The Rise of the Bentley and Broad War Boys: Converting Nascent Automotive and Computer Technologies into Mainstream Sports

Although technology is an important aspect of every type of sport, only some sports are so dependent on technology that they could not exist without strong financial and technological contributions of other businesses seeing benefits in sponsoring teams. One such sport originated at the end of the 19th century: motorsports. Roughly a century later, another sport strongly dependent on technology started its rise: e-sports. To maintain interest in these sports, there continues to be a need to make the technology attractive to the general public. As e-sports’ popularity is soaring, it is of interest to reflect on which factors played a role in this rise in popularity, how they continue to influence e-sports’ popularity and to what extent they compare to early factors involved in raising the popularity of motorsports. The paper will show that, for both motorsports and e-sports, the real drivers to develop these technologies into mainstream sports did not arise from the athletes nor from industries directly benefitting from enhanced public exposure to these sports. Rather, media and other industries attempting to reach out to specific consumer communities and looking to remain modern were strongly involved in evolving both types of sports into their current popularity. Based on the effects of media portrayal of the popularity of motorsports throughout its history, the paper identifies several contemporary issues e-sports will need to resolve in order to maintain its popularity

The Rise of the Bentley and Broad War Boys: Converting Nascent Automotive and Computer Technologies into Mainstream Sports

Although technology is an important aspect of every type of sport, only some sports are so dependent on technology that they could not exist without strong financial and technological contributions of other businesses seeing benefits in sponsoring teams. One such sport originated at the end of the 19th century: motorsports. Roughly a century later, another sport strongly dependent on technology started its rise: e-sports. To maintain interest in these sports, there continues to be a need to make the technology attractive to the general public. As e-sports’ popularity is soaring, it is of interest to reflect on which factors played a role in this rise in popularity, how they continue to influence e-sports’ popularity and to what extent they compare to early factors involved in raising the popularity of motorsports. The paper will show that, for both motorsports and e-sports, the real drivers to develop these technologies into mainstream sports did not arise from the athletes nor from industries directly benefitting from enhanced public exposure to these sports. Rather, media and other industries attempting to reach out to specific consumer communities and looking to remain modern were strongly involved in evolving both types of sports into their current popularity. Based on the effects of media portrayal of the popularity of motorsports throughout its history, the paper identifies several contemporary issues e-sports will need to resolve in order to maintain its popularity

Pedagogic Metaphors and the Nature of Accounting Signification

This paper concerns three metaphors for financial statements associated with accounting education: lenses, photographs, and the board game, Scrabble. These metaphors not only describe financial statements but also affect our interpretations of them and our behavior towards them. The lens metaphor has many implications that accounting cannot live up to; however, that does not mean that it is an inappropriate metaphor to express our aspirations for accounting and to inspire our students. The Scrabble metaphor is a somewhat pejorative metaphor that we may cynically apply to accounting, but it may also be an effective means of criticizing mindless manipulation of financial statement elements. The photographic metaphor, occupying a middle ground, might be the most intriguing of the three. At an elementary level, it captures some simple truths about accounting, or at least some simple statements we would like to be true. But as the complexities of the metaphor are explored, they reveal a variety of intriguing ontological issues that concern financial statements

Money n\u27 Motion - Born to be Wild

There are intriguing parallels between motoring and personal investing: the romance, the thrilling movement, and the freedom; the banality, the enervating repetition, and the entrapment; the subconsciously seductive appeal of crashes that ends it all. Consequently, there are intriguing parallels between the automobile and accounting, without which the activities of motoring and personal investing, respectively, would be severely attenuated, if they were possible at all. And there are intriguing parallels between popular media and accounting education, which are responsible for the enculturation processes that perpetuate the beliefs that in motoring and personal investing, by means of automobiles and accounting, we can be independent, we can be free, we can take control of our lives, and we can rise above the barriers of our social classes. The historian George W. Pierson\u27s mobility thesis explains these parallels. Motoring is not merely a fruitful metaphor for personal investing, automobiles for accounting, and popular media for accounting education. Motoring and personal investing are just two among many manifestations of the mobility which is characteristically American. Physically and financially, Americans need to be in motion

Crazy 'Bout a Mercury

When we purchase an automobile, we are also acquiring an amorphous but very real image, that is, the statement which the automobile makes about its owner to the public. Such images are forged in popular culture, and Mercury is an automobile brand that had an auspicious post-WWII popular culture debut. In 1948, K.C. Douglas recorded “Mercury Boogie” on a 10-inch 78-RPM, with its memorable line in the chorus “I’m crazy ‘bout a Mercury.” Five years later in 1953, George and Sam Barris transformed a 1951 Mercury Club Coupe into the Hirohata Merc, creating a classic of customization that has been described as “the most famous custom of all time” (Taylor 2006: 56). Ford occasionally attempted to take advantage of these strong roots in popular culture formed in the make’s earliest days, but the company’s efforts were not notably successful. In spite of Mercury’s promising beginnings in media, it has had only a slight presence in music and film. Mercury’s image never influenced the automobile market beyond the first few years, and it was unable to prevent the brand’s 2011 demise

Intrinsic value in financial markets

This paper identifies three 'folk' arguments for an intrinsic value implicit in the finance literature. The 'hindsight' argument states that if financial assets eventually have a value in the form of realised cash flows, then this reveals an intrinsic value that was always there. The 'Goldilocks' argument states that if there are values that are clearly too high and too low, there must be an intrinsic value between the two that is just right. The 'time-will-tell' argument states that however unstable prices may be in the short-run, in the long-run we can infer an intrinsic value beneath them.intrinsic value; paradox; valuation; philosophy; behavioural finance; art market; financial markets.