It is 5:42 pm in California on Wednesday March 31st. I just saw a post from Patrick Ryan, co-founder of Eventellect on Twitter about tomorrows season opener for the New York Yankees:

To be sure, theres rain in the forecast. Although it is likely to ease by the first pitch, it is still going to be cold. But, $25 opening day tickets? There is something else afoot.

Here is what I see:

Ticket brokers really do not want to buy tickets now. There is too much uncertainty. Without brokers, there is a big hole in demand. Sporting event prices trade on two factors scarcity and FOMO (fear of missing out.) Without interest from brokers, supply rises and scarcity subsides. FOMO doesnt happen much in the wild. It tends to bubble up during hyped events in the post season.

It is entirely possible the FOMO fever broke during the past year when everything was televised with no fans or very few fans. The predicted spike in prices to get into limited capacity games never occurred, instead prices went down. Even the Super Bowl played to mild disinterest.

Why?

Gambling.

Come again?

Gambling.

So much of the fun of and attention paid to sports has been wrapped around Draft Kings and fantasy leagues which intertwine attention to players and the possible win or loss of money. But it is a new world now. Cryptocurrency trades 24/7.

In fact, as I write this at 5:48pm PST, Bitcoin is $59,160 and Dogecoin is $0.0539. I just bought both on Robinhood. Bitcoin looks like it is ready to challenge $60,000 again. Doge tends to follow Bitcoin.

Heres the thing. There is no commissioner of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a $1 trillion store of value which simply moves on supply and demand with some element of projections about devalued currency and its resulting inflationary effects. You can profit from every price move, and prices move constantly.

Unlike the visionaries who created Bitcoin and built the cryptocurrency infrastructure because they didnt like the present so they reinvented the future, sports marketing remain wedded to the past. The teams dont see the markers of change.

NFL broadcast rights just doubled in value with their new $11 billion television contract. That tells me that streamers and networks expect more eyeballs on screens, less in stands. Younger folks dont have the attention span to commit to an 82 game baseball season in person. And, post pandemic, there is going to be rethinking about where to spend discretionary income. For the teams which remain in disbelief, with a business plan consisting of the following words it will go back to the way it was there are some hard truths coming. If you dont see the wall, the stop is very sudden.

It is now 6:12 pm. Bitcoin is trading at $59,324 and Doge is $0.05414. I just sold both and took my profits.

Meanwhile, music festivals world-wide are selling well. Why? Festivals are a better value than sporting events. Festivals sell for around $350 which gets you three days of music within a giant party and the party is mobile. You can move anywhere on the festival grounds unlike sporting events where teams insist you sit in your seats, and your seats only. And, when youre mobile at a three-day party, youre social.

People are social animals. The past year has forced us to isolate which is against our nature. We want to root for ourselves and get out there in the mix. It is hard to make new friends at a sporting event. It is almost impossible not to make friends at a festival. Half the lure of selecting the camping option at festivals is for the mix and mingle which goes all night and throughout the day. There is some magic which occurs as day drinking meets nightfall.

Billie Eilish, Tame Impala and Green Day are headlining Life is Beautiful. Thats a perfect mix for boomers to millennials. Foo Fighters, Lizzo and Tame Impala headline Bonnaroo 2021. Same deal. I cant wait to see the lineup confirm for BottleRock. It usually skews to my taste. It was set to be Red Hot Chili Peppers, Miley Cyrus, Stevie Nicks and Dave Matthews Band before the postponement. Napa is a tough hotel market. My room is pre-booked three years in advance.

Its now 6:59 pm and Bitcoin is trading for $59,252. Im back in. Ill leave Doge for another day.

But, just as weve seen these price gyrations over the past hour or so Ive been writing, you can see why waiting to see who wins a three hour baseball game is too old school and too slow. Money never sleeps and trading is instant on your iPhone. If youre really in the game, you are trading on your phone while bouncing between multiple rooms on Clubhouse. Its fun to watch a team make a slow move over a four-month season to get into the playoffs, but how can that compare to a Reddit based group push to move Gamestop GME from $75 to $350 overnight?

I see the new world of ticketed events for music moving in a way more friendly to consumers. Ticket options are going to be better, and pricing is going to be fairer for ticket buyers.

Festival promoters understand the same thing casinos know. Once the people are in the building or on the field there are lots of opportunities for add on sales. Meanwhile, sports teams are looking to make their tickets into NFTs (non-fungible tokens) so they can milk the ups and downs of resale with smart contracts that pay a percentage to the team for every future trade. Satoshi isnt taxing my Bitcoin trades. Why should a team which already asks for payment a year in advance, before the buyer knows what the season looks like, who will be playing, who will be injured and the probability of playoff games participate in the resale price when the new owner of the ticket decides to sell?

Look at the downward trend of MLB attendance. The stands were mostly empty prior to Covid. I sold thousands of tickets at less than $20, because mid season games hold little attraction. Hockey has similar challenges. The San Diego Chargers couldnt even fill their temporary location in Carson, CA which held 27,000. Only the NBA is keeping attendance high, in part because their games are fast and their arenas are run like video games with constant distractions whenever the action on the court pauses.

NFTs are the new crypto. Just today I saw that a professional tennis player made her right arm into an NFT.

I am just finishing this article at 7:12 pm. Bitcoin is now $59,287. Im selling and done for the night. The small trades I made in crypto while writing this piece yielded 25 times what I earned to write it. Anyone can trade. You can buy in increments of $1 if you want. GrubHub GRUB will bring you food while you trade, and they offer lots of discount coupons.

Marketers with sports seasons to sell and stadiums to fill need to think long and hard about the compression of attention spans and the unlimited action which now exists in real time on the phones in the pockets of nearly every person on earth.

Teams need to rethink their models. Full season packages are in decline. Corporate suites hold less attraction post Covid. Games are too slow and too expensive. Familes dont go as often because of the cost, so we are aging out the current fans and not instilling desire into the next generation. I remember when Pong was enough distraction to monopolize a television for hours. No more. Evolve or die.

Remember board games? Whens the last time anyone played Scrabble? Who listens to CDs anymore? Its possible that movie theaters are toast now that streaming brought first run events directly into the home where there are HD 90 inch screens at Costco for the same cost as taking four people to a football game. There must be something truly compelling to make someone buy $250 tickets to watch a three-hour game where your only food options are mediocre, overpriced and inconvenient. And dont even get me started on the parking.