Following a blockbuster opening weekend for Captain America: Brave New World, ����������ý�Ļ���Ʒ’s Benjamin Robertson reflects on the appeal of superhero franchises and why they dominate studio release schedules

Captain America continues to conquer obstacles and crush villains―not bad for a man approaching age 85.

The comic book hero made his debut in print in December 1940, then on TV in 1966 and hit the silver screen in 2011―gaining massive momentum along with way. This past Presidents Day weekend, the fourth installment of the superhero series, “Captain America: Brave New World,” hit the top spot at the box office in the United States, and .

It’s the fourth-best Presidents Day launch on record, behind three other superhero movies: Black Panther, Deadpool and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

What’s going on here? What’s giving Captain America his muscle? And why do folks keep going back to these same stories, characters and worlds over and over?

Benjamin Robertson, a University of Colorado Boulder assistant professor of English who specializes in popular culture, film and digital media, says there are two answers: “One, the genre is comforting in its repetitiveness. This is the least interesting answer, however,” he says.

The second answer appears a little more sinister. Robertson says viewers return to these stories because creators make “story worlds that solicit consumers’ attention and that must always grow and that turn increasingly inward.”

He says the first Iron Man film is about America intervening in the Middle East following Sept. 11, but later MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe, the franchise behind many superhero movies) films seem less and less about real or historical matters and more about the MCU itself.

“As a colleague once put it, every MCU film is simply the trailer for the next MCU film, the result of a strategy that seeks to create a fandom that can’t escape from the tangled narrative that the franchise tells,” he explains.

In short, Robertson says if consumers want to know the full narrative—the full world that these films and series describe—they have to go to the theater. “As this world becomes about itself rather than about external history or real-world events, a certain ‘lock in’ manifests, making it harder and harder to not see these films if one wants to understand the world they create.”

‘Flatter American identities’

Another trick is that MCU films tend to “flatter American identities” by celebrating militarism, focusing on charismatic heroes who try to do the right thing unconstrained by historical necessity and suggesting that everything will work out in the end, Robertson says.

“I can see the more comforting aspects of these films having appeal to many consumers. Don’t fear climate change, fear Thanos [a supervillain] and other embodiments of badness,” he says.

As to the question of whether franchises are just growing their worlds and the characters in them, or retelling the same story because it makes money, Robertson says each MCU film is a piece of intellectual property, but an individual film is far less valuable than a world.

“A film might spawn a sequel or sequels, but without developing the world, the sequels will likely be of lesser quality and, eventually, no longer be profitable or not profitable enough to warrant further investment,” Robertson says. “But if producers develop the world into a complex environment that contains numerous characters with distinct and yet intersecting story arcs, well, then you have the foundation for potentially unlimited storytelling and profit in the future.”

He adds that in that context, Captain America has obvious value as an individual character, but he has far more value as part of a world that can develop around him and allow for new actors to play him as he evolves with the world.

So, as the world grows as an intellectual property and in narrative development, "so does the potential for profit, although we may now be seeing the limits of this dynamic as some MCU films have not been doing as well at the box office over the past five years, although there are likely several factors that contribute to this decline.”

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Are Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy the greatest love story? ����������ý�Ļ���Ʒ’s Grace Rexroth weighs in

What is the greatest love story of all time?

This is a question many like to consider, discuss and debate, especially around Valentine’s Day. Whether you’re more of a romantic at heart or a casual softie, you’ve more than likely heard or expressed the opinion that there is no love story quite like Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

Despite being more than 200 years old, something about this classic novel transcends centuries and social changes to remain a text with which many people connect, whether on the screen, stage or in the pages of the novel.

What makes this love story so memorable and so beloved? Is it truly the greatest love story of all time, or is there something else about it that draws readers in again and again?

According to Grace Rexroth, a teaching assistant professor in the University of Colorado Boulder Department of English who is currently teaching a global women’s literature course focused on writing about love, the historical context in which Jane Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice is crucial to understanding the novel's inner workings.

The Regency Era was a period of intense revolution and change. There still were very strict social norms surrounding marriage and status, which are evident in the novel, but it’s also important to consider that proto-feminist ideals, such as those expressed by Mary Wollstonecraft, were influencing conversations about the position of women in society, Rexroth notes.

Even at the time of publication, Pride and Prejudice was perceived differently between opposing political groups—more conservative thinkers saw it as a story that still rewarded conservative values, such as humility, beauty (always beauty) and a reserved disposition. Other, more progressive readers saw it as standing up to the status quo.

To this day, readers and scholars often debate whether Austen was writing to criticize or praise Regency Era ideas about women’s autonomy. In The Making of Jane Austen, author Devoney Looser observes, “It sounds impossible, but Jane Austen has been and remains a figure at the vanguard of reinforcing tradition and promoting social change.”

Nuance helps it endure

The fact that Pride and Prejudice lends itself to different interpretations is part of the reason why it’s lived such a long life in the spotlight, Rexroth says. It has managed to appeal to what people—specifically women—have wanted and fantasized about through different eras following its publication.

According to Looser, both film and stage adaptations have highlighted different aspects of the text for different reasons. During its first stage adaptations, for instance, the emphasis was often placed on Elizabeth’s character development. In fact, the most tense and climactic scene in these early performances was often her final confrontation with Lady Catherine De Bourgh, when Elizabeth asserts that she’s going to do what’s best for herself instead of cowering under Lady Catherine’s anger at her engagement to her nephew, Mr. Darcy.

Such scenes emphasize Elizabeth’s assertiveness and self-possession in the face of social pressure. Featuring this scene as the climax of the story is quite different from interpretations that focus on the suppressed erotic tension between Elizabeth and Darcy.

This doesn’t mean that adaptations prioritizing the romantic union didn’t soon follow. In 1935, Helen Jerome flipped the narrative on what Pride and Prejudice meant to a modern audience by casting a young, conventionally attractive man to play Mr. Darcy. Looser refers to this change as the beginning of “the rise of sexy Darcy,” a phenomenon that has continued in the nearly 100 years following this first casting choice.

In many ways, the intentional decision to make Mr. Darcy physically desirable on stage coincided with the rising popularity of the “romantic marriage”—a union founded on love and attraction rather than on status and societal expectations. Before this, Mr. Darcy’s being handsome was just a nice perk to Elizabeth, not a clear driving force for her feelings towards him.

From loathing to love

This is not to say there’s no implication of attraction in the original novel, though. There’s something magnetic about Darcy and Elizabeth’s relationship from the very beginning, when they profess their distaste for each other as the reigning sentiment between them (though readers can see that Elizabeth really doesn’t seem to mind being insulted by Mr. Darcy until later in the novel). It’s a quintessential “enemies to lovers” narrative, Rexroth says.

In that way, the novel offers a hint of the unruly desires driving many creative decisions in most modern film adaptations—from the famous “wet shirt” scene in the 1995 BBC adaptation with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, to what some critics argue is a highly over-dramatized first proposal scene staged in the rain in the 2005 Keira Knightly version. That sense of tension between Elizabeth and Darcy, unsaid but palpable, is a draw that has reeled in modern audiences to the point of obsession.

Rexroth suggests that part of the novel’s appeal hinges on what can and cannot be expressed in the text: “Because discussions of sex and desire are fairly repressed in the novel, emotional discourse has more free reign, which is often appealing to modern readers who experience a reverse set of tensions in modern life. Modern discourse, while often privileging a more open discussion of sex, often places tension on how and why we express emotion—especially in romantic relationships.”

Modern sexual liberation, especially through the eyes of women, has been an integral part of feminist movements. However, feminism also offers reminders that when the world still is governed by misogynistic ideas about sex—including women as the object and men as more emotionally unattached sexual partners—key aspects of what sex can mean from an anti-misogynist viewpoint are lost.

This, perhaps, is one reason that Pride and Prejudice is so appealing to women battling standards of sexuality centered around patriarchy, and who find themselves longing for something more—a “love ethic,” as author bell hooks called it.

However, is Pride and Prejudice really a perfect example of a "love ethic”? Rexroth also asks her classes to consider the pitfalls of how readers continue to fantasize about Pride and Prejudice, potentially seeing it as a model for modern romantic relationships.

Questions of true autonomy

While Elizabeth exercises her autonomy and free choice by rejecting not one but two men, standing up to Lady Catherine and overall just being a clever and witty heroine, she is still living within a larger society that privileges the status of her husband over her own and sees her value primarily in relation to the ways she circulates on the marriage market.

For that reason, women are never really autonomous, Rexroth says. How can they be, when Elizabeth’s decision to reject a man could potentially ruin her life and the lives of her sisters? Or when her sister Lydia’s decision to run away with Mr. Wickham nearly sends the entire family into ruin? What happens to Elizabeth in a world without Darcy?

This, according to Rexroth, is the danger of looking at Pride and Prejudice uncritically. Though readers and scholars may never know if Austen meant it to be a critical piece about the wider societal implications of the marriage market—although it can be inferred pretty strongly that she did mean it that way, Rexroth says—it does have startling implications towards modern relationships that we tend to find ourselves in.

“Modern discussions of love often focus on the individual, psychological aspects of relationships rather than the larger social networks that structure them,” Rexroth explains. “My students sometimes think that if they just work on themselves, go to the gym and find the right partner, everything will be okay—they’re not always thinking about how our larger social or political context might play a role in their love lives.”

The fantasy of Pride and Prejudice tends to reinforce this idea, she adds. It’s not that the world needs to change—the fantasy is that finding the right man will “change my world.” Such fantasies tend to treat patriarchy as a game women can win if they just play it the right way, Rexroth says. If a woman finds the right man or the right partner, that man will somehow provide the forms of social, economic or political autonomy that might otherwise be lacking in a woman’s life.

Such fantasies sidestep the question of what produces true autonomy—and therefore the capacity to fully participate in a romantic union, she adds.

So, is Pride and Prejudice the ultimate love story? Ardent fans might argue yes—a “perfect ending” with a “perfect man” is the quintessential love story, and who can blame readers for wanting those things? Happy endings are lovely. 

Others, however, might still wish that Mr. Darcy had behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.

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In honor of what would have been Paul Newman’s 100th birthday, ����������ý�Ļ���Ʒ film historian Clark Farmer considers whether there still are movie stars

Movies did not invent stars—there were stars of theater, opera and vaudeville well before moving pictures—but movies made them bigger and more brilliant; in some cases, edging close to the incandescence of a supernova.

Consider a star like Paul Newman, who would have turned 100 Jan. 26. Despite being an Oscar winner for The Color of Money in 1987 and a nine-time acting Oscar nominee, he was known perhaps even more for the radiance of his stardom—the ineffable cool, the certain reserve, the style, the beauty, the transcendent charisma that dared viewers to look away.

Even now, 17 years after his death in 2008 at age 83, fans still sigh, “They just don’t make stars like that anymore.”

In fact, if you believe the click-bait headlines that show up in newsfeeds every couple of months, the age of the movie star is over. In with Allure magazine, movie star Jennifer Aniston opined, “There are no more movie stars.” And in Vanity Fair’s 2023 Hollywood issue, , “The concept of a movie star is someone untouchable you only see onscreen. That mystery is gone.”

Are there really no more movie stars?

“There are still actors we like and want to go see, so I’d say there still are movie stars, but the idea of them has changed,” says University of Colorado Boulder film historian Clark Farmer, a teaching assistant professor of cinema studies and moving image arts. “I think that sense of larger-than-life glamor is gone, that sense of amazement at seeing these people on the screen.

“When we think of what could be called the golden age of movie stars, they had this aristocratic sheen to them. They carried themselves so well, they were well-dressed, they were larger than life, the channels where we could see them and learn about them were a lot more limited. Today, we see stars a lot more and they’re maybe a little less shiny and not as special in that way.”

Stars are born

In the earliest days of film, around the turn of the 20th century, there weren’t enough regular film performers to be widely recognized by viewers, Farmer says. People were drawn to the movie theater by the novelty of moving pictures rather than to see particular actors. However, around 1908 and with the advent of nickelodeons, film started taking off as a big business and actors started signing longer-term contracts. This meant that audiences started seeing the same faces over and over again.

By 1909, exhibitors were reporting that audiences would ask for the names of actors and would also write to the nascent film companies asking for photographs. “Back then you didn’t have credits, you only had the title of the film and the name of the production company, so people started attaching names to these stars—for example, Maurice Costello was called Dimples.”

As the movie business grew into an industry, and as actors were named in a film’s credits, movie stars were born. In 1915, Charlie Chaplin conflagrated across screens not just in the United States, but internationally, Farmer says.

“You could say that what was produced in Hollywood was movies, but studios were also actively trying to produce stars—stars were as much a product as the movies,” Farmer says. “There was always this question of could they take someone who had some talent or some looks or skills like dancing or singing, and would they only rise to the level of extra, would they play secondary characters, or would they become stars? Would people see their name and want to come see the movies they were in?

“Stars have this ineffable quality, and studios would have hundreds of people whose job it was just to make stars; there was a whole machinery in place.”

During Hollywood’s studio period, actors would sign contracts with a studio and the studio’s star machinery would get to work: choosing names for the would-be stars, creating fake biographies, planting stories in fan magazines, arranging for dental work and wardrobes and homes and sometimes even relationships.

For as long as it has existed, the creation and existence of movie stars has drawn criticism from those who argue that being a good star is not the same as being a good actor, and that stars who are bigger than the films in which they appear overshadow all the elements of artistry that align in cinema—from screenwriting to cinematography to acting and directing.

“There’s always been a mixture of people who consider film primarily a business and those who consider it primarily art,” Farmer explains. “Film has always been a place for a lot of really creative individuals who weren’t necessarily thinking of the bottom line and wanted to do something more artistic, but they depended on those who thought about it as a business. Those are the people asking, ‘How do you bring people in to see a movie?’ Part of that can be a recognizable genre, it could be a recognizable property—like a familiar book—but then stars are one more hook for an audience member to say, ‘I like Katherine Hepburn, I like her as an actress and as a person, and she’s in this movie so I’ll give it a try.'

“One of the biggest questions in the film industry is, ‘How can we guarantee people will come see our movie?’ And the gamble has been that stardom is part of that equation.”

Evolving stardom

As for the argument that movie stars cheapen the integrity of cinema, “I don’t think they’re bad for film as an art form,” Farmer says. “Audiences have this idea of who this person is as a star or as a performer, which can make storytelling a lot easier. You have this sense of, ‘I know who Humphrey Bogart is and the roles he plays,’ so a lot of the work of creating the character has already been done. You can have a director saying, ‘I want this person in the role because people’s understanding of who this person is will help create the film.’ You can have Frank Capra cast Jimmy Stewart and the work of establishing the character as a lovable nice guy is already done.”

As the movie industry evolved away from the studio system, the role of the movie star—and what audiences wanted and expected from stars—also began changing, Farmer says. While there was still room for stars who were good at doing the thing for which they were known—the John Waynes who were excellent at playing the John Wayne character—there also were “chameleon” stars who disappeared into roles and wanted to be known for their talent rather than their hair and makeup.

As film evolved, so did technology and culture, Farmer says. With each year, there were more channels, more outlets, more media to dilute what had been a monoculture of film.

“Before everyone had cable and streaming services and social media, movies were much more of a cultural touchpoint,” Farmer says. “People wanted to dress like Humphrey Bogart or Audrey Hepburn. Faye Dunaway wears a beret in Bonnie and Clyde and beret sales go off the charts. People went to the movies, and they recognized and admired these stars.

“One of the markers of stardom is can an individual actor carry a mediocre film to financial success? Another would be, are there people who have an almost obsessive interest in these stars, to the point of modeling themselves after star? Stars tap into a sort of zeitgeist.”

However, the growth and fragmentation of media have meant that viewers have more avenues to see films and more ways to access stars. Even when A-listers’ social media are clearly curated by an army of publicists and stylists, fans can access them at any time and feel like they know them, Farmer says.

“Movies are just less central to people’s lives than they used to be,” Farmer says. “There are other forms of media that people spend their time on, to the point that younger audiences are as likely to know someone who starred in a movie as someone who’s a social media influencer. But that’s just a different kind of stardom.

“I think the film industry really wants movie stars, but I’m not sure viewers necessarily care all that much. Again, it’s always the question of, if you’re spending millions and millions of dollars on a product and you want a return on that, how can you achieve that without making another superhero movie or another horror movie? The industry wants movie stars and audiences just want to be entertained.”

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Beer historian and ����������ý�Ļ���Ʒ Assistant Professor Travis Rupp explains why canned beer, celebrating its 90th anniversary today, has been ‘immensely impactful’ for the industry

“It's Saturday, y'all, here's a plan
I'm gonna throw back a couple …
Until the point where I can't stand
No, nothing picks me up like a beer can.”

• From “Beer Can” by Luke Combs

On Jan. 24, 1935, some shoppers in Virginia were likely scratching their heads and gawking at something they hadn’t seen before―beer in cans―s��𳦾��ھ�����������, Krueger’s Cream Ale and Krueger’s Finest Beer from the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company. Up until then, beer drinkers had enjoyed their suds in bottles. 

Today, canned beer is commonplace, but according to beer archaeologist and historian Travis Rupp, a University of Colorado Boulder teaching assistant professor of classics, even though canning would prove to be “immensely impactful” for the industry, neither brewers nor consumers cared much for cans initially.

“There were false claims made about metal flavor leaching into canned beverages because the beer was coming in contact with the aluminum,” Rupp says. “Where this may have been the case with early steel or aluminum cans, it wasn’t true for most of the container's history.”

Rupp adds that even as late as 2015, glass bottles were viewed as better containers for beer, given that they were “nicer” for presentation.

Yet today, cans have emerged as the clear winner in the beer game. A Colorado example: MillerCoors Rocky Mountain Metal Container, based near the Coors campus in Golden, now churns out roughly .

“Cans are the best containers for beer. They don’t let in sunlight or oxygen, which are both detrimental to beer,” says Rupp. “Bottles let in sunlight. Even brown or amber bottles allow a small percentage of ultraviolet rays through, which can skunk or spoil the beer. Bottles also can leach in oxygen through the cap over time as the seal breaks down. Bottles still have a place for cellaring or aging high gravity barrel-aged beers or sours, but if you want your beer to stay and taste fresh the longest, you opt for cans.”

The case for cans

Over the decades, cans have also helped brewers’ bottom lines: “Cans are far cheaper because they’re much lighter to ship,” Rupp explains. “Freight shipping costs are mostly dictated by weight. This ultimately can result in higher profits for breweries and lower costs for consumers. They’re also far, far cheaper to store, since they require far less space than glass bottles and cartons.”

Long before cans made their debut, Rupp says some breweries tried replacing wooden casks with metal kegs throughout the 19th century, but no protective liner existed to prevent metallic leaching in these containers. “And given the long duration that beer would sit in the metal casks before serving, the flavor would become quite awful. It wasn’t until the 1960s that stainless steel kegs hit the market.”

About that metallic-flavor-leaching debate, Rupp says aluminum can producers now apply a patented protective liner to the inside of their cans to prevent leaching. “If you cut open a can produced by the Ball Corporation [the global packaging giant], you’ll find … a dull grayish-white crosshatched pattern in the can. This is the protective liner, and I assure you no metal flavor is leaching into your beer.”

But for Rupp, perhaps the most impressive technology comes in what’s called the seaming process on cans. The ends (or top) of the can are produced separately. Once the cans are filled, the end is placed on top and goes through a series of rollers and chucks to seam the top of the can.

“This bond is so tight that the sides of the can will fail before the seam does. It’s a really cool advancement in canning technology, as are canning machines in general that work hard to ensure no oxygen ends up in the beer before the cans are sealed. We’ve come a long way from church keys and pull tabs on beer cans.”

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The success of simulcasts means that fans can expect to see more creative takes on traditional sports, including SpongeBob SquarePants calling Saturday’s NFL Wild Card game

As the final seconds of Super Bowl LVIII ticked off, according to social media, the biggest star was not MVP Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce or even Taylor Swift; it was a sea sponge and his starfish best friend. l starring SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star as commentators was a huge hit, with on-field graphics and animations featuring Nickelodeon stars and, of course, slime.

This was not the first time a media conglomerate aired or streamed a simulcast as a companion to its main broadcast to attract more fans. ESPN’s first basic simulcast was in 1987 after the network gained partial rights to the NFL—the first cable network to air the NFL—agreeing to simulcast the game on . When ESPN2 launched in October 1993, it offered a second ESPN network to sports fans and within a year ran its first alternative broadcast, bringing in-car views to .

Jared Bahir Browsh is the Critical Sports Studies program director in the ����������ý�Ļ���Ʒ Department of Ethnic Studies.

In 2006, the network created later renamed the Megacast, leveraging the popular basketball rivalry between Duke University and the University of North Carolina to offer local broadcasts and alternative camera views for the game. The previous year, ESPN had launched its college-focused ESPNU and ESPN360, its broadband broadcast service, and used these newer platforms along with its .

ESPN offered statistics and other data on its high-definition networks, which were still separate from the standard-definition networks, and even offered polling through ESPN mobile before social media exploded.

These simulcasts and “Megacasts” aimed to give dedicated fans a more in-depth look at the game or event that was being broadcast. At the same time, leagues and sports broadcasters were looking for different ways to attract young and casual fans who enjoyed sports but were not the obsessive fans at which these Megacasts were targeted.

Courting younger fans

For a long time, leagues took young fans for granted, In today's expanding media environment, young and casual fans have infinite options for entertainment, so leagues and their broadcasting partners have had to strategize new ways to attract new audiences.

One of these efforts debuted in 1973: Peter Puck, an anthropomorphic hockey puck created by NBC executive Donald Carswell and animated by Hanna Barbera. NBC had just obtained the rights to the NHL, which was struggling to grow its audience in the United States. Carswell thought Peter would be a great way to teach U.S. audiences the rules of professional hockey through three-minute shorts between periods. Although NBC stopped airing the NHL in 1975,

The 1980s brought a sea change for sports as cable and improved marketing began to create the enormous sports media environment we experience today. As networks competed for viewers, sports became a reliable form of entertainment to attract audiences who had more choices than ever. As football continued to dominate the sports landscape, buffered by the 1984 Supreme Court decision to allow college football broadcasting to , other leagues strategized to draw fans to television, stadiums and arenas.

Throughout the 1970s, teams had built larger stadiums and debuted mascots like the to entertain fans. The following decade, as the NBA struggled to find a broadcaster to air its championship games live, David Stern—who took over the league as commissioner in 1984— the NBA experience, making attending games more family friendly with more timeout and halftime entertainment.

It just so happened that same year that the most marketable athlete of all time came into the league. Michael Jordan was not only a boon for adult basketball fans, but also kids who wanted to In 1992, Jordan co-starred with Bugs Bunny in the Nike advertising campaign He retired the next year to play baseball before returning to the NBA in March 1995. The following summer, Bugs and Jordan reunited to film which grossed more than a quarter of a billion dollars after it premiered early into the NBA season in November 1996.

As a part of this effort to draw new fans, leagues also produced shows aimed at younger fans like which debuted in 1980 and featured MLB players and managers teaching baseball fundamentals. Ten years later, “premiered on NBC’s Saturday morning schedule, joining a growing sports media industry aimed at kids that included publications like Sports Illustrated for Kids and video games like the Madden, FIFA and NBA 2k series, among the most popular video game series of all time.

Primetime slimetime

The consolidation of the U.S. media system throughout the 1980s and 1990s led to massive media conglomerates. Unsurprisingly, NBC held the network broadcast rights for the NBA when “NBA Inside Stuff” aired. As broadcast and cable networks came under the same corporate umbrella as film and animation studios, new opportunities for cross promotion emerged. Disney bought ESPN and opened the , named after the anthology series that aired under one of their other subsidiaries, ABC, from 1961 until 1997     . Disney also founded an NHL team, , in 1993—named after the popular 1992 kids hockey movie—and in 1996 debuted “ on ABC, which featured anthropomorphic hockey playing superhero ducks.

The success of Space Jam and the continued media conglomeration strengthened the relationship between animation and sports. NASCAR rights holder FOX debuted an animated action series featuring NASCAR branding, a day before the 1999 race season finale. Cartoon Network aired the marathon in 2003, featuring interstitial interviews with NBA players in the lead-up to the All-Star Game, which aired the evening of the game on TNT (both networks were owned by Warner subsidiary Turner).

In 2016, appeared on the Cartoon Network series the same night as a TNT basketball doubleheader and a few days before the All-Star Game. Later, the of the 2023 NBA Slam Dunk Contest in the lead-up to the NBA All-Star Game airing on TNT.

Although these series and specials expanded the visibility of league branding and special events, the engagement with actual games was limited. When Viacom and CBS merged again in 2019, after splitting 14 years earlier, they began strengthening the relationship between former Viacom network . They began featuring Nickelodeon content on CBS All-Access, now Paramount+, and in 2021 Nickelodeon aired an between the Chicago Bears and New Orleans Saints featuring Nickelodeon live-action and animated stars joining the real-time NFL broadcast with alternate announcers Nate Burleson and Noah Eagle. Current Denver Broncos coach , similar to the traditional Gatorade shower.

The following season, premiered on Nickelodeon, a highlight show hosted by Burleson that strengthened the relationship between the NFL and Nickelodeon. This relationship exploded during last years’ Super Bowl as the Nickelodeon simulcast on the cable network and Paramount+ was credited for a growth in game viewership, especially among younger and casual fans who appreciated the

A pineapple under the arena

As media conglomerates continue to leverage sports rights to attract audiences and increase subscriptions to their streaming services, they have also leaned into the popularity—and meme-making possibilities—of these simulcasts. Several months after the Nickelodeon simulcast of the Wild Card Playoff, Disney leveraged its Marvel Cinematic Universe to produce a simulcast, on ESPN2 and its streaming service, which was similar to the Wild Card game on Nickelodeon and featured special graphics and superhero-themed content related to the real-time NBA games between the Golden State Warriors and New Orleans Pelicans. the company behind augmented games like the Arena of Heroes simulcast, extended their contract in the summer of 2024.

In 2023, Disney aired its own fully animated simulcasts with the NHL broadcast in March and the Toy Story-themed NFL game in September. Both regular-season games included a rendering of the real-time broadcasts featuring stars from its animated franchises. Disney followed this up in December 2024 with another featuring “The Simpsons” and the Christmas Day animated simulcast featuring classic characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. In between these two games, NBC’s Peacock service offered an alternate stream of the game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Texans featuring graphics from the

As SpongeBob and Patrick prepare to announce the Nickelodeon simulcast of the 2025 NFL Wild Card game between the Houston Texans and Los Angeles Chargers Saturday, fans should be prepared for more of these simulcasts as networks and streaming services try to market these games to young and casual fans, boosted by social media memes like   and .

Jared Bahir Browsh is an assistant teaching professor of critical sports studies in the ����������ý�Ļ���Ʒ Department of Ethnic Studies.

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Sixty years after the debut of the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer stop-motion animated classic, the yearly flood of holiday films can thank the small reindeer for their success

As we spend the Christmas season binging on , one diminutive reindeer has been part of Christmas media longer than any other figure.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was created as a coloring book in 1939 by Robert L. May for Montgomery Ward when the retailer decided to produce its own coloring books after distributing books from other publishers for years. May faced pushback on the story, since red noses were associated with drinking at the time, but ultimately Montgomery Ward distributed more than 2 million copies of the story that .

Jared Bahir Browsh is the Critical Sports Studies program director in the ����������ý�Ļ���Ʒ Department of Ethnic Studies.

The first Rudolph cartoon debuted in 1948, directed by . The next year, the famous song written by May’s brother-in-law Johnny Marks debuted behind the vocals of Gene Autry, hitting number one—the first top song of 1950 that was added to Fleischer’s cartoon when it was reissued in 1951.

Autry’s beloved version of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” sold more 1.75 million copies in 1949 alone, and altogether Autrey’s and every other version of the song have behind only Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” in total Christmas song sales. It is also the only No. 1 song to fall completely off the charts the week after it peaks.

receiving a writing credit after suing for trademark infringement. Autry also wrote and sang

The growth of the recording industry after World War II was part of a larger post-war economic boom in the United States that supported the increased commercialization of Christmas, which had started a century earlier with depictions of Santa in the 1840s and his first in-store appearance at the His appearance in the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1924 was thought to kick off the holiday shopping season, with his modern image confirmed by A decade later, Rudolph joined Santa on his sleigh as a Christmas icon.

Stop-motion animation

In the first 25 years after May created Rudolph, the reindeer with the light-up nose became a multimedia legend, inspiring comic and children’s books in addition to the original coloring book and 1948 cartoon. But the small animation studio Rankin/Bass—founded as Videocraft and going by that name until 1974, when it rebranded as Rankin/Bass— and produced the longest continuously running Christmas special in United States television history.

The unique stop-motion animation style Rankin/Bass used was called and his MOM Production Studio. The process debuted in the United States in 1961 in a syndicated series called The New Adventures of Pinocchio, but the helped the stop-motion animation approach become legendary. Rankin/Bass was one of the earliest studios to outsource its animation to Japan, which became common practice in .

Since its debut in 1964, the Rudolph special has gone In 1965, the song “Fame and Fortune” was added, to the chagrin of fans of the original; the song and the scene were removed and Santa’s visit to the Island of Misfit Toys was added in 1966. 

Since its debut Dec. 6, 1964, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has gone through a number of edits. (Image: Rankin/Bass)

Yukon Cornelius’ visit to the peppermint mine was also edited out of the original and would not return until 2019, when the network Freeform obtained the rights to this and several other Rankin/Bass specials as a part of its .

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer aired on NBC, its original network, until 1971, when , which it held until 2023. For the film’s 60th anniversary this year, NBC will air the full film in a 75-minute broadcast on Dec. 6, the same date the original debuted in 1964. Unlike other Christmas specials, the film is not available as a part of any streaming service and must be purchased to view it outside the

The stop-motion Rudolph film not only became an instant classic, but also led to a wave of classic Christmas visual media in television and film. A Charlie Brown Christmas debuted in 1965, followed in 1966 by the animated How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, which was adapted from the 1957 Dr. Seuss book. Rankin/Bass would continue to produce holiday specials, including traditionally animated specials based on the Charles Dickens Christmas novella The Cricket on the Hearth (1967) and The Mouse on the Mayflower (1968), a Thanksgiving special.

The studio’s greatest successes, however, were its specials based on popular holiday songs and traditional stories. Later in 1968, The Little Drummer Boy debuted, a stop-motion special based on the song written in . The song became a holiday standard in the United States through the later version by The Harry Simeone Chorale, who also recorded the popular version of “. “The Little Drummer Boy” was also covered by Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby with David Bowie.

The film The Little Drummer Boy is fairly dark for an animated special of the time, featuring the drummer boy Aaron’s family being murdered before he is kidnapped, forced to perform and escaped to join the .

A holiday deluge

Rankin/Bass studio produced Frosty the Snowman in 1969, which was drawn to look like a Christmas card. (Image: Rankin/Bass)

In subsequent years, Rankin/Bass continued to produce specials that became staples of various holidays, including the traditionally animated The studio also produced a number of other stop-motion specials, including and . The partnership between Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass resulted in more than two dozen holiday specials and numerous other films and series, including the .

What used to be special, sprinkled throughout late November and December, has become a massive media industry leading to most regularly scheduled series taking a as a torrent of holiday specials and sporting events dominate television from Thanksgiving through the college football bowl season in January. The holiday season is now overrun by a collection of animated specials, holiday episodes and cheesy rom-coms. The latter of these were popularized by Hallmark, which has been sponsoring specials for broadcast since 1951, making what is now known as the the longest-running anthology series on television.

Hallmark’s low-budget holiday specials have been a staple of the holidays since 2000 and dramatically increased when . Since then, the channel, which has grown in popularity over the last two decades, has produced more than 300 holiday specials created around formulaic narratives largely focused on family-appropriate romance. Other media outlets, including Lifetime Network and Netflix, have also joined this trend, leading to a deluge of specials of varying quality dominating the holiday season.

However, many of these specials rooted in nostalgia and familiar formulas can thank Santa’s ninth reindeer for using his shining nose to lead the way in establishing our holiday watching habits.

Jared Bahir Browsh is an assistant teaching professor of critical sports studies in the ����������ý�Ļ���Ʒ Department of Ethnic Studies.

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����������ý�Ļ���Ʒ lecturer Marla Schulz examines the Broadway-musical-turned-film Wicked and how the movie musical endures

Since the Broadway musical Wicked opened in fall 2003, it has been beloved by both critics and audiences. Based on Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel, it has dominated Broadway, becoming the  of all time and amassing more than $5 billion in sales worldwide via the Broadway show and a touring production that has been to more than 100 cities in 16 countries.

So, it wasn’t much of a surprise when Universal Studios announced plans to bring the musical to the big screen in . After a slew of delays, many due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the film was finally released on Friday, following a months-long, pink-and-green global marketing blitz.

Marla Schulz, a lecturer in the ����������ý�Ļ���Ʒ Department of Theatre and Dance, says part of Wicked's appeal is the story of a misunderstood girl turning into a misunderstood villain.

During its opening weekend, the film grossed — for a film based on a Broadway musical, demolishing the previous record set by Into the Woods—and currently has a . What makes this Broadway-to-film musical so successful when several of its recent predecessors—including Dear Evan Hansen and �䲹�ٲ�—flopped?

According to Marla Schulz, a lecturer in the University of Colorado Boulder Department of Theatre and Dance who earned her MFA in dance with an emphasis on musical theater, there are many things that make Wicked special.

“A lot of people resonate with the story of a misunderstood girl turning into a misunderstood villain. It feels clever and also poignant,” Schulz explains.

Stage to film

As with anything that fans deeply love, however, there are those who argue that adapting a Broadway musical to a film is unnecessary, especially if it is considered “perfect” as is, like Wicked. 

“(But) going to see a musical can be quite difficult, especially for people who might have fewer resources or live in rural areas,” Schulz says. “Tickets to go to the theater can be expensive, especially if you want to see a union production. To see the original production, you frequently have to travel to a large city to either see a touring production, or you can spend a lot of money to go to New York. Adapting live musicals to film makes the artform significantly more accessible.”

The cheapest ticket to see Wicked on Broadway is , which doesn’t include travel or accommodation costs for those who don’t live in New York City. For many, this can be an insurmountable expense, even for the biggest fans of the original book and Broadway musical. Once the production is made into a film, however, it becomes accessible to millions.

Of course, like most things that have huge, passionate fanbases, stage-to-film adaptations inevitably draw backlash, even before the film is released. In everything from casting choices to set design, Broadway musicals often draw intense scrutiny when they are adapted into film.

“It’s not an easy thing to do,” Schulz says. “You have audience members who are comparing the movie version to the staged version. In most cases, the writers have a specific reason they wanted this story told as a musical, on stage, with the opportunities and limitations that it provides.

Cynthia Erivo (left) plays Elphaba and Ariana Grande (right) plays Glinda in the film Wicked. (Photo: Universal)

“When it moves to a film, the big question that comes up is what does this new medium have to add to the story? And if it doesn’t have anything to add, then why are we doing it?”

This can be part of what makes the musicals-turned-film flops so notorious: They failed to do the original production justice, Schulz says. Perhaps inevitably, both critics and fans ask, “H�Ƿ�?”

Everything from bad costumes and editing to inconsistent world-building can add up to a bad adaptation of a beloved musical. The 2019 film adaptation of �䲹�ٲ�—a beloved musical that ran for 18 years and almost 7,500 shows on Broadway—is a recent example.

Schulz says that it can be quite easy to mess up an adaptation. “The Dreamgirls movie musical is an example of what can go wrong when you don’t properly set up the world of a musical. For a large majority of the movie Dreamgirls, all the songs are diegetic (heard by both the film’s characters and audience), emanating from a performance or a recording session. When 30 minutes in we finally get a song that is non-diegetic, it’s quite jarring. If you’re going to do a musical film, do that from the beginning in all aspects; embrace it.”

Defying gravity

Gauging by its opening weekend box office totals, the Wicked film adaptation has so far avoided the pitfalls of the so-called flops that preceded it. The second half of the story—Friday’s release covers Act I of the stage musical—is  in 2025.

The film also has recouped its  production cost.

At a time when the box office success of Broadway-to-film adaptations can most accurately be called inconsistent, Wicked is so far defying expectations (and gravity).

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Looking at two of Disney’s most famous female characters, Anna and Elsa, with a critical eye with CU lecturer Shannon Leone

Nov. 22 marks the five-year anniversary of the release of Disney’s global phenomenon Frozen 2. This film, and the first Frozen, are widely considered some of Disney’s most progressive works, changing how the studio depicts their female characters.

Many applaud the films for giving young women and girls new and better role models than those previous generations had in Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. However, are Anna and Elsa really that different from the princesses who came before them?

Shannon Leone, a ����������ý�Ļ���Ʒ lecturer, teaches a popular course in the Department of Women and Gender Studies called Disney’s Women and Girls.

Shannon Leone, a lecturer at the University of Colorado Boulder who teaches a popular course in the Department of Women and Gender Studies called , notes, “If you look at more traditional Disney films, they have encouraged an idea of both girlhood and womanhood that celebrates traditional feminine passivity, the quintessential example being the damsel in distress. With more recent female protagonists, they have become arguably more empowered and express desires outside of romance.”

Yet there still is debate about how the women and girls of Disney are influencing their youngest viewers and fans.

“Younger children have more choices in who they can align their identities with—characters they can celebrate and characters that they can look at with a more critical eye. They have more choices than previous generations,” Leone says.

Some scholars have noted that Disney previously taught young girls that the only pleasure and purpose in life was finding a man to love them—a message that many women have questioned and rebelled against.

Now, Disney creates “progressive” princesses like Tiana from The Princess and the Frog and Moana from Moana, who will appear on screen again Nov. 27 when Moana 2 opens

Something different

One thing that makes the Frozen films—and their heroes Anna and Elsa—different from their Disney predecessors is its focus on love, but not necessarily romantic love.

“Frozen is an example of a film that portrays sisterly love, which unfortunately continues to be rare in Disney films,” Leone says. Most Disney films with a female protagonist are centered around an idea of love—specifically romantic love. By focusing on the love shared between sisters, instead of a man and a woman, Frozen and Frozen 2 present a broader picture of love and the things to which girls can aspire, Leone says.

Moana, who has been praised for having a more realistic figure, will return to theaters Nov. 27 in Moana 2. (Image: Disney Enterprises Inc.)

And the film Moana didn’t have a romantic subplot at all, instead focusing on Moana’s dreams of exploration. Moana also has been widely praised for having a more realistic figure compared with the impossible dimensions of previous Disney heroines.

It’s not just the romantic plotlines of Disney films that have changed, but also how the female characters are portrayed in the first place, Leone says. She cites Elsa from Frozen as an important example: a woman who is depicted more like a traditional Disney female villain than a princess.

“Elsa was supposed to be a villain, and having some traces of what would have made her an antagonist in the film actually produces more of a multifaceted human being, which I think young viewers responded to,” Leone explains.

Another notable example is Tiana from The Princess and the Frog, who made history by being Disney’s first African American princess. Despite breaking down barriers, many critiqued the movie for .

“The film is self-aware of traditional expectations of beauty in association with the princess type. With that being said, I don’t want to undermine the significance of that film in its representation of Black American identity,” Leone says, emphasizing that despite its flaws, the movie still made important progress in representation.

While younger generations of little girls may have better role models in the Disney princesses of today, it’s still important to consider what these movies are teaching young viewers. “Contemporary films seem to still have to contend with these racialized and gendered expectations of the damsel in distress and the masculine hero,” Leone says, adding that it's easy to overlook the deeper meanings in Disney movies that children may latch onto.

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In a recently published paper, ����������ý�Ļ���Ʒ PhD student Cooper Casale interrogates Jim Halpert’s direct-to-camera gaze in The Office and its similarities to what he calls the ‘fascist look'

A couple of years ago, Cooper Casale was dating a woman who loved the American version of “The Office.” Despite having watched seasons two and three on repeat in middle school so he’d have something to talk about with a girl he liked, a decade had passed and he wasn’t really a fan anymore.

“But I end up being sucked into it,” recalls Casale, a PhD student in the University of Colorado Boulder Department of English. “I watched all the way through multiple times—it becomes a kind of hypnosis. It was just always on.”

Through nine seasons and repeated watching, Casale began to wonder: Is Jim Halpert looking at me?

In a newly published paper, ����������ý�Ļ���Ʒ PhD student Cooper Casale argues that the Jim Halpert gaze represents the punitive aspects of mainstream culture that are foundational to enforcing and maintaining capitalism.

In the 650 times that Jim Halpert (played by actor John Krasinski) looks at the camera through those nine seasons—there’s even a of them on YouTube—Casale began considering what or who he was seeing in the Jim Halpert gaze: the pitiless scientist, the capitalist boss or the fascist father? Or perhaps all three?

In a in the Journal of Popular Culture, Casale considers how the Jim Halpert gaze is also the fascist look.

“The Fascist Look enlists its subjects into their make-believe hero's service, a role audiences want to occupy,” Casale writes. “They want to please Halpert, as the worker wants to please the foreman. Their peculiar loyalty partly explains ‘The Office's’ remarkably enduring popularity…

“Halpert's Gaze arms people against their feckless bosses, slovenly neighbors and annoying coworkers. At the same time, his frozen glare, his pranks and his sarcasm represent the punitive aspects of mainstream culture that are foundational to enforcing and maintaining capitalism. Halpert does not critique his corporate arrangement but merely masters it. He becomes its boss, and viewers enamored by his cruel fiction but powerless to act it out, choose, in Halpert, a more nightmarish boss than they had before. Furthermore, viewers are thankful because he reminds them that the great can still overcome the small.”

Microdosing work

First, though, a sorry-not-sorry: While Casale appreciates a lot of the humor in “The Office,” he increasingly resents its popularity now that remote work is so common. He wanted to understand how the “almost liturgical pattern in which some people watch it” has become a sort of surrogate to having an in-person, so-called work family, he explains. “There are some who never turn it off. When I was in publication for this paper, my editor was like, ‘You can’t prove that,’ and I can’t, not yet, but there’s an observably strange practice in people watching this show on rotation all the time.

“So, the initiating question was ‘Why do people come home from a 9 to 5 and immediately watch a show about 9 to 5?’ Theodor Adorno wrote about this in his essay ‘Free Time,’ about how free time is itself a kind of work. We have to spend those hours after work preparing to return to work, so people watching ‘The Office’ is almost like microdosing having to go back to work.”

In the character of Jim Halpert, Casale says, “The Office” established an everyman protagonist—a frustrated dreamer and creative type who somehow ends up in a meaningless job at the world’s most boring business. When he looks directly at the camera, he conveys that he recognizes the absurdity and ridiculousness around him and that he is somehow above it.

Citing another Adorno work, “Dialectic of Enlightenment,” which observes that enlightenment and barbarism are often linked, Casale notes that “Jim Halpert represents this enlightened corporate subject. He’s presented as smarter than everyone else, but we see how fast that enlightenment has to express itself through barbarism or violence in the pranks he’s constantly pulling on Dwight.

Actor John Krasinski played the character Jim Halpert in "The Office" and looked directly at the camera 650 times over nine seasons. (Photo: NBC Universal)

“Dwight’s biggest crime in the whole show is that he likes his job. He’s presented as naïve, sentimental, he likes beets and ‘Battlestar Galactica,’ and because of his sentiment he must be punished. We’re meant to believe that Jim really deserves to be somewhere else, and he’s only there because he’s unlucky, but it’s everyone else’s fate to be there. Kevin will never do better, Stanley will never do better, but it’s Jim’s fate to overcome the circumstances of his life. We’re meant to find his cruelty affable.”

“The Office” reaffirms the strange hierarchies of corporate America but sells them as quirky, Casale says. Its documentary style becomes a two-way mirror between Jim Halpert and viewers—in Jim’s disgust, annoyance, resentment or bemusement, viewers have a proxy in lieu of their own documentary camera recording their reactions to the clowns and fools around them.

Interrogating power

The Jim Halpert gaze becomes the fascist look when considered through the lens of power, Casale says: “We have this TV show teaching me that the best way to express my power is to lend it to somebody else who can punish people in my stead. It’s similar to how a vote for an autocrat is a vote to not have to vote anymore. We see it in the working class voting for Donald Trump, who’s only going to give tax breaks to the rich. But because they want to be rich, there’s an aspect of living out their dreams through him.

“I think people always struggle with how members of the working class can vote against their self-interest. Part of it, I think, is that people’s resources to express themselves or express some kind of autonomy are so impoverished that their last opportunity to be free is to live in surrogate through someone else. If Jim Halpert can prank these people and humiliate all his coworkers, then I can live vicariously through Jim Halpert.”

Casale adds that rather than interrogating the structures of power and capitalism that Jim Halpert ostensibly gazes against, “The Office” emphasizes a message that mimicking the behaviors of power will lead to having power. In “The Office,” Jim Halpert is in control—not Michael, not Dwight, nor any of the other characters to essentially serve as his minstrels.

“I think that’s the fascist myth,” Casale says. “It’s a desire to be dominated so I can learn the procedures of how to dominate others. In my own domination, I learn what it feels like and how I can do it. We see this with any kind of autocrat, including Jim Halpert. When Donald Trump says he wants retribution, there are thousands upon thousands of regular, pretty nice people who say, ‘I want retribution, too.’ And because they won’t direct their anger to capitalism, the real culprit, they have to have proxy wars about DEI, gender, immigration, whatever else, so they won’t have to focus on the real cause of their powerlessness.”

Top images: NBC Universal

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In advance of Tuesday’s Major League Baseball All-Star game, ����������ý�Ļ���Ʒ history professor Martin Babicz offers thoughts on why some fans remain loyal to baseball’s perennial losers

Every season, one Major League Baseball team earns champion success in the World Series while the rest place behind. And within that second group are a few teams that are the absolute stinkers of the league.

Think the Colorado Rockies in 2023, with just 59 wins versus 109 losses—and with a record of not scoring better than fourth place in their division for five years in a row.

Why do some fans stay loyal to such losers?

Martin Babicz, a ����������ý�Ļ���Ʒ associate teaching professor of history, co-wrote the 2017 book National Pastime: U.S. History Through Baseball.

Martin Babicz, a University of Colorado Boulder associate teaching professor of history, has some ideas. An instructor in the Department of History, the Stories and Societies RAP (Residential Academic Program), the Creative Minds RAP and the CMCI RAP, Babicz teaches a course called America Through Baseball, which examines American history since the Civil War, exploring how the social, cultural, economic and political forces shaping America were reflected in the national pastime. He’s also the co-author of the 2017 book .

Growing up in New England in the 1960s and 1970s, Babicz had plenty of chances to see Boston Red Sox and New York Mets fans lament their losing baseball teams on an almost-yearly basis. It’s given him insights on why fans stay loyal to losing teams, what factors can cause fans to lose faith in their teams and what he sees as the value of having a team to root for—no matter how bad they are, which he discussed with Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine.

Question: In sports, Americans generally love winning teams. Why do you think some people stay loyal to perennial losers?

Babicz: That’s a good question, and I’ve thought about this on and off for years.

Baseball teams—in fact all sports teams—are local institutions. The Broncos, for instance, are a part of the fabric of Denver, just like the Rocky Mountains or Casa Bonita. But it is more than that. Sports teams are also family institutions. They are a part of our DNA, as support for the team is often passed along in a family from one generation to another. And just like a family won’t reject a child who is not as smart or as good looking as his siblings, it also won’t reject a sports team that is not as good as its competitors.

I think the Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox might provide an illustration, as they both have very loyal fans. In 1998, both the Cubs and the Red Sox qualified for a wild-card playoff team. The wild card, which at the time was a relatively new thing in baseball, is a playoff berth awarded to a team that did not finish in first place.

Both the Red Sox and the Cubs had reputations for going on a very long losing streak of not winning the World Series, and there was some concern in baseball about what would happen if either of those teams ended up winning the World Series. Would the sport lose some of its luster among those fans? Would the teams lose some of their following?

Well, neither team won it in 1998, but the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004, and the Cubs won it in 2016—and it didn’t damage the teams at all. Winning hasn’t hurt their popularity, so it’s not like you have to be a loser to be loved.

But if you look at the history of baseball, there have been baseball teams who did not do so well.

Think about the Washington Senators, the St. Louis Browns, or the Philadelphia Athletics. They went decades and decades with lousy teams and yet baseball remained popular in those cities. …

Disappointed Chicago Cubs fans watch their team lose to the Colorado Rockies during a May 2019 game. (Photo: Nuccio DiNuzzo/Chicago Tribune)

Question: It sounds like if a team has deep roots in a city, that can be a strong factor on whether fans will generally remain faithful?

Babicz: Yes, fans tend to remain faithful to teams that have deep roots in the community. Support for the team—even a losing team—becomes routine, almost ritualistic.

Take opening day, for instance. Some fans develop habits of skipping work or school and attending opening day every year, no matter how good or bad the local team is. And for many fans, tuning in the game on the radio is something they do whenever they are doing yardwork or work around the house, and they’ll continue to tune in, even if the team is lousy. And, of course, when an opportunity presents itself to attend a game, they’ll take it, even if they think their team won’t win.

And as I said, support for a sports team is often passed from parent to child. But if there wasn’t a team when your father and mother grew up, then there’s nothing to pass to you. …

If you look at football, Denver got a football team in 1960, and Miami got a football team in 1966. In those two markets, football had several decades to get established and to build a fan base before they were competing (for fans’ attention) against baseball teams. So, I wonder, had Denver gotten a baseball team in the early 1960s, would that team be as popular in the media as the Broncos are?

It really surprises me that almost every night it’s the Broncos who lead the sports news—even when it’s not football season. And it’s not like that in some other markets; it’s certainly not like that back east. Football is popular there, but the other sports get their day as well.

Question: Which professional baseball team has the worst record? Were they able to eventually turn things around?

Babicz: The worst team ever was the 1899 Cleveland Spiders. They won 20 games all year, but that was in the 1890s. The National League had a monopoly on teams and there were 12 teams in total. After that season was over, the National League decided to cut back to eight teams—and one of the four teams they eliminated was the Cleveland Spiders. So, they never had the opportunity to recover.

 

Baseball teams—in fact all sports teams—are local institutions. The Broncos, for instance, are a part of the fabric of Denver, just like the Rocky Mountains or Casa Bonita. But it is more than that. Sports teams are also family institutions. They are a part of our DNA, as support for the team is often passed along in a family from one generation to another.”

 

Question Are there any corollaries between winning and losing teams and the impact upon game attendance?

Babicz: Some interesting numbers can be seen with the New York Mets. New York City lost two teams in 1958, when the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers moved to California. And so the Yankees were left to dominate New York baseball until the Mets were created in 1962.

The first thing that just amazes me, and it doesn’t make any sense, is that if you look at the attendance of the Yankees in 1957, they drew 1.5 million people. The following year, they drew 1.4 million. Why would the Yankee attendance go down in 1958, if they no longer have competition? And the Yankees won the World Series in 1958, so it’s not like they were no longer a good team.

So, that’s the first thing that surprises me. But the second thing that surprises me is what happened when the Mets came to New York in 1962. That first year, they were absolutely terrible, but they drew 922,000 fans. But in 1963, the Mets, who were still a bad team, drew over a million people—and the attendance at Yankee stadium fell to 1.3 million, even though the Yankees were still pennant winners.

And in 1964, when the Mets were still a last-place team, they drew 1.7 million fans while the Yankees—who won the American League pennant that year—only drew 1.3 million fans. So, this last-place team is drawing 400,000 more fans than the American League pennant winners. And by 1969, when the Mets finally won the World Series, the Yankees drew just over a million fans, and the Mets drew 2 million fans.

I find those numbers interesting in that there’s something else going on in addition to not having competition or just being a winning team. … My thought is that baseball fans in New York, at least some of them, felt betrayed when they lost the Giants and Dodgers, and then they rallied to the Mets, even though they were bad for so many years.

Colorado Rockies fans watch the team lose to the Arizona Diamondbacks in a August 2023 game. (Photo: Hugh Carey/The Colorado Sun)

Question: Is there any evidence to suggest fans will stop being loyal to their losing team at some point?

Babicz: Well, the example of that is in the San Francisco Bay area right now, where the Oakland Athletics are leaving Oakland after the end of the season. Last year, the Athletics were the only major league team to draw fewer than a million fans; I believe there were about 800,000 people who went to an A’s game last year.

Now, in the Bay area, they already have the Giants, so there is another team there. But there is also frustration by many Oakland fans, who blame the team owner for not trying in good faith to stay in Oakland. So, you have to consider how much that has to do with the decline of attendance.

The other city that we saw lose a lot of fans was in Montreal, and that can almost completely be traced to the 1994-95 baseball strike that canceled the World Series. The Expos had the best record in baseball at the time and a strong fan base.

Many fans really expected Montreal to make it to the World Series, and perhaps even win it, but it was all scratched when the strike took place and the World Series was canceled. A lot of Expos fans felt betrayed, and they did not return to the game the following season. After a few seasons, Expo fans were still no longer supporting their team.

Major League Baseball later transferred the Montreal Expos to Washington, D.C., where they became the Washington Nationals.

So, it wasn’t so much having a losing team as it was this sense of betrayal. And I think there’s some of that in Oakland as well. That may be a bigger factor on (fan loyalty) than having a winning or losing team.

Question: Some teams were losers for years—even decades—and then eventually turned things around. Does that mean Rockies fans should keep the faith, or is that asking too much?

Babicz: I’ve thought about that since I moved here from the East Coast. So, the Rockies aren’t in the playoffs. I’d say, ‘Be excited that you have a baseball team and go to the games.’

Colorado Rockies pitcher Kyle Freeland lies on the field after an RBI single during a game against the Houston Astros in July 2023. (Photo: Kevin M. Cox/AP)

In the first 68 years of the 20th century, only one team in each league qualified for post-season play, and from 1969 to 1993, only two teams in each league qualified for post-season play. Baseball is about a lot more than just making the playoffs.

I think back to being a kid, remembering those Red Sox fans who would keep going to Fenway Park year after year even though the team hadn’t won the World Series since 1918. The other thing I think about is, although I grew up in southern New England, I was born in upstate New York, and one of the cities that competed with Denver to get a Major League Baseball team was Buffalo.

When MLB announced the Rockies and the Marlins as the expansion teams, Buffalo didn’t get a team. In fact, other than during the pandemic, when the Toronto Blue Jays played in Buffalo—because Canada wasn’t admitting people from the U.S. into Canada—Buffalo hasn’t had a Major League Baseball team in over a hundred years. I’m sure fans in upstate New York would love to have a baseball team—even if it was a losing team.

Now, you may think, ‘The Rockies are a terrible team.’ True. But at least there’s a team. Those fans in Buffalo don’t even have a major league team to root for.

Just because your team doesn’t make the playoffs is no reason to give up turning out to support your team. With playoff berths, there’s always a chance … next year.

Top image: Rockies fans react to a play during a game between the Colorado Rockies and the Arizona Diamondbacks at Coors Field on Aug. 16, 2023.(Photo: Grace Smith/The Denver Post)

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