The Michigan-Alabama Rose Bowl had 27.2M viewers, the largest college football audience since the 2018 Alabama-Georgia natty (28.44M).

Outside of the NFL, only the Opening Ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics (27.84M) had a larger US domestic audience for a sporting event.

For those asking if the photo in the OP is real. Here's the real shot from above.

Record-Breaking Viewership for Michigan-Alabama Rose Bowl

It took 34 years, but "Tetris" was finally defeated.

Competitive 'Tetris' player Willis "Blue Scuti" Gibson recently played the game on NES and achieved the fabled game over "kill screen."

This feat had only been accomplished by Al before.

It took Gibson 38 minutes to witness the freeze and music halt while utilizing the groundbreaking "rolling" technique.

Photo: Nintendo/aGameScout

The "rolling technique" is a controller style that took the Tetris world by storm in 2021.

https://youtu.be/d5YVloTtMSo

Tetris, invented in 1984 by Alexey Pajitnov, is a perfect puzzle game - easy to learn, hard to master, and highly popular.

It debuted on the NES in 1989 and became a pack-in title for the Game Boy, boosting popularity. Tetris has been released on over 65 platforms.

If you haven't seen "Tetris" on AppleTV+, I highly recommend it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BLM1naCfME

This is part of my '365 Days of Cool' series.

Follow @vincenzolandino and turn notifications on 🔔  for daily cool, or sign up to my newsletter for weekly recaps: http://timeandpace.news/subscribe

Tetris: Defeating the Kill Screen

TIME is the one magazine subscription we keep coming in print.

The upcoming issue features Max Verstappen. A really cool moment for F1.

https://time.com/6331364/max-verstappen-formula-one-interview-las-vegas/


🚨 Major drop alert! 📉

Get-in prices for the Las Vegas Grand Prix are down, according to @TickPick.

Since early October, Thursday + Friday tix have fallen by ~60%, with Saturday tix dropping 34%.

Book your trip now, as hotel prices have also decreased by nearly 60%.


James Dean's Porsche 550 Spyder, aka "Little Bastard," may be the most iconic and cursed car Hollywood has known.

How has this machine, tied with the fatal accident of this audacious actor, become etched in its tragic lore?

Let's delve into this eerie and uncanny story...


The Porsche 550 Spyder—Dean's vehicle during his fatal accident in 1955—was the manufacturer's first road-legal race car. It shaped Porsche into the racing giant we know today. James Dean, the amateur racer and actor, helped cement this legendary status.

Dean bought his new Porsche 550 Spyder just a week before that fateful accident. Outfitted with tartan seats, the number 130 displayed on the hood, and "Little Bastard" painted below the Porsche emblem.

This car was an icon in the making.

Upon seeing "Little Bastard," Dean's friend, British actor Sir Alec Guinness, warned him about the car.

The superstitious Alec cautioned him "not to get in the car" and that he would no longer be alive by the next week. Dean laughed and shrugged it off.

Guinness had an ominous feeling on seeing the Porsche and would later write in his diary: ‘The sports car looked sinister to me . . . exhausted, hungry, feeling a little ill-tempered despite Dean’s kindness...

...I heard myself saying in a voice I could hardly recognize as my own: ‘Please never get in it. . .  if you get in that car, you will be found dead in it by this time next week.’”

On September 30, 1955, fate cast its dreadful shadow, leaving the world a little less bright. Dean put his Porsche to the test on the open roads on his way to a race. The end result was a gruesome accident at an intersection that took his life prematurely.

But the remnants of Little Bastard would continue to haunt those it encountered.

Dr. William Eschrid, a part-time racer, bought the remains, installed the Spyder engine into his Lotus IX, and shared some parts with Dr. Troy McHenry.


As history would have it, Eschrid crashed midway through a race, while McHenry lost control and fatally crashed into a tree at the very same race. Talk of the curse surged, pointing fingers at the transplanted pieces of the disastrous Spyder 550.


What's left of the "Little Bastard" was purchased by George Barris, a famous car customizer. Displayed at shows as a wreck, encounters with the car's shell allegedly left visitors with cuts and wounds.

There are other stories of Little Bastard’s post-accident life. The car is said to have fallen from its display while on show in Sacramento, breaking the hip of a bystander and reportedly falling on and killing George Barkus, the driver who transported it to a road safety expo.

Then, in 1960, destiny added another layer of mystery. As it was being transported for a safety exhibit in Miami, the car inexplicably disappeared. Over 60 years later, the whereabouts of the infamous cursed car remain unknown.

People like playing with fire.

In 2021, someone bought the transaxle from this car for $382,000


The Cursed Legacy of James Dean's "Little Bastard"

The most legendary race in the world, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, is set to begin in just 14 hours.

This year, NASCAR fans have a special interest in the race due to the Garage 56 entry – a Chevy Camaro ZL1 Next Gen stock car.

Here's a little more on what Garage 56 is 👇🏻


Garage 56, first introduced in 2012, is an entry invited by the governing body — Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO).

It is the 56th and "experimental" slot, earmarked for concept cars testing new automotive technologies and demonstrating groundbreaking innovations.

In 2012, the DeltaWing, a rocket-shaped car, made its debut. It showed promise with LMP2-level performance but retired after a collision. More innovative cars followed, including the hydrogen-fueled GreenGT H2 and the hybrid Nissan ZEOD RC.

Frederic Sausset, a quadruple amputee, made history by driving a modified Morgan LMP2 in 2016.


In 2021, Sausset returned with an Oreca 07 LMP2 car under the SRT41 banner, featuring a lineup of disabled drivers.


The 2023 Garage 56 entry is a modified NASCAR Cup Series Next Gen Chevy Camaro ZL1 stock car.

NASCAR legend Jimmie Johnson, F1 champion Jenson Button, and Le Mans winner Mike Rockenfeller will take the wheel, creating a thrilling combination of motorsports expertise.

How impressive has the @NASCAR Garage 56 car been?

It's 5 seconds faster than every GTE car at Le Mans.

And listen to that American muscle roar 🔊

Teams compete in a pit-stop challenge during the lead-up to the race.

NASCAR's Garage 56 effort won this year with an impressive time of 10.364 seconds, beating all GTE teams.

And unlike GTE teams, they had to use a manual floor jack.

🎥 @zack_albert

Garage 56 at Le Mans 2021: What to Expect?

🇲🇨  The Monaco Grand Prix has never aired live on ABC in the United States.

Here's what ABC/ESPN has in store for US fans of Formula 1 under their new broadcast deal 👇🏻

In July 2022, F1 re-signed its US broadcast deal with ESPN.

The deal is an 1800% increase in fee over the $5 million ESPN was paying, so they have to get their money's worth.

https://readqualifier.com/p/us-broadcast-rights-deal-done

The Monaco Grand Prix will finally air live on ABC.

Fun fact: The Monaco Grand Prix holds the record for the largest audience ever to watch a Formula 1 race in the U.S.

2.78 million tuned in on ABC in 2002, but it was on a delay, not live.


💨 18 of 23 races on ABC or ESPN. The other five on ESPN2.
🚫 All race telecasts will continue the commercial-free
🏁 13 races airing on ESPN, the most ever
🇺🇸 Three races in the U.S
👀 ESPN+ will simulcast 18 of 23 races in English and Spanish

https://twitter.com/vincenzolandino/status/1540423498962722821?s=20

🏎️ Coverage of F1 qualifying (including the F1 Sprint) will be more focused, with most sessions airing on ESPN or ESPN2.

📲 ESPN will produce more preview and review shows that will air live on ESPN social media and digital channels on race days.

📺 ESPN’s signature news and information program @SportsCenter will have F1 coverage before and after all 23 races.

The first 2023 edition of the ESPN Post-Race Show airs at noon ET on Sunday following the conclusion of the Bahrain Grand Prix.

📰 ESPN’s coverage of F1 also includes a dedicated site that reports on the championship year-round, with reporters on-site at every race. ESPN’s F1 reporters also contribute to the video podcast program Unlapped.

@natesaundersF1 | @Edmondson_F1 | @Katie_George05

If you enjoyed this thread, you should:

1. Follow me; I tweet interesting stuff like this all the time.

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ESPN Going All-In on the USA

Amazon kindle tech will revolutionize corporate sponsorships in Formula 1.

Check out how McLaren is leveraging this unique display technology to take their branding efforts to the next level.

👇

Motorsports are significant business opportunities, especially at the Formula 1 level, where teams can spend over a hundred million dollars in a single season.

Corporate sponsorships help offset these costs and allow other companies to benefit from a Formula 1 team's efforts.

Placing a corporate sponsor's logo on a Formula 1 race car is a great way to get brand awareness for the company.

Sponsors must compete for placement with limited space on a Formula 1 car — but this technology changes that.

Check out these screen grabs from testing this morning.

The car's cockpit view shows the change in branding the viewer sees around the driver.

In this case, it was the Google Chrome logo and the #Chrome

📸 u/wouldnt-u-like-2know

We've seen this idea before at CES 2022, where BMW demoed an SUV completely wrapped in E-Ink, allowing the vehicle to change its appearance from white to black or introduce different patterns and designs.

🎥 @klwtts

And last year, McLaren announced a partnership with Seamless Digital to upgrade their cars with these E-Ink screens.

At the USGP in Austin, McLaren Racing upgraded their MCL36 cars with a pair of these displays, one on either side of the cockpit.

F1 technical analyst @ScarbsTech gave us this sketch to show how the technology works.

@SPT_F1

This revolutionizes the way sponsors can be featured during a Formula 1 race.

With the new technology, multiple logos can be programmed to appear on the car during specific times, locations, or even depending on the race's progress.

📸 @ScarbsTech

For example, sponsors can pay to have their logo prominently displayed when the car is in first place, or pay more to have their logo appear longer while the car is stopped in the pits.

This unique new technology has nothing to do with the car's performance and everything to do with increasing the profitability of competing in Formula 1.

It is a fantastic way to maximize the return on investment for sponsors and increase sponsorship opportunities for teams.

Of course, having more logos on the car means someone must keep track of the value the sponsors get from these placements.


There are people and companies whose job is to calculate the amount of screen time the sponsor's corporate logo had.

You've seen me use reports like this. They're from @Zoomph, which can track when a logo shows up and how long it is displayed across both social and broadcast.

If you enjoyed this thread, you should:

1. Follow me; I tweet interesting stuff like this all the time.

2. Join 40,000+ others and sign up for my free newsletter where I break down the business & culture of F1.

readqualifier.com


Marketing Opportunities with Kindle-like Tech in F1

Romain Grosjean's incredible story of survival will be on display next month in Madrid, as Formula 1 is putting his burnt car from his 2020 crash on exhibition.

Grosjean was enveloped in a 1000°C fire for nearly 30 seconds.

He miraculously survived ♥️

Thanks to the incredible technological advancements, Grosjean only suffered minor burns to his hands and legs.

The outcome would have been far worse at any other time in history.

The crash that tragically took the life of three-time Formula One champion Ayrton Senna was in some ways similar to the one that Romain Grosjean survived.

Both were incredibly violent, involved hard impacts with a solid barrier, and caused a significant delay in the race.

It's believed that a piece of Senna's race car sliced through his helmet visor on impact. We wonder if a halo or HANS device could have saved him.

The @F1 Exhibition opens on 24 March, allowing fans to see the remains of the survival cell up close while learning more about the technology that helped save Grosjean's life.

👉🏻 f1exhibition.com

I talked about these helmet cams getting stabilization next season as they’ll become a normal part of the broadcast. 

@MarkLaneF1 had his hand at stabilizing @Charles_Leclerc’s lap here.

 #MonacoGP #F1 

https://twitter.com/vincenzolandino/status/1519019940921098240