From Bronx Cheers to Flushing Fears: Opening Day Drama, Napster Nostalgia, and a Pop Culture Power Play

Welcome back to the Spotlight, to the Spring and to Major League Baseball. As the season starts anew, I can’t help but think about this time last year when I was celebrating a New York Yankees Opening Day victory thanks in part to a game-ending out at home plate off a perfect throw from the Yankees’ then-right-fielder Juan Soto. Fast forward to today, and I am celebrating a Yankees Opening Day victory after an eventful offseason following a crushing loss in the World Series, in which Juan Soto left the Yankees to sign an obscene 12 year, $765 million contract with the crosstown rival New York Mets. If I were a petty and obnoxious Yankees fan, I might point out that Juan Soto had another game-ending play on Opening Day for his new team: he had a super expensive strikeout. And, well…I’m pointing that out. Perhaps the Soto acquisition will be an investment to help Mets owner Steve Cohen in his bid to develop Metropolitan Park—a casino and entertainment complex—near the Mets home stadium in Flushing, Queens. I’m all for that—just as long as it doesn’t come with on-field success. After all, in the Bronx, my Yankees play for ‘ships, not for chips. 

• This week brings a dose of Millennial nostalgia as Napster is back in the news, having been acquired by Infinite Reality, a 3D technology company that plans to use Napster’s capabilities to create, music-filled virtual spaces in the metaverse. The purchase price of the deal is reportedly $207 million – roughly equal to the amount of damage you did to your family’s computers using the initial iteration of Napster.
• Nintendo strikes a deal with the Seattle Mariners to be its uniform patch sponsor for the 2025 season. In a related story, the Mariners have hired some super bros. to handle plumbing issues at T-Mobile Park.
• Pop star Dua Lipa notches a copyright lawsuit victory surrounding her smash hit “Levitating,” with the court citing a case related to fellow pop recording artist Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You” to conclude that “a chord progression and harmonic rhythm, in combination, could not constitute protectable expression under copyright law.” Now that’s something to sing about