball player Randy Livingston and his wife, basketball agent Anita Smith, who share their personal stories related to problem gambling, with the hope of preventing others from experiencing similar harms. Learn more and join the conversation here. 📣 Industry news Gaming M&A: Latest Mergers, Acquisitions and Deals (SBC Americas): “But what else is happening in the world of gaming mergers, acquisitions, investments, and partnerships? Here, we round up some of the news you might have missed.” BetMGM Named Official Sports Betting and Online Casino Partner of the Minnesota Vikings in Canada (press release): BetMGM, a leading iGaming and sports betting operator, announced a multi-year partnership with the Minnesota Vikings, naming it the Official Sports Betting Partner and Online Casino Partner of the team in Canada. The agreement gives BetMGM rights to use Vikings marks across approved sports betting, online casino and marketing activities in Canada. In addition, Vikings Big Kick LuckyTap™, a casino game by Design Works Gaming, is available now exclusively at BetMGM Casino in Alberta and Ontario. “Vikings fans bring a level of passion and loyalty that extends well beyond game day,” said Matt Prevost, Chief Revenue Officer at BetMGM. “As the home of one of the largest collections of sports-themed casino content in North America, BetMGM is uniquely positioned to combine sports fandom with iGaming. We are eager to start football season off strong with another fantastic partnership especially as we expand our reach in Canada to Alberta.” Martin Nance, Minnesota Vikings Chief Marketing Officer, said, “As we continue to deepen our connection with Vikings fans across Canada, we’re proud to welcome BetMGM as the team’s official sports betting and online casino partner in Canada. Their commitment to innovation and fan engagement aligns well with our organization, and we’re excited to create memorable experiences that celebrate Vikings football and connect with Canadian fans in new and meaningful ways.” Caesars Entertainment Launches Ball Rush Jackpots™ in New Jersey,the Latest Proprietary Online Title from Empire Creative™ (press release): Caesars Entertainment, Inc. (NASDAQ: CZR) (“Caesars”) today announced the launch of Ball Rush Jackpots™, a new ball-and-peg style online casino game developed by Empire Creative™, the Company’s in-house game development studio. Now live in New Jersey across Caesars Palace Online Casino, Caesars Sportsbook & Casino and Horseshoe Online Casino, Ball Rush Jackpots is expected to become available in additional jurisdictions where Caesars offers online casino gaming following regulatory approval. The title expands Caesars’ growing portfolio of proprietary online casino titles, following the successful launch of Ca$hline™ earlier this year and further diversifying the Company’s lineup beyond traditional slots and table games. Ball Rush Jackpots follows the traditional ball-drop gameplay experience where players drop a ball down a board filled with pegs to land in a prize slot. As balls navigate independently through a field of pegs, every drop creates new opportunities to collect feature symbols, unlock bonuses and pursue jackpots, delivering a different experience with every round. “Ball Rush Jackpots delivers a different kind of casino experience for our players, combining easy-to-understand gameplay with meaningful customization, exciting bonus opportunities and jackpot potential,” said Matthew Sunderland, Senior Vice President and Chief iGaming Officer at Caesars Digital. “As we continue expanding our proprietary content portfolio, we’re focused on creating games that are simple to pick up, rewarding to revisit and designed around the features players enjoy most.” Bally’s Corporation Secures New Financing to Support the Development of the Bally’s Bronx Project (press release): Bally’s Corporation (NYSE: BALY) (“Bally’s” or the “Company”) announced today that it secured new financing led by WhiteHawk Capital Partners, LP to fund further development of the Bally’s Bronx project and general corporate purposes. The new financing comprises closing date term loan commitments in an aggregate principal amount of $400 million and delayed draw term loan commitments in an aggregate principal amount of $160 million (together, the “Facilities”). … Bally’s Chairman of the Board, Soo Kim, commented, “This important financing allows us to progress the pre-construction planning process so that we are ready to complete the remainder of the capital raise and remain on schedule. Furthermore, the additional liquidity provides us greater flexibility for other capital opportunities.” WORLD JAI ALAI LEAGUE LAUNCHES CENTENNIAL SEASON AND ENTERS NEXT CHAPTER IN MIAMI (press release): The World Jai Alai League will open its 2026 fall season on Tuesday, September 15 at Miami’s JAM Arena, beginning a milestone season that marks 100 years since professional Jai Alai first arrived in Miami. Season X, the tenth season of the Battle Court team-based competition launched in 2022, will also be the first since entrepreneur and sports asset investor Rob Gough acquired the World Jai Alai League in August 2026. The acquisition marks the beginning of a new chapter for the league. World Jai Alai League will maintain the existing Battle Court competition and operating format, with Chief Operating Officer Scott Savin overseeing Season X. Gough and his team will use the coming months to listen to players and fans, evaluate opportunities across the league, and execute plans for a broader evolution of Jai Alai’s presentation, live experience, media, marketing and commercial strategy beginning in 2027. “This is a really unique moment for Jai Alai,” said Rob Gough, Owner of the World Jai Alai League. “We have a sport with more than 100 years of history in Miami, extraordinary athletes and incredible speed, but I also believe there is enormous untapped potential.” bet365 reveals most popular online slots in 3 US states in August (SBC Americas): “In its monthly Gaming Insights and Performance report, growing online casino operator bet365 tracks player trends and game performance in online slots across its North American online casino markets.” The Closing Line is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe
Tom Aspinall’s UFC nightmare continues thanks to cruelest twist
Comment: If Aspinall is the unluckiest champion in UFC history, vacating the belt 11 months after his eye was injured by Ciryl Gane, perhaps the latter will be the luckiest, with the title surely headed his way
'City seemed to enjoy the challenge'
Sunday's result was a statement win for Manchester City's new manager Enzo Maresca, who got his tactics spot on, but his team's performance will have showed him exactly what they are about. City are used to always having most of the ball but they were fine without it against Manchester United. That is down to leadership and communication - not just from the manager, but from the players on the field. Maresca deserves plenty of credit for his decisions too, but he must be thinking he is a lucky man for having the group of players he does, because their intelligence and resilience was key.
Has Aaron Nola Been Unlucky with the Homer Thing?
Moonshot misfortune? Longball luck? Or just cold tater truth?
Arbeloa praises Fulham squad after plucky Liverpool draw
Alvaro Arbeloa heaped praise on the Fulham squad after they were able to gather a 0-0 draw with Liverpool at Anfield.
Steelers Could Face Rough Field Conditions in Week 1
The Pittsburgh Steelers are lucky enough to open the 2026 season at home. Even better, they will be doing so against an Atlanta Falcons team that is down to Cooper Rush as the starting quarterback.The Steelers enter as favorites and the home fans should be loud throughout the game. The players, meanwhile, may be facing […] The post Steelers Could Face Rough Field Conditions in Week 1 appeared first on HEAVY.
Russell: “Antonelli Has Done a Better Job Than Me”
The Briton acknowledges that the Italian deserves to lead the championship and that he will need luck to close the 66 point gap. Despite the disadvantage, he assures that he does not give up and that he will continue fighting race by race for the title.
S&P downgrades Lucky Strike Entertainment rating on weak margins
S&P downgrades Lucky Strike Entertainment rating on weak margins
Mariska Hargitay calls pre-Emmy wardrobe malfunction good luck
LOS ANGELES – Host Mariska Hargitay was in full Olivia Benson mode Thursday, Sept. 10, kicking out the blue carpet for the 78th Emmy Awards outside Los Angeles' Peacock Theater.
An uplifting season - Illinois Times, the capital city's weekly source of news, politics, arts, entertainment, culture
I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not much of a sports fan. The idea of the Women’s Professional Baseball League playing its inaugural season in Springfield was interesting as a historical happening. But it was not until Lucky Horseshoes Chief Storyteller Jamie Toole spoke at our neighborhood association meeting that I committed to going […]
Why is Lucky Strike Entertainment stock climbing today?
Why is Lucky Strike Entertainment stock climbing today?
'Trafford has just become our most important player overnight'
The momentum of the game changed 180 degrees when the referee incorrectly awarded Chelsea a penalty. Daniel Farke was a bit slow to react to Chelsea's substitutions, allowing them to take control of midfield for a crucial 15-minute period. Leeds regained some of the momentum for their third goal, but Chelsea rode their luck for the late goals.
Seagulls must learn from slow start
It's been a busy start to the 2026-27 campaign for Brighton and Fabian Hurzeler must now begin to prepare for a packed schedule of domestic and European football. Although the Seagulls will wait until October for their Conference League league phase to start, Hurzeler's side has endured a flurry of mixed results in their opening five games of the season. After a bruising 4-3 loss at Stamford Bridge to transfer-foes Chelsea, Brighton were lucky to escape with a 1-1 draw at home to Leeds.
Ricky Bromberg, President of Alabama's oldest business + Bham civic leader, dies at 67
💔 BHAM LOSES A BELOVED LEADER: Ricky Bromberg, President of Bromberg & Co. passed away September 2 at 67. He spent his life showing up for customers, community, and everyone lucky enough to know him.
I made a mistake that ruined a day of my cruise; how to avoid it
Although I've been on many cruises, I still made a planning mistake that ruined a day of my trip in the Amalfi Coast. Luckily, it's easy to avoid.
How the political climate Andy Harris helped create has come for him
The far-right Republican leader has twice dodged redistricting attempts. He may not be so lucky a third time.
Mike Detillier: More Than a Voice on the Radio
Mike Detillier left an unforgettable mark on Louisiana sports and on the people lucky enough to call him a friend.
The core anti-Pangram constituency is phony writers
Welcome to The Closing Argument, our verdict on the news, plus everything The Argument published and appeared in this week. The Verdict, by Kelsey Piper A lot of people hate AI for drowning the internet in slop and displacing human creatives. You might think that these people would be thrilled by a program that can identify and flag AI-generated work. But many people who hate AI also hate Pangram, an impressively accurate AI detector that produces very few false positives, according to high-quality independent research. This loathing found its most recent expression in a bizarre Wired article that amplifies a wide range of false arguments from Pangram skeptics: that AI detectors are racist (they’re not) or ableist (they’re not)1 or don’t work (this one does)2. Rather than starting from the premise that it would be really valuable to have a working AI detector and scrutinizing Pangram to make sure it lives up to that promise, the article starts from the premise that Pangram obviously has bad vibes and sets out to discover why. (One answer: The CEO microwaved lunch during an interview!) Why aren’t writers who resent Pangram more eager to distinguish themselves from posters who are having ChatGPT ghostwrite all their work? There are a few different things at play, but I think one key dynamic is this: These are often the same people. A core constituency for arguments like Wired’s is “writers” who are using AI to write their posts but resent this fact being made public. They stand to lose from AI detectors because AI detectors call them out. Share When Substack announced a partnership with Pangram, a sizable fraction of the platform’s authors rose up in outrage. Some people had experience with other AI detectors that didn’t work, and some felt that AI writing ought to be encouraged — both of which are fair enough. But the fury was fueled by authors passionately insisting that Pangram kept wrongly accusing them on almost every post they published. Pangram can be wrong, especially on short passages. But in the overwhelming majority of cases where Pangram looked at a whole blog post rather than a single paragraph, the program correctly detected work as AI. Even if we can’t be 100% sure in any individual case, we can notice the trend in the aggregate. Wired quotes Sam Illingworth, a professor of critical AI literacy at Edinburgh Napier University, who said, “I don’t think [AI detectors] work. … I think that detectors are prejudiced against certain people.” This spring, he said that he used AI for research and editing; this summer he acknowledged that in addition to research and editing, he also uses it “now and then for a turn of phrase I keep.” Pangram informs us that most of his posts are 100% AI-written (some are mixed AI-and-human) and that 100% AI-written posts started appearing last year. The favorable interpretation is that, as someone whose recent work Pangram consistently mistakes for AI, Illingworth sees Pangram’s flaws firsthand. The unfavorable interpretation is that the tool’s credibility trades off against his own, because its account of who writes his posts is not consistent with his. Illingworth is not alone in insisting the detector does not work. “It’s a Monday night in late July, and I’m pasting my own Substack draft into an AI detector for the first time. Not because I’m worried. Because I’m curious. I wrote every word of it myself, the way I write everything, out loud in my head first, in a rhythm that still carries the accent of a language I learned to think in before I learned to write in this one,” begins one Substack post by an author indignant that Pangram flags her writing as AI. “That’s the part I had to sit with before I could write this.” If you, like me, have worked with AIs a lot, you won’t even need Pangram there. The author of that piece is AI. It is obviously AI! I checked 10 other posts on the blog, and they were also obviously AI! “I have spent 22 years as an award-winning author and essayist. And now this bullshit tool that learned from MY writing is going to accuse me of plagiarism,” popular Substack writer Carlyn Beccia wrote in an anti-Pangram post. “For the last and final time, AI DETECTORS DO NOT WORK.” Here’s what her writing sounded like in 2020: “Most success stories revolve around one person who believed enough in you to say — give it a try. We call these people muses, but they are so much more than that. They are the strong man giants whose shoulders we stand on so we can see the horizon. Throughout the editing process, I am sure my editor felt less like a giant of greatness and more like Atlas with the world on her shoulders.” Pangram says it was 100% human-written. (So were other articles of hers in 2020.) And here’s what it sounds like now: “And then there is the reshuffling, which sounds like paperwork until you remember that empires have always loved paperwork. The Trump regime recently moved special education oversight from the Education Department to HHS. That is not a minor bureaucratic transfer. It changes the frame.”3 Pangram says this is mostly AI. I am not convinced that Pangram is wrong. In my own experience, Pangram is very effective on long texts — if it marks a long essay as AI, the essay was either written by AI or deliberately written to sound like AI. On tweet-length or paragraph-length texts, it’s not perfectly reliable. It seems to work just as well for non-native English speakers as for native speakers. While I have seen dozens of claims of pre-2022 text returning a positive result on Pangram, I have tried repeatedly to corroborate those and have never once succeeded. To be clear, I’m absolutely not saying that complaining about Pangram suggests a writer is a cheat. There are plenty of other concerns. Most are mistakenly premised, such as the false claim that Pangram trains on work you put into it, but others are reasonable: It’s unreliable on sufficiently short text segments; it creates an internet witch-hunt mentality when there are defensible uses of AI; people who are open about their AI use are sometimes blamed, when the only people really doing something wrong are the ones who hide it; and it isn’t perfect, so a single positive result shouldn’t be taken as decisive proof of misconduct. I’m happy to concede that Pangram is imperfect and possible to over-rely on. If an author’s posts are mostly non-AI and one scans as partially AI, this could be a mistake. It’s also possible to defeat Pangram with intentional effort. If you think we need something more robust and more reliable, fine! But if you don’t like AI and don’t like Pangram, your attitude really ought to be that it’s a shame that our existing tools for AI detection are imperfect, and it’s important to invent better ones. If your stance is instead that AI is evil and so is looking for AI, then ultimately you’re contributing to the sloppification of the internet. You’re making it harder for people who write their own text to distinguish themselves, and providing cover for authors who are definitely not writing their own text. Subscribe Top stories this week, by Kobe Yank-Jacobs Commentators often worry that the decline of reading could mean the decline of liberal democracy — but deliberative governance actually predated widespread literacy. This week, Maibritt Henkel pointed out that many liberal cultures thrive on a culture of raucous, interactive debate, which can happen in-person as easily, if not more so, than in text. Read on, dear reader, to learn more. It may actually cheer you up: [ ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/reading-wont-save-liberalism) [ Reading won’t save liberalism ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/reading-wont-save-liberalism) Maibritt Henkel · Sep 1 [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/reading-wont-save-liberalism) It used to be bad to downplay climate change (if we mean denying its reality). Today, it’s actually good to downplay climate change (if we mean keeping the issue out of political fights so we can make real progress). This counterintuitive view is called “climate hushing,” and contributor Alex Trembath argued that it’s the key to enacting good policy going forward. Get up to speed on the latest in climate politics: [ ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/we-wont-stop-climate-change-by-talking) [ We won’t stop climate change by talking about it ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/we-wont-stop-climate-change-by-talking) Alex Trembath · Sep 2 [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/we-wont-stop-climate-change-by-talking) Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney is standing up for the forces of liberalism against Donald Trump’s assault on our closest ally. So, why is one prominent left-wing commenter attacking Carney? Columnist Matthew Yglesias explains: [ ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/when-economic-liberty-means-central) [ When "economic liberty" means central planning ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/when-economic-liberty-means-central) Matthew Yglesias · Aug 31 [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/when-economic-liberty-means-central) 🌟Abundance Wins of the Week🌟 Shout out to my home state of California, whose legislature passed two housing bills this week. One requires a housing density minimum in transit-oriented areas of the state’s most transit-rich cities (Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, San Diego, and Long Beach). Another bill closes two common loopholes used by third parties to delay housing projects, including an opportunity to challenge maps of a given lot created by the developer after a project has been approved. Shout out to our big-state rival, Texas, where pro-housing SB 785 took effect this week. The new state law requires municipalities to have at least one district permitted for manufactured housing without a special permit. This will promote zoning changes in 44% of municipalities. The company Fervo Energy signed a deal with Google for what is set to be the world’s largest enhanced geothermal facility, proving a technology can work at a scale that could be crucial to a decarbonized, energy-abundant economy. Share Worth watching… This week, forecasting legend Nate Silver joined Jerusalem, Matt, and Jeremiah on a crowded episode of the pod. It was a party. And speaking of parties, our round table debated the factional lines within the Democratic Party: Is it possible to be center-left and also anti-establishment? Watch or listen to find out: The Rio Grande Valley in Texas is one of the areas that swung hardest toward Trump in 2024, but musician Bobby Pulido is running to flip it back. Right now, The Argument/Split Ticket’s model has him running 1.1 points behind his Republican opponent in a district Trump won by 18 points. Tune in to find out how he differs from national Democrats and what he thinks he can to do win this seat. On Thursday, Bernie Sanders was among the first politicians to call for a ban on superintelligence. My guest this week, Andrea Miotti, has been lobbying to ban superintelligence for several years, most recently in the U.K., U.S., and Canada. I asked him how he gets legislators to take speculative risks seriously, and we dug into what plans might look like to actually pass a ban. Listen to learn more: What’s News with The Argument The Argument recommends, by Kobe Yank-Jacobs If we ever lose track of Justin Zuckerman, I’ll have the team split up and check all the movie theaters in the city. I’m shocked (and a little jealous) at how often he gets out to see good cinema. This week, he brings us It Ends, a “horror-ish movie,” which he described as a “Gen Z Waiting for Godot.” I was intrigued before he added that it was “funny, dark and existential” — at which point I was fully locked in. I guess I also had existential themes on the mind this week. One morning, a single line from a poem I read long ago just came to me: “Is death a stretch of time in which a life is just a flash?” The poem is called “From 20,000 Feet” by Heather McHugh. I suggest the version in The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry, which, by tradition, my best friend and I always bring backpacking, extra weight be damned. We’ll stay thematically dark for just one more rec from senior editor John Robert Thomason, whose upcoming trip to Baltimore reminded him to suggest Michael Clune’s memoir White Out (about being addicted to heroin in Baltimore in the 1990s). Ben Lerner’s blurb called it _“_Disturbing, brilliant, hilarious—it’s as if Proust had written Jesus’ Son.” John told me this “seems accurate, with the caveat that I’ve never read Proust.” I, personally, have also shelved Proust until retirement. At this point, I was a little concerned for the team since all of us tossed out such psychologically grim material — maybe we’re all down about the end of summer — but thankfully, at least a few of us were into more upbeat selections. Milan Singh recommended Made In’s 5-quart stainless clad saucier, suggesting he had some fun in the kitchen. Jeremiah Johnson asked if he could recommend yet more Carly Rae Jepsen. Once denied, he offered up Game Changer instead_,_ calling it “the most wildly creative game show, maybe in the entire history of the genre.” Eli Richman mentioned _Lucky, “_a B-tier show with an A-tier cast and an S-tier theme song.” I suppose he was recommending the song, Horns of a Bull. Still, despite these cheerier recs, I couldn’t help but be concerned that we were subconsciously worried about racing toward summer’s end — the end of swim trunks and splashing around. Then a message landed reminding me of the three-day weekend to come. A whole extra day for sunshine. One more swim in the lake. I was grateful this called to mind yet another line from a poem, one by Mary Oliver, the patron saint of every gorgeous summer day (and about whom a documentary is now out). Speaking to God in the poem “Thirst,” she wrote: grant me, in your mercy,a little more time. Love for the earthand love for you are having such a longconversation in my heart. We have merch! We have quarter-zips, keychains, hats, and stickers. Each one is a great conversation starter in its own way. Buy them here. Subscribe More to read: [ The Opening Argument ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/seeing-like-an-elite)[ Seeing like an elite ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/seeing-like-an-elite) Kobe Yank-Jacobs · Sep 4 What do Americans hear when they watch Sen. Bernie Sanders or Vice President JD Vance rail against the elite? Are they thinking of right-wing tech billionaires? Imperious college professors? Liberal magazine writers? [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/seeing-like-an-elite) [ The Weekly Scroll ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/god-is-back-on-the-timeline)[ God is back on the timeline ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/god-is-back-on-the-timeline) Jeremiah Johnson · Sep 5 This week, we’re talking about Substack’s new religious debates, the continuing MAGA influencer scandal, how to retire from YouTube, and aura battles. [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/god-is-back-on-the-timeline) 1 This was a legitimate thing to worry about, but doesn’t seem to be a problem given the actual technology: Marijke Van Vlasselaer, Filip Van Droogenbroeck, and Bram Spruyt’s 2026 paper looks at whether Pangram is less accurate when evaluating the work of non-native speakers of English. It isn’t. That’s because Pangram isn’t really looking at how “unusual” a piece of writing is but whether it has the characteristic patterns of LLMs. The Wired article makes an odd gesture at a different Pangram-is-racist argument. There were several controversies this summer during which upcoming books were canceled after being discovered to be AI-written: “The three novels mentioned earlier — Shy Girl, Daggermouth, and Call Me, easily publishing’s biggest AI-detection scandals — were all written by writers of color.” But come on! As Zvi Mowshowitz put it: “They were not primarily written by people of color. They were primarily written by AIs.” That’s the whole problem! And as my colleague Jeremiah Johnson recently observed with respect to Cambridge’s Arday scandal, a community being unwilling to call out fraud if it’s perpetuated by people of color is not an anti-racist tendency; it is ultimately quite racist. 2 Many non-Pangram detectors don’t work, but many possible airplane designs also don’t work, and no one considers this a general argument against aviation; the thing that matters is whether any detection works. 3 The phrase “empires have always loved” mysteriously became all the rage in the last few years. See here, here, here, here and here. Before 2025, the only use of that phrase I have been able to find is a single Tweet. The logic of the sentence, too, is incoherent in an AI-characteristic way. “...sounds like paperwork, until you remember that empires have always loved paperwork”? Does remembering that make it sound less like paperwork? It’s a craft-ful sentence, but what is it actually saying??
Despite injury, the Diamondbacks earn a series win against Houston
The Diamondbacks came into the game looking for a series win, and with a little bit of luck, putting some more space between their competition for the final NL Wild Card spot. Having Eduardo Rodriguez on the mound was a point in their favor, but the offense still RVSP’d maybe when invited to the game. […]
Book Review: The Messy Business of Making Science Happen
Roberta Kwok’s “Lost in Curiosity” makes the case for luck and hard work over eureka moments in advancing science.
Erasmus is pushing his luck with the top brass
PAUL REES LOOKS AT WHY SOUTH AFRICA’S HEAD COACH MAY BE PLAYING FAST AND LOOSE WITH THE LAWS OF THE GAME THERE was little chance of the four-Test series between South Africa and New Zealand, which reaches is climax on Saturday in Baltimore, slipping by without Rassie Erasmus pushing hard at the boundaries of convention […] The post Erasmus is pushing his luck with the top brass appeared first on The Rugby Paper.
Battle Royale in NA West: Event 1 Event 1 Round 2
Battle your way to Diamond, Elite and Unreal in Combined Ranked in current season to be eligible for the first,second and final respectively Event of the Season! Compete for the opportunity to win a cash prize! Reach Round 2 (top 4000 in EU; top 2000 in NAC; top 800 in OCE, ASIA, ME, BR, NAW) where every player who earns a Victory Royale will earn $100 USD - good luck and have fun!
From Life’s Origin to Cyanobacteria in a Billion Years
That’s now just 1 billion years for all the apparatus to hit on the lucky combination randomly, unless we start with design principles.
Austin man's Texas politics video game skewers Ken Paxton
Have you ever dreamed of seeing the AG rendered in Game Boy Advance graphics? You're in luck.
Why new Newcastle United approach could finally cause Bournemouth problems
Bournemouth have become a proper pain in the backside for Newcastle United lately. It is not just bad luck either, there’s a reason why NUFC have found them so difficult.
Brentford v Sunderland: Key stats and talking points
Brentford are aiming to maintain their unbeaten start against a Sunderland side with one win and one defeat so far. BBC Sport takes a look at the key themes ahead of their clash at the Gtech Community Stadium on Saturday (15:00 BST). It's been a promising start to the season for the Bees, who have a win and a draw from their first two matches and were a bit unlucky to be pegged back by Leeds last weekend.
Book Review: The Messy Business of Making Science Happen
Roberta Kwok’s “Lost in Curiosity” makes the case for luck and hard work over eureka moments in advancing science.