A featherless chicken was engineered to reduce poultry production costs but provoked consumer revulsion because the absence of feathers removed expected visual and psychological context. The feather layer provided an overlooked layer of familiarity that made consumers comfortable with the animal as food. A similar principle applied to Grand Slam Track, which sought to strip athletics down to pure running and repackage it for new audiences. Removing established rituals, variety, and visual cues aimed at efficiency and marketability risked alienating fans and investors, undermining commercial prospects despite initial funding and promotional buzz.
The idea was simple enough: for poultry-rearing purposes feathers are a nuisance, bearing significant costs in labour and industrial plant, so by breeding genetically modified feather-free chickens you could save the industry billions. Just imagine if you could also convince the chicken to eat sage and onion stuffing. Perhaps even baste itself in lemon butter at regular intervals. Alas, when it
Grand Slam Track made perfect sense in PDF format. Take a well-liked but struggling sport. Shear off all the extraneous matter: the discus, the funny walks, the triple jumps, the relays. Repackage and resell it to a new audience. And in condensing the entire sport of athletics down to its purest essence running Johnson reckoned he could unlock the fresh revenue streams and casual fans that would turn his enterprise into what he described as the Formula One of athlete racing. Initially,
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