Post 3 — Playing to Lose
On July 31, 2012, a women’s doubles badminton match at the London Olympics stopped the crowd mid-applause. Players were serving into the net — not occasionally, not accidentally. Deliberately.
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Bonus Post — A Bottle Is a Bottle
Connecticut designed a perfect recycling incentive. It forgot to specify who got to respond. This case came to BFR through James McDonough, a reader in Connecticut who recognized the pattern unfolding in his own backyard — and took the time to bring it here. That is precisely the kind of observation
Post 2 — How to Win a Lawsuit and Lose a Sport
He fought for three years to change the rules. The rules changed. So did everything else. Jonathan Skrmetti fought for three years to give college athletes economic freedom. He won. A year later, he called the result a “train wreck” and said it was “sucking the life out of college
Bonus Post — What's Your Target?
How Egypt turned a single answer into a squash dynasty.
A bonus post is coming Wednesday, June 10. Here's why it couldn't wait.
A reader sent me a case. James McDonough lives in Connecticut. He recognized the pattern unfolding in his own backyard and took the time to bring it here. That is precisely the kind of observation this newsletter exists to surface. Thank you, James. In 2024, Connecticut doubled its bottle deposit