Narco
As a continuation from Take Me Home, Country Roads, which broke the record for most viewed and most forwarded newsletter since I started this weird little Substack, I want to cover a related news item you’re about to be hearing much more about.
Baseball is a really boring sport.
I say that as a lifelong sports fan. It’s boring. Unless a game is close, I leave well before the ninth inning every time. Beating traffic and all that.
Well, not anymore.
New York Mets closer Edwin Diaz, one of the game’s best relievers, didn’t always used to be good. After New York acquired him from my Seattle Mariners, he had trouble adjusting to the limelight.
Earlier this year, Diaz decided to start walking out for saves to Narco, a completely unknown song released in obscurity five years ago.
Now? Both he and the song are massive hits, and the entire experience of attending a Mets game is transformed.
The story was just getting started…
On August 30, the Australian-born Timmy Trumpet, co-creator of the song that has now gained so much popularity, showed up in the house for the Mets’ game that evening against the Dodgers.
He told the team that he would perform the song live if there was a save situation that night, and Diaz entered the game.
Well, what do you think happened?
This is one of the most electric moments I’ve seen in baseball in my entire life.
The Mets, a franchise I usually refer to as trash, are now the most vibrant, fresh, and interesting story in the entire sports universe.
Want proof?
College football, a sport that needs no additional excitement injected into it, taking cues from baseball is…..well, different.
But the story isn’t quite over yet…
What did the Dodgers do, after seeing their playoff rival the Mets hog all the public attention with their new shiny song?
They started using one of their own…
The audience reaction to this was a little different….but the statistical impact of improving the player and team involved was exactly the same.
Using music does open yourself up to trolling, though.
Hilariously, when the Mets recently lost to the pathetic last-place Washington Nationals, what did the Atlanta Braves do to celebrate?
All of this has, seemingly overnight, transformed the sport.
You’re about to see walk out songs for every closer in the league, and music take a greatly increased and important role in the sport.
There is no way you can see what music has done to improve baseball, a 150-year-old product, and not think it can’t improve your much newer voice/AI offering.
Webinar tomorrow (Thursday, September 8) involving voice AI in prisons, real estate, & within an accessible physical nametag that transcribes text in real-time.
30 minutes in length and presented by Deepgram. Will be a fascinating time.
Registration is here & gets you the audio/video recordings afterward as well.
The Voice of Healthcare Summit is an afternoon to meet and hear from best-in-class voice/AI companies doing innovative work to evolve modern healthcare. Complimentary registration is available here.
Thursday, September 29, at Northeastern University's Curry Ballroom.
Project Voice 2023 continues to ramp, adding SoundHound as track sponsor over The Voice of Hospitality, innovative companies like Cashew.ai to a growing program, and more and more media outlets like longtime podcast Science of CX that will be attending and covering the show.
(We're over 20 media outlets that have been approved to attend PV 2023, more than in 2020 prior to COVID when the show had 2000 registered attendees. International, national, regional, niche industry publications, and more. Will be well over 100 approved media outlets by April.)
Registration for Project Voice 2023 is here.
For sponsorship inquiries, email info@projectvoice.ai.