Money Doesn’t Buy Everything
The Romo Paradox — Last week, former NFL quarterback turned broadcaster, Tony Romo and CBS agreed to a $17 million per year contract. Expected competition from ESPN drove CBS to bid high to keep Romo from leaving.
The deal is the largest sports analyst contract in TV history and exceeds the $8 million ($14 million adjusted for inflation) yearly sum paid to John Madden two decades ago. In fact, Romo made over $17 million a year only twice in his playing days.
After leaving the NFL, Romo became a TV sensation in 2017 when he started accurately predicting plays before the snap. Studies of his calls showed an uncanny accuracy.
Romo was a decent player but rarely finished among the top eight quarterbacks in the league. As an analyst, however, Romo is prodigious not only for his predictions but also for his on the fly explanations of complex concepts that boost ratings.
From the example of Tony Romo, we propose a new term, “The Romo Paradox”
Romo Paradox: When a person’s value at talking about what they do exceeds their value at actually doing it.
Pandemic Rabbit Hole — This week, investor and thought-provoking Tweeter Naval Ravikant Tweeted:
Effectively, Ravikant suggests the humans have not escaped the food chain, but are merely the prey and hosts to smaller creatures. Our modern lifestyles of office buildings and jet travel make us easy pickings for crafty microbes.
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The “Red Queen” hypothesis comes from the world of biology and suggests that humans are in fierce evolutionary competition with viruses and bacteria to merely not go extinct. Or as the Red Queen of Alice in Wonderland fame says to Alice, “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.”
Billion Dollar Dud — After Joe Biden’s apparently scripted rise on Super Tuesday, Michael Bloomberg dropped out of the race after spending $700 million in just three months.
By every political measure, Bloomberg should have done better.
The Bloomberg campaign had state of the art everything and no lack of resources. As mentioned in previous editions of this email, the ads were the best in the field by a long shot.
So what do we learn from Bloomberg’s collapse?
Money Is Not Everything — After decades of increasingly expensive elections and calls for campaign finance, Bloomberg’s failure proves money is not the main issue with our political system. A billionaire tried to buy an election against a weak field and failed.
Earned Media Over Paid Media — Bloomberg outspent Bidden 100 to 1 and had an unparalleled weight in the message, but all the ads money could buy did not matter. Meanwhile, analytics firm Critical Mention estimates that Joe Biden garnered nearly $100 million in earned media between polls closing in South Carolina and 7 PM on Super Tuesday.
The Biden Surge is really the Trump model (win with earned media) writ small but demonstrates that paid advertising simply does not compare to the value of earned TV coverage.
Candidates Matter — Bloomberg would probably have been competitive if his debate performances had not been so plain terrible. Advertising does draw attention, but if the thing advertised is a bad product (as it was in Bloomberg’s case), you’ve got a problem.
Nothing matters more than a good candidate, not even $700 million in spending.
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