I don't know what digital sports media will look like in the future and the past few years have given us little clear indication. We've seen prestige sites tied to brand names born (THE MMQB), shuttered (GRANTLAND), and reborn (THE RINGER). There have been ESPN offshoots (THE UNDEFEATED) and burgeoning media companies (VOX's SB NATION). VICE SPORTS has grown. BLEACHER REPORT invested in content, while FOX SPORTS pulled a BLOCKBUSTER and went straight to video. No company has been safe from layoffs. 2017 is as murky as 2012. But THE ATHLETIC is an intriguing footnote. It has opened branches in four cities and is expanding while operating on a subscription model. Subscriptions have worked for the WSJ and NYT but has any sports media company done it well? Is ESPN's INSIDER a success? JOE FAVORITO interviewed founding editor JON GREENBERG about what's worked in CHICAGO and elsewhere. One unexpected nugget: Hockey fans will pay. Who knew? But that's also kind of the point. When nobody can crack the code, why should any assumptions be sacred? Will anyone follow this model and make it a trend?... What's the value of being average? In sports, there's room for debate. In the NBA, it might be the worst place to be. In the NFL, where everything is on the margins, 8-8 isn't far from 11-5 or 5-11. But is average tenable anymore? THE RINGER's CHRIS RYAN writes about the NBA's treadmill of mediocrity and appreciating the little victories that fall short of championships. As a 76ERS fan, that's all he's had lately. It isn't easy to be average in an era when many teams seem to operate with a binary choice: Chase a title or tank/rebuild. Even in the NFL, where bottoming out is no guarantee of future greatness, the BROWNS and JETS are ready to try. Does this stem from a media culture centered on which teams have rings and which ones are failures because they don't? Sports teams, like all organizations, need alignment and agreement on goals. If ownership, management and fans are on the same page, mediocrity is more palatable than it seems. You don't always need a home run; sometimes, a double just might do... Remember when POKÉMON GO was the big thing of summer 2016? And that it would spawn a whole new world of AR games to suck us in? A year later, its legacy is muted. It fizzled so quickly that people probably forgot to delete the app from their phones... I still geek out when I see NBA JAM at a bar. I didn't get to experience its arcade machine heyday but it's aged well. Video games now are so lifelike that comparing NBA 2K17 is like comparing two different species. But millennials like me are happy to lose a few quarters to play. This NBA JAM oral history is a fun read. So is the map that comes with it, which tells you where you can play across the US... Officially, it's esports. Not eSports. Or e-sports... For teammates, a love story.