An edge

An edge

Today’s expression is more like a vocabulary word—an “edge.” An edge is a small advantage in a very competitive situation. You often hear that athletes are looking for an edge. Professional sports is very competitive. Even a small advantage can mean the difference between success and failure on the field or on the court.

It’s not uncommon for sports teams to hire psychologists, sleep scientists, and nutritionists, all in an effort to give their athletes an edge. If one team sleeps better than another, that could be the difference between a win or a loss.

Years ago, in baseball, the Oakland Athletics, a small-market team, went looking for an edge. They didn’t have a big budget like the Los Angeles Dodgers or the New York Yankees, so they needed to get an edge somewhere else.

So they turned to statistical analysis of their players. The A’s were the only team doing deep analytics on the game and this gave the A’s an advantage for many years. Analytics was their edge: it was their small advantage in a very competitive situation.

Analytics revolutionized baseball (first) and then other professional sports. What started as an edge for the Oakland A’s eventually became part of the sport’s culture. And now professional soccer around the world is starting to embrace these types of analytics. So it’s not an edge anymore: everyone is doing it.

Some athletes turn to steroids or other illegal substances looking for an edge. In fact, in baseball’s steroid age, many players who admitted to using banned substances said they were afraid for their jobs, that it was so competitive, and they were just looking for an edge somewhere. They were looking for a small advantage—in this case, by doing something illegal.

In today’s lesson about genetically-modified crops, I started out by talking about seeds for common crops like corn and soybeans. You might think that a seed to grow corn is just as good as another. But agriculture is big business. Farmers want their crops to be healthy, to grow big enough, to need the right amount of water, to be resistant to insects and viruses—even without genetic modification. So there are big companies that study seeds and carefully develop seed varietals that will produce the best yield for farmers.

You can’t just buy these seeds at a garden shop, either. The companies that produce them guard their secrets. Their specific varietals of seeds can give them an edge. If farmers know that one company’s seeds produce better yields on their fields, then that seed company has an edge. That company has a small advantage in a competitive market.

Any competitive business is looking for an edge. Right now, video streaming is extremely competitive. Netflix used to have an edge because it had a big budget from its subscribers. But now everyone has a big budget. HBO, Amazon, Disney, Apple: they’re all spending big.

Some streaming companies are looking for their edge with live sports. Live sports are traditionally not available on streaming platforms, but that’s starting to change. Apple and Peacock have signed deals to broadcast one baseball game per week, each. But Amazon is looking for its edge with the NFL. Amazon Prime streams one NFL football game per week. That was a big coup for a streamer—the first weekly game to be exclusively streamed in America’s most popular sport.

JR’s song of the week

Today’s song of the week is “Carefully” by the Little Brutes. I think this is about a couple who are dancing in front of a crowd—I’m not sure if it’s in a competition, at a wedding, a party, or anywhere else. But the line I like is, “I’ve got this feeling inside like we’ve already won this.” That makes me think maybe it’s about a competition of some kind.

See what you think…today’s song of the week is “Carefully” by the Little Brutes.

See you next time!

By the way, before we go, I need to say a big “thank you” and “good luck” to a member of the Plain English team. A couple of years ago, when I was still juggling Plain English and a full time job, I needed some help producing some of the content. That’s when I found Madeline from Minnesota. And for more than two years, she has been writing the headlines, the lesson summaries, choosing the photos, and creating some other content for each lesson.

But this is the last lesson that she’ll work on. She got a great new job and she’s going to be going back to school, so I wanted to take a quick moment and say “thank you” to Madeline for all her hard work over the last two years, and good luck.

Well that’s all for today’s Plain English. Congratulations on making it to the end of another great lesson. This was number 511 and you can find the full lesson at PlainEnglish.com/511. We’ll be back on Monday with the next one. See you then!