It’s tough to pinpoint exactly when it all started. Was it the high-flying ‘80s, with the iconic “greed is good” mantra from Wall Street? The dot-com boom of the ‘90s, when the information superhighway, better known as the internet, began to reshape everything? Somewhere along the way, a new kind of language emerged in the sports world to compete with traditional battle metaphors. In sports, terms once limited to combat now speak the language of business and finance.
In soccer, we talk about the counter-attack. In the NFL, a decisive touchdown puts the dagger in. When a quarterback rifles a pass, he’s making a precise, hard throw. A home run in baseball? A missile, sometimes heat-seeking, other times a Scud. A blast from the bat. A ball that was hit hard but caught? A shot. A player who either hits long balls or strikes out lives and dies with the home run. When a fastball comes out of a pitcher’s hand, it explodes. Your star player who can make that deep three-pointer in basketball? A long-range bomber. NBA great, Michael Jordan, had the killer instinct.
The battlefield remains in sports, but its been joined, and increasingly crowded out, by financial lexicon. The evolution of language is subtle, but powerful. And the story of the Toronto Blue Jays’ return to the World Series after a 32-year hiatus offers an interesting starting point. In 1992 and 1993, the Blue Jays captured back-to-back World Series titles. Their 1992 run got an added boost that August when my favorite team, the New York Mets, traded starting pitcher David Cone to Toronto.
The Mets entered 1992 with the highest payroll in baseball, aiming to recapture their glory days from the mid-to-late ‘80s. But a disastrous season, one that featured players injuring fans with firecrackers and squirting bleach at reporters, led to the them being dubbed “the worst team money could buy.” In a bid to go tabula rasa, to wipe the slate clean, they traded Cone to the Blue Jays. The Mets and the player they dealt were firsts of their kind in modern sports. The team from Flushing, New York, became an early example of how difficult it is to spend your way to a championship. As for Cone, he was considered a rental player, someone brought in to secure a title, then move on. And that’s exactly what happened: Cone bolted for Kansas City after helping the Blue Jays win their first-ever World Series.
Three decades later, the terminology that dominates the trading world has become even more pervasive. Teams looking to make a championship run are buyers, while those with no hope left are sellers. Return on investment, or ROI, isn’t just a financial concept anymore; it’s part of the sports lexicon. Players are investments, and their worth is measured by what they can yield.
It’s not just the trade deadline where this corporate language thrives; it permeates the entire culture:
- A competent backup? You’ve invested in insurance.
- A fan favorite? He’s built equity.
- A pivotal moment in the game? It’s a high-leverage situation.
- A team that wins close games? Not a margin team.
- A team with an abundance of future draft picks? They’ve got draft capital.
- A team on the edge of the playoffs? They’re a bubble team.
How about that hitter who lives and dies with the home run? Now, he’s also boom or bust.
Even the places where these games are played reflect this shift. The Chicago White Sox play at Guaranteed Rate Field. The Miami Marlins host games at LoanDepot Park. There’s Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, Barclays Center in Brooklyn, Citi Field in New York, and Chase Field in Arizona. The list goes on. But I can hear Bret Easton Ellis now, his American Psycho creation Patrick Bateman in spirit, his Glamorama characters in tone, rolling their eyes: spare me.
What does this all mean?
More than you might think. Sports, once a battleground of primal competition, are increasingly described in the calculated language of finance. In his essay Monday Night Hunters, Carl Sagan explains how fans are drawn to sports because they tap into an instinctual need for competition and conflict. He suggests that sports, particularly team games like football, echo the rituals of hunting and warfare, which were once essential for human survival. As we consider the shifting language of sports, we must ask: what does this mean for actual soldiers who prepare for real, life-and-death combat?
Sagan might have smiled at this. After all, he argued that humanity’s future depends on moving away from militant thinking and called for more female leaders because they tend to be less aggressive and more collaborative. At the time of his death in 1996, Margaret Thatcher was the most well-known of only a handful of women who had reached the highest levels of political leadership. Now, there are dozens: The Lady of Myanmar, Japan’s Iron Lady, La Jefa in Mexico, Angela Merkel, Theresa May, and many others who have made their mark. Then there are near-misses like Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, each of whom came within striking distance of making history. So perhaps, in some strange way, the rise of financial jargon in sports signals a broader societal change: one that embraces a more strategic, less combative approach to conflict.
Oh, and that long-range bomber on your favorite NBA team? When he hits the shot, it’s not always bang or bullseye anymore. Sometimes, it’s splash.