“And Teddy told me the most important idea in advertising was ‘new.’ Creates an itch. You simply put your product in there as a kind of calamine lotion.”
— Don Draper, “Mad Men”

Sports is advertising, as much as it is entertainment. Every game is an hours-long commercial.

It is a showcase for why you should buy a ticket, why you should spend your free time watching millionaires throw a ball, why you should wear the name of someone who doesn’t know you on your back. Every team is selling an experience, a connection, the potential for emotional highs that rarely arise in daily life.

Every offseason, teams attempt to improve their product, to prove they are worth your time and money. Every preseason and training camp, the marketing machine enters overdrive. Chemistry has never been better. Players have never felt better. Coaches have never held more belief. What is new is better. What isn’t new is improved. This season will be better than the last.