In defense of the maverick: Why last week will be remembered long after the outrage fades |
The sports business has never been short on critics of change. It has always been short on people willing to absorb the criticism required to make change happen.
Last week was one of those rare moments when multiple change agents surfaced at once.
Michael Jordan secured a decisive settlement with NASCAR, forcing the implementation of permanent, team-friendly charters after months of derision from commentators who accused him of disrespecting tradition. Bob Iger announced a sweeping partnership with OpenAI — almost exactly 20 years after he was ridiculed for the tradition-breaking iTunes deal to sell Disney content digitally. Notre Dame, under Pete Bevacqua, chose honesty and independence over applause. Different domains. Same pattern.
The pattern is simple: The people who change systems are attacked first by those who don’t understand them.
We’ve........