Apple's Tim Cook calls sports a 'great unifier' in call to ESPN
Apple CEO Tim Cook took a break from running the world's most valuable company on Thursday to call in to ESPN for quick chat about his alma mater Auburn University, whose basketball team is heading to the NCAA Final Four for the first time.
Apple CEO Tim Cook at Auburn University in 2014.
Cook reached out to "The Paul Finebaum Show" on ESPN's SEC Network to surprise host Paul Finebaum, who can be seen in the clip below fielding a call from Auburn fan "Tim from Cupertino"
"Paul, how are you?" Cook asked before repeating Auburn's battle cry, "War Eagle!"
Finebaum immediately recognized Cook as "not just some Tim," but the CEO of Apple and "everyone's favorite Auburn fan."
During the short exchange, Finebaum asked whether athletics enters the conversation at major corporations.
"Yeah, I think sports is still a great unifier," Cook said. "So it's one thing that we can all rally around, and people put their other interests aside to either fight the other side or to hopefully join forces. Yeah, of course, sports always comes up. CEOs are people too, they love sports too."
Cook and Finebaum went on to discuss Auburn's basketball program, specifically Tiger's head coach Bruce Pearl, who took the job in 2014 after a five-year run at Tennessee.
Auburn is on its way to the Final Four after upsetting Tennessee in the SEC championship in March, a stunning victory followed up by a run in the NCAA tournament that culminated in an overtime victory over Kentucky this past weekend.
Cook is an unabashed sports fan who can sometimes be found on the sidelines of Tigers football games or court-side at Duke University, where he earned an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business. The executive is a longtime supporter of his alma maters, having delivered commencement addresses at both Auburn and Duke in the past decade. In 2014, Cook received a lifetime achievement award from the Auburn University Alumni Association.
Most recently, Cook in 2017 visited Auburn to speak about inclusion, diversity and other human rights issues in a talk hosted by the university's Student Government Association.
Apple CEO Tim Cook at Auburn University in 2014.
Cook reached out to "The Paul Finebaum Show" on ESPN's SEC Network to surprise host Paul Finebaum, who can be seen in the clip below fielding a call from Auburn fan "Tim from Cupertino"
"Paul, how are you?" Cook asked before repeating Auburn's battle cry, "War Eagle!"
Finebaum immediately recognized Cook as "not just some Tim," but the CEO of Apple and "everyone's favorite Auburn fan."
"CEOs are people, too. They love sports, too!"
Tim from Cupertino (AKA @tim_cook, CEO of Apple) had to call Paul @finebaum today to discuss @AuburnMBB making the #FinalFour pic.twitter.com/ISLCYyFOQI-- ESPN PR (@ESPNPR)
During the short exchange, Finebaum asked whether athletics enters the conversation at major corporations.
"Yeah, I think sports is still a great unifier," Cook said. "So it's one thing that we can all rally around, and people put their other interests aside to either fight the other side or to hopefully join forces. Yeah, of course, sports always comes up. CEOs are people too, they love sports too."
Cook and Finebaum went on to discuss Auburn's basketball program, specifically Tiger's head coach Bruce Pearl, who took the job in 2014 after a five-year run at Tennessee.
"@coachbrucepearl has energized the program like no one I've ever seen in Auburn's history. He's brought the basketball team to be a contender and we're all proud of him."
-- @tim_cook on @finebaum pic.twitter.com/mEUUa3N2Kv-- SEC Network (@SECNetwork)
Auburn is on its way to the Final Four after upsetting Tennessee in the SEC championship in March, a stunning victory followed up by a run in the NCAA tournament that culminated in an overtime victory over Kentucky this past weekend.
Cook is an unabashed sports fan who can sometimes be found on the sidelines of Tigers football games or court-side at Duke University, where he earned an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business. The executive is a longtime supporter of his alma maters, having delivered commencement addresses at both Auburn and Duke in the past decade. In 2014, Cook received a lifetime achievement award from the Auburn University Alumni Association.
Most recently, Cook in 2017 visited Auburn to speak about inclusion, diversity and other human rights issues in a talk hosted by the university's Student Government Association.
Comments
Professional sports is at its roots just another form of spectator-based entertainment that serves to temporarily distract us from the mundane realities of real life. Going to a sports performance is no different than going to a movie, the circus, the zoo, the symphony, or in the case of E-sports, watching some nerds play video games against one another. Nothing at all wrong with getting a dose of distraction every once in a while. But it's still just a product with brands and fans of those brands. People like rallying around brands that they have developed an affinity for through some sort of personal connection. Nothing serves to create a personal connection better than putting a city, state, or university name on the product. Heck, with state colleges you get tremendous support from people throughout the state, most of whom never even attended the university. But having the state in the name makes it "their team" and nearly everyone wants to part of something bigger than themselves, whether it's totally fabricated or not.
But what the hell, we're all fans of something, whether it's Apple computers, Auburn University basketball team, Manchester United Football club, Pittsburgh Penguins Hockey team, Barnum & Bailey Circus, The Avengers series of movies, Republican Party, Democratic Party, etc. People want to belong and sports fills that need better that just about anything for a vast number of people. My only beef is whether sports deserves to consume 33% of the daily "news" coverage, with breaking news stories about local team player acquisitions, and other such trivial nonsense displacing stories and coverage that matters to our personal and community wellbeing. This is really too much to think about ... I think I'll go watch ESPN for a few hours to calm myself down.
On the other hand, some people can take it way too far. The director in my organization is a rabid fan of one particular university. He consistently says "we" when referring to how the team played. He ordered the office space to be painted and carpeted in colors that closely match the team colors. The logo of our organization is based on the team logo. The list goes on and on. In that case, sports has proven to be a divisive subject as it is rammed down the throat of those that don't care, and fans of other schools feels like they are being marginalized.
My personal opinion is competitive sports needs to be separated from educational institutions. They are nothing but feeder leagues for the NFL, NBA, and MLB. Do like most other countries and let the local sports programs stand on their own rather than tying them to public institutions.
Also: if you scream at sports on TV when you live in a shared space (apartments, condos, row houses), you’re an inconsiderate jerk (as well as an irrational armchair referee; shut up and go play the game yourself). Being forced to listen to neighbors shouting at sports on TV generates divisiveness itself (ie: sports fans seem like selfish jerks).
"I HOPE I NEVER SEE YOU AGAIN!!!"