In Barcelona, Spain, on March 5, 2025, a close-up of AI cloud data center racks with servers, cables, and blinking lights represents advanced computing power, big data processing, and cloud technology infrastructure during the Mobile World Congress 2025. (Photo by Joan Cros/NurPhoto via Getty Images) | NurPhoto via Getty ImagesThomas StephensonSat, February 14, 2026 at 2:38 AM UTC·6 min readSo let’s veer off topic for a minute, because this week suddenly the artificial intelligence companies need a new round of funding and now we’re subjected to a bunch of pants-shitting takes (or gleeful, depending on your point of view) that AI is going to put us all out of a job within the next 12-18 months. That’s unlikely to happen with my day job, but that’s not the point of this post, because replacing Anchor of Gold, that should be easy, right?
Since I only use large language models ironically (as in, asking them to write something so that I can mock it, as I am about to do below), I entered this into ChatGPT:
Write an angry post about the current state of college sports in the style of anchorofgold.com
Because if the machines are about to kill us, that should be something they’re capable of doing, right? So here’s what ChatGPT drained the Amazon River to write:
Oh good. Another day in the ever-expanding, morally elastic, completely unrecognizable universe formerly known as “college sports.”
Off to a promising start, because I certainly recognize this universe by now, I just hate it.
Remember when this was supposed to be about school pride? Regional rivalries? Student-athletes representing universities that at least pretended to be about education? That was cute. Adorable, even. Now it’s just a hedge fund with mascots.
Okay, let’s start with the obvious. I would never accuse the other, uh, fifteen SEC schools of even pretending to be about education. And since when is my main beef with college sports that it’s a hedge fund? No, no, I would have clearly gone with private equity as the villain. Or television networks.
We’ve officially reached the point where conference alignment is determined by which time zone can squeeze out a few extra dollars from a streaming platform you forgot you subscribed to. Geography? Tradition? The fact that Stanford playing conference games in New Jersey makes about as much sense as Vanderbilt hosting a snowmobile invitational? Doesn’t matter. If the check clears, load up the frequent flyer miles.
If there’s an ACC team in New Jersey, I must have missed it. These machines are supposed to be intelligent? And “snowmobile invitational?” Has that phrase ever been used at Anchor of Gold?
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement(“Snowmobile invitational” will, of course, become the newest AoG meme now that it has been spoken into existence.)
But actually my beef about time zones is that killing off the Pac-12 means that the college basketball night ends at 10 PM CT, because God forbid we make Duke play a game that tips off that late.
And don’t even get me started on the leadership. Or whatever we’re calling the collection of suits currently piloting this flaming hot air balloon. Every major decision is framed as “what’s best for student-athletes,” which is fascinating considering no one seems remotely concerned with whether those student-athletes can attend class when they’re flying cross-country on a Tuesday for a volleyball match that will be streamed exclusively on an app developed by a crypto startup.
“Flaming hot air balloon?” Really? Although, yeah, I probably would write something about an app developed by a crypto startup. If that’s what we’re considering Kalshi, anyway.
Yes, NIL reform was necessary. Yes, athletes deserved compensation. But what we’ve built isn’t reform. It’s a barely regulated auction house with locker rooms. We’ve gone from “amateurism is sacred” to “have you considered reclassifying as a billionaire?” in roughly 18 months. The transfer portal spins like a roulette wheel, coaches preach “culture” while texting replacements before the moving trucks arrive, and fanbases are expected to treat it all as normal evolution instead of late-stage capitalism with shoulder pads.
Oh, for the love of God. I have never once conceded that NIL reform was “necessary” or that athletes deserved compensation. This is the truly noxious part of AI, artificially restraining the terms of debate by conceding points that it deems you must concede, just like how even the most skeptical articles you find online about AI (except this one, of course) somehow manage to concede that they like the concept. And “late-stage capitalism”? Nope, not a turn of phrase I’d ever use, either. What the hell even is that?
And the playoff expansion. Of course we expanded the playoff. Why stop at a system that already devalued the regular season when we can build one that turns September into a four-month exhibition schedule? We’re speed-running the NFL model while pretending the marching band still matters.
Oddly, this paragraph gets my complaints completely and utterly backwards: I like playoff expansion and think we should have 24 teams with every conference champion getting an automatic bid, and I’m actually not concerned about that turning the regular season into an exhibition schedule.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementI have, on the other hand, had lots of complaints about replacing marching bands with in-stadium DJs and light shows and all other sorts of sensory overload that we shouldn’t have to subject children to in order to attend a game. So… wow, ChatGPT is getting my complaints about college sports completely and utterly wrong.
The worst part? The sanctimony. Every announcement comes wrapped in corporate buzzwords about “access,” “growth,” and “the future of the game.” The future of the game appears to be 18-year-olds negotiating endorsement packages while conferences disintegrate like wet paper bags and long-standing rivalries are sacrificed to the altar of prime-time inventory.
College sports used to feel chaotic in a fun way. Now it’s chaotic in a “someone sold the family farm to build a crypto casino” way.
What? No, my complaint here is that the buzzwords about “access” are clearly bullshit.
Of course, I’d never phrase it like that, but “chaotic in a someone sold the family farm to build a crypto casino way” does sound like an accurate description of my thoughts. So, yeah, okay, maybe —
—nope, not conceding the point.
And sure, we’ll all still watch. We’ll complain on message boards, we’ll argue about strength of schedule, we’ll convince ourselves this is fine because our team landed a four-star left tackle with a decent TikTok following. We’re complicit. We know it. They know it. That’s the whole business model.
I would in fact treat landing a four-star left tackle with a decent TikTok following as a genuinely bad thing.
But let’s stop pretending this is some noble evolution. It’s consolidation. It’s monetization. It’s the slow replacement of pageantry with PowerPoint decks.
College sports aren’t dead. They’re just being strip-mined in real time.
And we’re supposed to clap because the quarterly earnings look strong.
Dear God, what?
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementSo, yeah, I’m sure that you’ll be able to read slop like this somewhere on the internet. It’s just not going to be Anchor of Gold. And that’s both the first and last time that ChatGPT will write anything for Anchor of Gold.
And you idiots think this is going to replace human labor?
AdvertisementAdvertisement