I agree with Lyn Gardner that Theatre Criticism is not in crisis. A headlong, destination-uncertain transition perhaps, but not crisis. How does this relate to selling out a venue? It’s great to have people commenting on what you do in as large a forum as possible. One major structural advantage for sports event marketers, for example, is that there are entire TV networks (ESPN being the leading one) who must talk about their product 24 hours a day on multiple …

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I wrote about this a couple years ago, and it’s only gotten worse. Short-term dollars (maybe); long-term value destruction. As soon as there’s a mild downturn in interest in college football, these bad bowls are going to be a financial albatross that could bankrupt smaller schools and conferences. By the way, most of these games are practically unsellable as tickets, however much the lesser bowl games’ proprietors try to pretend the contrary. It’s also a perfectly mockable emblem of the …

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