Welcome to North America

Howdy!

In this issue: why the FIFA World Cup isn’t a complete scam, honoring legends who passed, and highlighting some friends making moves

North America throws a great party

As we enter the standard summer slum of sports, the FIFA World Cup has been warming to watch on a daily basis. It’s an event you can watch no matter who you’re with - it’s fun for anyone to be a fan for 90 minutes.

Along with fun games, is the ongoing and long standing animosity against FIFA. A nonprofit that generates most of its billion of dollars through media & marketing rights and will have a tarnished reputation for the foreseeable future due to FIFAgate in 2015. (TLDR: officials took bribes)

FIFA also is notorious for redunkulous demands of like clauses to add a roof on open air stadiums, stripping any logo in the stands including the stadium name itself and making cities pay for upgrades without sharing the collection of revenue directly. Watch this breakdown by Pablo Torre for more details.

To city officials, the sell is the events are some of the best marketing a city can get and now that we’re halfway through the tournament, I’m actually starting to agree.

With this year’s focus on positivity, figured why not see where the benefits are in all this.

North America could use some good PR right now. Parts of Mexico has Level 4 Travel Advisories, everyone gets their own precious opinion about USA and we’re all cheering for the Canadian CAD to make a comeback.

This tournament has brought highlights like the Scottish takeover of Boston, a German guy eating delicious crappy American food and I personally saw how well Toronto welcomed international fans.

Much of the focus is on the 16 host cities, but what has stolen the show is the car travel experienced in between matches. Folks got to taste their first roadside taco, get unlimited coffee at a Waffle House and appreciate the mix of wildlife and climate around the continent.

Air conditioning was welcomed into hotel rooms, free bathrooms were cherished and horror was had when realizing Chick-Fil-A really is always closed on Sundays.

Trying to find a clear Return on Investment for host cities and countries is a pointless activity. On paper, you’ll see a combined $3.3B+ invested in addition to billions more in infrastructure investments.

While that spend may not spin back immediately into local economies during fùtbol play or even in next few years, it will be earned when all these people tell their friends back home and come back to visit again.

What Else

🫶 Honoring Lives of Legends

Since writing last, the Earth lots a few amazing people to me:

• Bobby Cox - legendary baseball manager, human being and competitors

• Ted Turner - media pioneer, Atlanta royalty and philanthropist

• Debi Reber - veteran, friend, daughter, sister and my aunt

• Oliver Tree - artist, comedian and scooter rider

🎸 Watch/Listen to Goth Babe

One of our favorite artists recently is Goth Babe. First found him from his folky/electronic music, but have recently stuck around for his YouTube channel Weekend Friend where he goes on weekend mini-adventures outside in different places around the country.

🔥 Just Start

Friends Doing Things

• Sarth started a new role as commercial relationship manager at PNC

• Hannah shared 4 dead simple soft skills you can focus on

• Michael got a job in Spain, while mastering Spanish

• Paul now works for Apple (not the fruit company)

• Ben announced a smart collab between Gro and Kit

Grandma’s Corner