By the way, I'm excited for this episode.
I got this CO2 detector to tell me how many parts per million are in here.
When I close the door in the studio, I'm kind of scared of what it's going to get up to based on what my peloton was the other day.
That's awesome.
It may be the case that I actually get dumber toward the end of episodes, which obviously is bad for a podcast that ends in grading, but I want to see if that's the case.
That's amazing.
Welcome to season seven, episode four of Acquired the podcast about great technology companies and the stories and playbooks behind them.
I'm Ben Gilbert and I'm the co founder of Pioneer Square Labs, a startup studio and venture firm in Seattle.
And I'm David Rosenthal and I am an independent angel investor and startup advisor based in San Francisco.
And we are your hosts.
Today, our Tech Focus podcast takes a turn to cover a different powerhouse business, the National Basketball Association.
And whether you have been following the playoffs in the COVID bubble at Disney's Wide World of Sports or not, there is no better time for an absolutely exhaustive deep dive on the history and strategy of the NBA than the week of the Finals.
So how did David and I get here?
Well, our original plan was to cover the business of the Jordan brand.
And halfway in we realised that the story of Jordan is really a part of the Nike story.
And we want to cover that another time.
But as we dug in, we realized that there's actually a great story in the NBA itself.
And it's one that's very relevant through an acquired lens.
How it built itself from very much the underdog of major American sports, started 50 years later than the others, and now it's the second most popular sport in the world globally after soccer, or as many of you call it, football.
And it has done so using a playbook that is very much in the acquired wheelhouse.