fun week out there, ya?

Big week in the world of things and such.

• Bentonville versus Malibu.

• Roger Federer with a statistic that rattled my brain.

• Joey Chestnut getting banned from the Nathan’s Famous 4th of July Hot Dog Eating Contest.

• Caitlin Clark didn’t make the USA women’s national bball team.

• Battle of the chickens!

• A new way to ride bikes?

Sorry Joe Mama actually has nothing to do with this one.

Yeah, let’s dive in. Some of this is an expansion of some of my linkedin thoughts this week, so bear w me.

A new way to bike

I’m a recent Bentonville, AR resident. It’s my favorite place of the places I’ve lived, and I currently live in Malibu.

Why? Bentonville, home of Walmart, has become a mini mecca of business, music, art, food, culture, outdoors, and whatever niche you find yourself in - NW Arkansas has it.

They’ve bought into the craft beer, local coffee, mountain biking, hipster thing all while maintaining their roots of honest business, high standards, good people.

Michael Burton and Clayton Woodruff, current NW Arkansas residents, are two of many who have adopted the biking lifestyle. Whatever your taste (be it mountain biking, gravel biking, road biking), there’s a common inconvenience. You have to lug around a lock.

Is it a huge deal? Maybe not for everyone - I’m not a biker, but for me, clunky is frustrating.

I don’t like carrying a wallet in my pockets, I hate the clunkiness of keys in my pocket. If I got into biking, the idea of a 10lb lock would be a serious turn off.

What if I didn’t have to deal with that?

Michael and Clayton are building LockStop, an app-enabled bike lock network. They’ll be installing locks on bike racks in cities across the country, starting with Bentonville. Ride your bike, pull up to your coffee shop, scan the lock with your phone (or however you do it), and you’re all safe for the next however long - I’ll have to interview Michael some day to figure out the intricacies, but I’m sold.

I think about how convenient mobile parking is - you don’t have to go up to the meter, and you don’t have to go back when your time is up. You just add time on your phone.

It’s either by subscription for the serious bikers or pay-per-use for the casuals (no hate). I really think this has an opportunity to gain some steam in Bentonville, and flourish in larger, denser cities where people bike out of necessity rather than pleasure.

If LockStop can find its way into the daily rhythm of bike riders everywhere, WOW. Cheers, Michael!

Marvel at the Margins

Roger Federer has only won 54% of all the points he’s played in his career.

Roger Federer is barely better than his opponent at any given time?

Wrong.

He’s a lot better because he can consistently win more games and matches despite losing nearly every other point.

Same with these other guys…

% of total career points won by some of the recent greats in men's tennis:

- Roger Federer: 54%
- Novak Djokovic: 54%
- Rafael Nadal: 54%
- Pete Sampras: 54%
- Andy Murray: 53%
- Andy Roddick: 53%
- Carlos Alcaraz: 53%
- Jannick Sinner: 53%

Look, serving gives you an advantage in every game. You get to make the first move - it’s very common for a player who is MUCH worse than Roger to win his service games.

What makes Roger great is his ability to win his service games at an 89% clip and his return games at a 27% clip (again seems low but serving is extremely advantageous).

What’s the lesson? What’s the story? You’re going to lose a lot of small battles (points, we’ll call them). What makes someone great is not perfection, it’s not always winning everything. It’s about winning when it matters, and not sweating the small losses.

Be like Federer - lose a little. Win a lot.

Caitlin Clark

Again, I wrote about this this week - but to elaborate:

Collin Cowherd made an excellent point here - not that I agree with everything he says, but he got this right: Having Caitlin Clark on the USA team will actually show the rest of the world how good the other players are.

It will attract more eyeballs, and it will make the other (even better) WNBA players more popular, more recognizable, more household.

Stephen A. Smith had a similar take - it’s not that she deserves a spot OVER any of those girls. It’s just a missed opportunity to grow the game of women’s basketball.

Also, she handled it like an absolute pro - no visible disappointment, only respect for those who made the team.

My humble opinion - she’s good enough to be on the team. I don’t really care if she gets minutes. Your social media team will have a ball in Paris if Clark is there (I have a friend from college named Paris Clark - shoutout Paris Clark).

Joey Chestnut is different

People are watching for Joey because they want to see someone guzzle 65+ dogs - not 40.

I was going to not put a gif to save you from the horror of having to look at it for more than 2 seconds - I mean it’s just unfathomable.

So Joey’s story is a little different from Clark’s. He signed an endorsement deal with Impossible Foods, resulting in a ban from the Hot Dog Eating Contest.

If that’s the extent of their relationship, you CAN’T ban him from the contest.

If he’s demanding that he represent them instead of Nathan’s than it’s a huge deal, and you can’t let him do that.

I don’t know the business behind it - maybe it doesn’t make enough sense to throw all your money at Joey. The hot dog eating contest brings about 1-1.5 Million viewers a year - is that enough to see a dramatic spike in revenue?

Will advertisers pay less to show face if they think this will hurt viewership?

It may make a dent, it may not. As a business, you have to do what you have to do - and in today’s America, with rising awareness around healthy, plant-based diets, Impossible Foods could pull a crowd from Nathan’s (I just don’t really think they travel in similar crowds though).

Weekly Rankings:

Fast Food Chicken (bite me):

1. Chick-fil-A

2. Raising Canes

3. Zaxby’s

4. Guthries

5. Popeyes

6. KFC

7. Slim Chickens

CFA is just too versatile. The Spicy Chicken Sandy will forever make my mouth water. Thanks team - that’s all.

Cheers!