Married to the Game is a new Amazon Prime docuseries. What’s it about?
From Amazon Prime’s press release, here’s the story with Married to the Game: “Unprecedented access to the lives of the wives and girlfriends of Premier League footballers İlkay Gündoğan, Jorginho, James Tarkowski, Matt Turner and Riyad Mahrez, during the summer break and the transfer window.”
The first thing I needed to do in understanding more about Married to the Game was to get up to speed on the term WAGs, which stands for “wives and girlfriends.”
The trailer shows us some pretty high end and glossy goings on, and then reveals, “Premier League Footballers,” via title cards, “at the top of their game. But behind every great footballer, is an even greater woman. For one summer, exclusive access to life off the pitch.”
One of the WAGs explains, “It’s not always as glamorous as everyone thinks it is,” as we see lots of ritzy homes and luxurious surroundings. But we soon learn of the eating disorders, stress of moving to far flung locations as the footballing men in their lives suddenly change teams, and even dealing with childbirth that can be involved in this very specific lifestyle.
Married to the Game: when and where is it on?
Married to the Game’s first season will be released on Amazon Prime on Friday, February 23rd, 2024.
Personal stuff that has something to do with Married to the Game
Some years back, I worked for a company out of its Seattle office (this was in the pre-covid WFH times!), and we also worked closely with colleagues in other locations, including one in New York City.
Occasionally, I would head to NYC to meet with people at the office there, something I always greatly enjoyed as a New York native. For a spell, I had to deal with one particular executive at the New York office who was quite challenging, though we got along and worked together fine. This executive managed most of the other people in the NYC office that I deal with.
On my first trip to NYC to meet with this exec and his team over the course of a few days, I got up very early one morning, and decided to take a quick trek around lower Manhattan – which is one of my favorite things in the world to do, particularly in that part of the world.
I visited an old school Jewish delicatessen and bakery, and thought it might be a nice and fun thing to buy some pastries and breakfast treats for the team that morning.
Well… it turned out to be a sort of “yes and no” thing. I arrived at the office, and it was still quite early, so I put out the treats and invited anyone who wanted some to dive in. People seemed generally appreciative, and I thought all was well… until the executive found out about it.
He was standing by the treats, and sort of found out that I had purchased food for the team while he was addressing everyone. His face froze, as if he was confused.
And then I’ll never forget this part. He looked directly at me and, with a frozen, somewhat unsettling look on his face he said, “What a guy.”
It was abundantly clear that my act of seeming generosity was not taken as such by this exec. What a guy was certainly not meant as what a GREAT guy, if you can dig.
What a guy became the phrase that I mentally associated with this exec during the remaining time that I worked with him (P.S. he was eventually cleared out in a round of layoffs).
And in my head, I shortened what a guy to WAG. And I eventually thought of him as WAG or WAGs.
What a guy, indeed.