That Was The Week That Was In Links - April 4, 2025

Some stuff I’ve consumed this week and items of note…

• The Verge on James Dolan’s Orwellian approach to the fan experience at Madison Square Garden: 

“They hand me a piece of paper letting me know that I’ve been added to a ban list,” Miller says. “There’s a trespass notice if I ever show up on any MSG property ever again,” which includes venues like Radio City, the Beacon Theatre, the Sphere, and the Chicago Theatre.

He was baffled at first. Then it dawned on him: this was probably about a T-shirt he designed years ago. MSG Entertainment won’t say what happened with Miller or how he was picked out of the crowd, but he suspects he was identified via controversial facial recognition systems that the company deploys at its venues.

• ProPublica and the Chicago Tribune on how the University of Illinois is failing to look out for its athletes in this brave new world of NIL deals:

The Illini basketball team’s missing disclosures reflect an indifference to documenting NIL deals across the athletic department, the news organizations found. Athletes from 20 sports combined have reported earning only about $1.2 million in three-plus years, compared with the $20 million Ohio State University’s football team reportedly received in a single year, or a University of Missouri quarterback who alone is estimated to have made more than $1 million in NIL deals.

By shrugging its shoulders at Illinois’ reporting requirements, the university is failing to compile a complete picture of how its students — some of them still teenagers — are navigating a relatively new terrain rife with legal, moral and financial pitfalls.

• Jules Boykoff and Dave Zirin on how America now being a place where foreigners get snatched up and disappeared has relevance on the World Cup next year:

Given this, for the safety of the players, their families, and fans, games scheduled to be played in the United States must be moved to Canada and Mexico, and every qualifying country should say that they will boycott the World Cup if they aren’t.

It’s not just global soccer fans tuned in to the US’s recent depravities who are harboring serious concerns. The US Travel Association’s Commission on Seamless and Secure Travel recently sounded the alarm, noting that the glory days for US tourism are in the rear-view mirror. The US ceded its position as top destination for global travel in 2018, halfway through Trump 1.0, sliding behind countries like France and Spain in terms of international visitors. The US’s “market share” of global travel has shriveled, falling from 12.8 percent in 2015 to 9.1 percent today. The commission projects that China will surpass the United States in the coming decade.

• When does decency trump Pat McAfee’s ability to draw eyeballs of unemployed bros and people in various waiting rooms? Will it take someone to die next time there’s a swatting incident because of groundless gossip?

• The PGA and the Saudis are at loggerheads (but not about anything moral).
• The President of the TV chose to attend a Saudi-backed LIV golf tournament instead of the dignified transfer of the remains of four American soldiers to died overseas.

Time to hide, they’re knockin’ down my door
My dad’s behind the curtain, oh, mama’s on the floor
I owe the grocer money, but I can’t pay the rent
Not dying in the dungeon where my brothers have been sent

Weekend.