We say sports are entertainment. We say they are business. We say they are content.

And in many ways, they are. But the scale and intensity with which we participate in them suggests they may be something more.

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That is not how we treat mere entertainment.

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The intersection of sports, media, entertainment, and culture is revealing something deeper about the human experience. Patterns of tribe, ritual, hierarchy, sacrifice, belonging, and transcendence are played out publicly, repeatedly, and at scale.

And yet, most of us are completely immersed in this whole spectacle without ever pausing to ask what it is we are actually participating in.

We relish victory and despise defeat. We debate the headlines and get notified by breaking news. We analyze the transactions, valuations, and ROI.

But we rarely step back and ask:

What does it mean that this — of all this — sits at the center of our collective attention? Why does it occupy so much of our emotional and financial bandwidth? What does this say about the human experience? And most importantly, what recurring structures does it reveal, and why do similar structures appear, in different forms, across history?

I have been an athlete all my life. I grew up in Texas playing multiple sports before competing at the collegiate and professional levels. Football, in particular, formed me in ways that extended far beyond the field.

It taught me hierarchy and role clarity. It taught me discipline and sacrifice. It revealed the power of shared identity and displayed how individuals can subordinate personal preference unto a collective purpose.

Those lessons have remained with me and continue to inform how I navigate all domains of my life. If you are interested in hearing more of my personal story, listen to the Created to Create podcast I went on last year with my friend Ben Gluntz. 

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When my playing days were over, I moved into the world of sports, media, and entertainment investing and strategy. For the past several years, I have worked at the intersection of institutional capital and culture — structuring transactions, evaluating teams and leagues, analyzing governance models, and architecting platforms that influence how people gather and collectively engage.

The priorities of those building from inside the system are clear:

These considerations obviously matter, as they determine sustainability, profitability, and long-term viability of the properties and businesses playing in this space.

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But as I studied the various teams, leagues, businesses, and emerging platforms across the whole of sport, the more I realized that they were in fact, the same.

Although each property was unique in itself, beneath the surface, the underlying structures were remarkably similar. 

What initially appeared varied began to look patterned.

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Around the same time, I encountered the work of thinkers like Jonathan Pageau and The Symbolic World, which cultivated a vocabulary for something I had been sensing intuitively: that the human experience unfolds in recurring patterns.

Institutions organize participation in repeatedly recognizable ways. Hierarchies emerge to clarify authority and responsibility. Rituals develop to mark transitions and reinforce belonging. Stories crystallize around archetypes and motifs.

The more I observed the sports and cultural landscape through this lens, the harder it became to see it merely as industry.

It began to look like a scaled theater of human meaning.

We are only as effective as the patterns we can recognize, remember, and apply.

Human beings are not animated arbitrarily or randomly. The human experience is patterned, and we organize our world in patterned ways:

Sports and the broader cultural ecosystem make those patterns unusually visible.

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Few other arenas gather millions of people into synchronized attention and emotion on a weekly basis. Few other institutions create such clear hierarchies of talent, responsibility, and authority. Few other domains so openly ritualize victory, defeat, loyalty, exile, redemption, and legacy.

Sports begin to function less like entertainment and more like religion. Stadiums are the new cathedrals, and the language of sacrifice, devotion, and faith finds its fullness in and around the pitch.

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And yet, those building inside this ecosystem are often too close to see the full patterns of meaning they are participating in. The urgency of capital raises, negotiations, commercial strategies, and quarterly targets obscures the broader structural reality in which those activities are embedded.

Conversely, observers outside the industry may dismiss sports as distraction or spectacle, without recognizing the depth of the institutional and symbolic architecture supporting it.

There appears to be a gap between the insiders who are too immersed in the system and the outsiders who are too far removed to understand and interpret it.

That gap is where 🧭 At the Center lives.

This is not a sports business newsletter.

There will not be a discussion of headlines or an analysis of recent transactions. Many excellent publications already serve that function, all of which I highly recommend and read myself in order to inform my own opinions.

If you want that coverage, please subscribe to:

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This project serves a different purpose. 🧭 At the Center is a long-form writing project exploring the structures, systems, and patterns of meaning shaping sports, culture, and capital.

Most importantly, it is an effort to ask a simple but consequential question:

What are we placing at the center?

If you are a founder, investor, operator, or executive, building in this ecosystem, this is an invitation to see your work within a broader frame.

If you simply love sports and culture and sense that they are more than trivial entertainment, this is an invitation to explore that intuition more seriously.

We are already participating in these structures; the only question is whether we understand them.

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To examine what is at the center is to understand what is revealed, what is rewarded, what is normalized, and what is marginalized.

If we can see more clearly what sits at the center, we can begin to ask whether it belongs there — and what we ought to do about it.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you.

Launching 🧭 At the Center has been more exposing than I expected. It’s one thing to think privately about these matters, or perhaps discuss them with a friend. It’s another to publish those thoughts and openly attach them to your name.

But I feel genuinely called to do this work. I believe it’s my zone of genius.

🧭 At the Center is not a short term experiment, but rather something I intend to build carefully, publicly, and consistently over time.

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As this gets off the ground, I’d value one thing in particular:

If a paragraph or idea stood out to you, positively or critically, let me know which and why. What resonated? What felt unclear or underdeveloped?

And if there’s something I should be reading or listening to, send it my way. I’m a student in this just as much as I am a writer.

I’m building this in public and am serious about sharpening it over time. Your perspectives help me refine the work and, in turn, will strengthen your own pattern recognition.

If you enjoyed 🧭 At the Center 001, please consider sending it to 2 or 3 people who think deeply about sports, culture, or capital. I’d rather grow this slowly with the right readers than quickly for the sake of numbers.

Thank you for leaning in early.