The funniest thing about the zohran episode is that the libs are gonna extrapolate “barely wins a New York City democratic primary” into “this is a message that resonates with working class swing voters”
The frictions you talk about at the end might get lubricated out by AI. Imagine a casual NBA fan who mostly only watches the playoffs. An AI assistant pushing a “watch the last two minutes of this close regular season game between two good teams on a service you’re subscribed to” notification would probably result in more time watched, more investment in narrative, positive feedback loop etc.
In fact you could argue the future will favor sports where you can anticipate moments of drama beforehand (basketball?) and hurt those that don’t (soccer?).