ben valenta

strategy & analytics, FOX SPORTS
author of fans have more friends

[ben valenta @ben_valenta]

@FreeRangeKids To be clear, there are real challenges facing youth sports, but an exaggerated narrative has taken hold that frames organized sports as the villain

[ben valenta @ben_valenta]

@FreeRangeKids I think it's important to not overstate the notion that participants and their parents are overwhelmed.

FOX Sports just surveyed several thousand parents. Turns out the vast majority are extremely satisfied with the experience... and they believe their kids are, too.

[ben valenta @ben_valenta]

@FreeRangeKids

A major conceptual problem is that “free play” and “organized sports” are framed as opposites on a single continuum, in which gains in one are necessarily losses in the other, and only the former is tied to mental health, independence, and social skills. When we rhetorically exalt *only* the sandlot, we implicitly denigrate organized sports as inauthentic, over‑structured, or even harmful, rather than seeing them as one of the few robust, real‑world social infrastructures many kids still have

[Big Cat @BarstoolBigCat]

Sports are the best

[ben valenta @ben_valenta]

@devahaz This is why sports fandom is a social super conductor: it provides more opportunities to do the same stuff at the same times at the same places on a regular basis than any other third thing.

[ben valenta @ben_valenta]

Maybe you were. But we tend to be unreliable narrators, especially going back decades. It *feels* like we devoured box scores every morning, but did we really? Like, every morning?

Hard to say if we’re really being honest.

Regardless, my contention is that today’s kid fans look a lot like yesteryear’s kid fans… It’s more similar than it is different.

[ben valenta @ben_valenta]

@tim_bays sports are *how* we spend time with friends and family; the "third thing" that facilitates friend and family interaction.

[Michael Mulvihill @mulvihill79]

Could not be prouder of this new initiative between Fox Sports and Harvard to better understand how sports brings us all together and contributes to a stronger social fabric. Big congrats to @ben_valenta who made it happen on our side.

[✏️Jacob Feldman @JacobFeldman4]

News: Harvard is studying why fans become so obsessed with sports.

https://t.co/5RFZlAdCJ0

[ben valenta @ben_valenta]

@BradWilcoxIFS An important reframing in the context of youth sports. The trip to and from practice/game is a feature, not a bug.

[ben valenta @ben_valenta]

@njh287 And to think, the simplest possible solution would be to schedule more games in windows where kids can watch with their parents...

[ben valenta @ben_valenta]

@willystaley @MattZeitlin Or what about the classic kiwi response of “yeah nah”???

[ben valenta @ben_valenta]

@mdotbrown except, it's not an entertainment product. all sports are entertaining, but they are not entertainment. sports is the business of belonging.

[ben valenta @ben_valenta]

@JESnowden Sports are the simplest way to engage other people. Sports solve social coordination and decrease friction for simply hanging out. Fandom improves connections among family members.

Cutting sports out of your life will undoubtedly make you lonelier.

[ben valenta @ben_valenta]

@JimmyTraina @AndrewMarchand “escape” has always been the wrong framing of consumer motivation in the media space.

Viewers aren’t running from despair, they are running toward their passions.

[ben valenta @ben_valenta]

@lauren_wilford This is the case for sports!

[ben valenta @ben_valenta]

@texasrunnerDFW @zarathustra5150

[ben valenta @ben_valenta]

@zarathustra5150