What the attention data says about today's headlines.
Short, daily reads on the stories everyone's talking about, measured by where fans are actually paying attention.
- Baseball · Attention Matters
The 38th-biggest market is out-drawing the Dodgers
Before Game 1, the Brewers are drawing more attention than any Dodgers or Yankees team of the past decade. Ten years of data say market size isn't what does it. The story is. That's awkward timing for baseball's fight over money.
- Fandom · Attention Matters
The bandwagon follows the star, not the trophy
The Dodgers' run ended Thursday night, and their fans aren't going anywhere. Ten years of attention data say a championship moves a team's following about 8%. A star can move it 80%, or cut it in half on the way out.
- College Sports · Transfers
College fans chase the player for a week. They stay with the school for good.
We tracked 174 star transfers and six seasons of FBS football. The player gets 91% of the attention when he commits. The school he left keeps 95% of its attention the next season.
- Participation · Attention Matters
Should badminton be the racket sport of the next generation?
Much of the world already treats it as a serious sport, from Jakarta to Copenhagen. America has 6.8 million players, thousands of courts that happen to be the right size, and an Olympics coming to Los Angeles.
- Sports rights · Attention Matters
Should sports rights buyers pay attention to more than ratings?
Ratings are the currency of sports rights. Attention would have made buyers money on F1 and the WNBA. It would also have fooled them on NASCAR.
- Padel · Attention Matters
Is padel the next pickleball?
Padel’s attention just made the same turn pickleball made two years before its clubs cracked. Here’s what that does and doesn’t mean.
- Pickleball · Attention Matters
Pickleball is in a pickle. Attention saw it coming two years ago.
Pickleball stopped outgrowing other sports in November 2024. The industry spent 2025 building like it hadn’t. Here’s what the attention data said, and when.
- Fantasy football · Attention Matters
Everyone in your fantasy league has the same stats. The edge is knowing what they're watching.
Projections tell you what a player might score. Attention tells you what he'll cost. Two seasons of data on why the second number is the one that wins leagues.
- Sports · Golden State Valkyries + Atlanta Dream
The Valkyries sell the team. The Dream sell Angel Reese.
The WNBA Finals pair the category's fastest-climbing franchise with its most star-driven one, and the attention gap between them is the story.
- Attention Matters
Attention costs money. Here's how to tell if it's working.
Every industry pays to be noticed. Almost none of them measure whether it worked. What we measure, what it predicts, and what to do with it.
- Attention Matters
A short history of paying to be noticed
From the drugstore window to the feed: how attention got bought, how it got counted, and how bad news went from slow to instant.
- The Broadway Board · Issue 1
The priciest ticket on Broadway is for a show that hasn't opened
Issue 1: Other Desert Cities out-prices Hamilton in previews, three shows climb into the Hits box, the street runs 12% behind last year, and a short closing watch.
- Parks · Crisis
The crisis stayed with the ride
When X2 hurt two riders, attention to the coaster ran 154 times normal. Six Flags barely moved. Here's what that says about managing a crisis.
- MLB · Rays + Yankees
The Rays swept the Yankees. They outdrew them, too.
Tampa Bay ranked 15th in attention over the summer. Once the series began it outdrew New York, three years before its new ballpark opens.
- Movies · Verity vs. Digger
Digger was loud. It just wasn't liked.
Tom Cruise's new film drew nearly twice the attention of Verity, and the talk around it was some of the most negative we track. Loud plus negative is what a flop looks like.
- Media · Paramount + Warner Bros. Discovery
Skydance owns what people watch. Netflix owns where they go.
The $110 billion merger is done. By our count the new company holds more TV attention than Netflix, Apple or Disney. Its streaming brand is the hard part.