In the early 1980s, there was a stretch when my mom needed to bring in some extra money for the family. She started selling World Book encyclopedias — lead by lead. The way she generated those leads was by placing giveaway boxes in shopping malls, car washes, grocery stores — anywhere that would let her. The “prize” was one free volume of the encyclopedia, but the real win was in the conversations that followed. She sold entire sets. Enough that some of that money eventually went toward things my dad never would’ve budgeted for.
One of those things? Our very first VCR. I remember it costing around $500 — a serious investment back then. The irony? After insisting we didn’t need it because “we already watch too much TV,” my dad became the one who used it the most.
It isn’t easy to express what watching television was like before the VCR. If you missed an episode of your favorite show, that was it — you hoped for a rerun months later. If you got up during a commercial and missed a line when the show came back on, there was no rewind. No pause. Just regret and memory. That meant we, as viewers, showed up on their terms, not ours.
Then came the VCR. The timer setting. The pause button. That single innovation changed everything. Suddenly, we could watch our favorite shows with intention. We could catch up. We could relive moments. Home video stores exploded. Blockbuster became a cultural monolith. And for the first time, movie-watching began to shift from a theater-first to a home-first experience. That was the slope. TiVo accelerated everything to a whole new level. COVID kicked the cart the rest of the way down.
And it wasn’t just movies. Once we learned to pause, rewind, and record live sports, fandom itself began to change. ESPN’s nightly highlight shows turned into YouTube clips. YouTube gave way to TikTok snippets. Now, entire swaths of NBA fandom experience the league through four-second clips.
We’re wired for dopamine. But the more we hit it, the less it means. If everything is a highlight… then nothing is.
I turn 50 today, easily the rustic relic here at MMB. I’m not a spring chicken anymore, but I’ve earned some perspective. I grew up watching the Mavericks on a black-and-white 12” Philco, and I now share a Slack room with staffers covering the team in real time. It’s a privilege. But it also shows me how much has shifted.
We don’t all have time to watch every game. I get it. Glancing at the box score, checking social media, or reading a recap doesn’t make you less of a fan. But it does change your fan experience.
The modern fan experience is faster, shallower, louder. Patience is harder to come by. Championships are seen as the only metric of success, even by the team itself. Nico Harrison and some Mavericks players have publicly equated falling short in the Finals with outright failure, as if it softens the blow of the disastrous season that followed.
Even the way we consume coverage has changed. I won’t name other outlets, because I don’t think this is about blame — but the ecosystem now rewards clickbait, algorithm-friendly packaging, and headlines designed to lure rather than inform:
> “You’ll Never Believe What the Mavericks Just Did.”
> “Dallas Eyeing Former All-Star in Stunning Twist.”
Do I really need to click through four soft paragraphs just to read about a fringe player?
And while Mavs Moneyball isn’t perfect, we do our best to rise above that. We try to respect the reader, even with shorter pieces. And personally? I take great care in crafting the headline, subheader, and opening lines. Even if you don’t click, I want you to feel like your attention mattered.
Yes, I know why clickbait exists. Clicks mean traffic. Traffic means ad revenue. Ad revenue keeps sites alive. But somewhere along the line, reader trust started getting left behind. Maybe that train’s already gone. Maybe I’m just Grandpa Simpson shaking his fist at the algorithm. But I don’t think I’m wrong to want more for us.
Because here’s the truth: I’m turning 50 today, and this ride has moved faster than I ever expected. The Cooper Flagg era is about to begin — assuming the Mavericks don’t do something reckless on draft night. And I wonder… will it be harder to connect with Flagg the way we once connected with Luka in 2018–2020?
Not because of him. But because of us.
Because fewer and fewer of us are watching full games. We catch fragments. We chase emotion. We scroll past nuance.
I’m not here to guilt you. If your time is limited, your time is limited. You’re still part of the story. But every now and then — when it really matters — I’m asking you to be intentional.
Pick a game. Park your butt. Watch the whole thing. Feel the rhythm. Notice the rotations. Let the bench player surprise you. Let the story breathe next season.
Because that’s where the connection lives. That’s where fandom gets built — not in the clips, but in the commitment.