These days we call it ‘engagement’ or ‘interaction’ – but make no mistake this latest piece of off-pitch drama is designed to make football fans mad
A lot of the tech giants tell you they’re investing so heavily in driverless cars because they want to save lives. And you know, that’s so close to the truth – but it’s not quite it. In fact, they’re investing so heavily in driverless cars because they want to capture ever more of your behavioural data, and that’s much easier to do when you’re interacting with their products instead of driving a car. Be in a car, by all means – but ideally you will soon be interacting with their products in that car, as opposed to driving it. Or to put it another way: these guys don’t want to save lives! They want to ruin them a bit more! (I’m kidding, of course. We’re only at the very beginning of understanding all the great stuff this type of technology has done for us.)
It’s hard not to see the same relentless altruism in the Premier League, who seem to be making yet further investment in the idea of football-less football. As discussed here a few weeks ago, the sheer volume of content generated about the league’s first winter break showed how much less essential football itself is becoming to the “product”, while football-adjacent content – off-pitch drama, social media engagement, sponsorship culture and so on – performs better and better all the time.
Written by Marina Hyde
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/mar/04/roll-up-roll-up-for-the-premier-league-hall-of-fame-oh-and-let-the-arguments-begin under the title “Roll up, roll up for the Premier League Hall of Fame (oh, and let the arguments begin) | Marina Hyde”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
