18-year-old Emma Raducanu is taking the tennis world by storm.
Her victory in the U.S. Open turned her into one of those athletes who you can’t help but watch and want to know more, or even pick up a racquet trib.al/VKDcbjm
How big is this win? @ThereseRaphael1 asked Michel Masquelier, former chairman of IMG Media.
“It’s as good as it gets,” he says. “Tennis is an individual sport, so any individual who shines on that stage is instantly recognizable” trib.al/VKDcbjm
Alongside her championship title, Raducanu has other force multipliers for propelling celebrity and commercial success. There’s her international reputation:
🇨🇳Chinese mother
🇷🇴Romanian father
🇬🇧Raised in Britain
🇺🇸Shot to fame in the U.S. trib.al/VKDcbjm
There’s her youth and the enormousness of the records she’s broken:
She’s the first player, male or female, ever to win a grand slam from the qualifying rounds.
Then there was the finals performance; the parents who couldn’t be there; the side story of British star-turned-commentator, Tim Henman, whose support spurred her on.
And don't forget her spontaneous likability, the attitude that says “bring it on" trib.al/VKDcbjm
All of this makes Emma Raducanu a rarity even in elite sport — a unicorn.
These figures are different not just because they dominate their sport, but because they alter the landscape around them trib.al/VKDcbjm
It’s hard to overstate the impact she’s had in Britain, a country with a fierce sporting culture that craves and cradles a champion.
48% of the country’s 16- to 34-year-olds watched the U.S. Open match on TV trib.al/VKDcbjm
With global sponsorship spending estimated at around $65.8 billion a year, apparel sales, TV deals and more, the monetization opportunities will be enormous, particularly if Raducanu fulfills her promise in attracting more women’s tennis viewers trib.al/VKDcbjm
“In 35 years in the industry, I would have to go back to the days of Tiger Woods to think of something similar,” says Masquelier.
Woods was also a unicorn, not just because of his golf strokes but also because of his poise, personality and background trib.al/VKDcbjm
Already, it’s hard to imagine the women’s tour without Raducanu.
The season-ending WTA finals take place in November. Only the top eight players in the world qualify. Raducanu is now ranked 23rd (a rise of 127 places from a few weeks back) trib.al/VKDcbjm
Raducanu could be with us for a while, provided they can avoid injury.
With good health, Raducanu can count on at least 15 years of high-level tour competition ahead of her. That’s potentially 60 shots at grand slam titles and numerous other events trib.al/VKDcbjm
The inevitable questions have already begun:
🎾How long will it take her to top the world rankings?
🎾Where will she play next?
🎾Which sponsorship deals will she agree to?
🎾Which magazine covers?
🎾Which interview shows? trib.al/VKDcbjm
Up to now, Raducanu has seemed impervious to pressure — but she’s human and will have to become an adult with the world watching.
There are bound to be bumps in the road. And yet she projects a certain self-assurance that makes many think she’s got this trib.al/VKDcbjm
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Never ones to miss a chance to cry “hardship,” upper-middle-class, well-educated young Americans are getting in on the Chinese “lie flat” social protest movement, claiming they, too, are burned out and quitting their jobs to do nothing trib.al/e5rjiys
It started among Chinese factory workers burned out from grueling 12-hour, six-day work weeks, and the unrelenting pressure to climb the economic ladder.
So some Chinese millennials formed a movement to opt out of work and the pressures of society trib.al/e5rjiys
What this trend will mean for China is unclear, but Americans who choose to lay down in lieu of work may end up worse off than they think trib.al/e5rjiys
On Labor Day, 7.5 million Americans lost their federal unemployment benefits, and another 3 million unemployed lost the $300 bonus that had been in place since March.
That’s a lot of people with no immediate way to support themselves and their families trib.al/pK04k9j
What would Franklin Roosevelt — who put America to work during the Great Depression — make of the way Washington has responded to this economic crisis? twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1…
The New Deal’s attack on the Great Depression had four main components:
💵Temporary direct relief for the impoverished
🔐A stronger social safety net
🇺🇸An expanded regulatory state
💼Jobs for the legions of unemployed trib.al/pK04k9j
Early in 2020, the world urgently needed to raise its sense of alarm around Covid-19.
But for the vaccinated parts of the planet, Covid is no longer a horseman of the apocalypse. Instead, it is gradually becoming “just a virus” trib.al/QvxD2SE
In Singapore, where 81% are fully immunized, the Ministry of Health has started prioritizing data on hospitalizations rather than infections.
Israel is riding out a surge in new Covid cases without returning to lockdowns for the vaccinated trib.al/jAnL73X
The calls from some quarters to stop publishing daily Covid case totals may be premature for a disease that’s still killing thousands of people a day trib.al/jAnL73X
When Americans began emerging from their homes after the first wave of Covid in spring 2020, many apparently headed straight to their local boat dealers.
Spending on pleasure boats shot up to 20% above the pre-pandemic pace in May 2020 trib.al/xHmYB8x
At a time when crowded indoor spaces can pose deadly risks, small boats are great places to be.
The remote-work arrangements also made it easier for affluent white-collar workers to locate themselves within convenient distance of a body of water trib.al/RiRZvDB
With so many other things that have boomed during the pandemic, one does have to wonder how long this elevated demand for boats will last.
Here’s spending on pleasure boats going back to 1959, adjusted for inflation: trib.al/RiRZvDB
When we talk about workers going back to their offices, the goal for most is to return to the normal routines of life.
🍼 But for parents who had their first child during the past 18 months, the return is uncharted territory trib.al/a3jKClJ
New parents are figuring out for the first time how to manage:
🚍 Commuting
⏰ Long hours away from home
🍼 Parenting small children
All their experience thus far has been in a work-from-home pandemic world trib.al/Rnd0dVG
Data serves mostly to confirm that American work culture isn't particularly family-friendly, generally leaving mothers as the caretakers-of-last-resort in times of need trib.al/Rnd0dVG