With the World Cup underway, the Wall Street Journal profiles a 29-year-old who is getting paid to watch the games and closely track results. The weird thing is that Austin Sagan isn't a particularly big sports fan. He is, however, an analyst with American Airlines whose job is to quietly rewire the carrier's network whenever major sporting events or concerts send fans scrambling for flights. Meaning, he doesn't just get paid to watch soccer. He tracks everything from the Kentucky Derby to NFL games, and everything in between (including, say, Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny tour announcements). "I've never watched more sports in my life than in the last year," he says.
His biggest challenge, though, has been this year's expanded men's World Cup, spread across 104 matches in the US, Canada, and Mexico. With no modern equivalent to study—the last tournament was compact, in Qatar—Sagan used last year's Club World Cup in the US as a rough guide before scrambling to adjust after December's group draw. He added flights to help US supporters travel between Los Angeles and Seattle, boosted capacity for Scotland fans heading from Boston to Miami, and expanded service between Dallas and Monterrey for Japan's famously mobile supporters. By the time the dust settled, American had added more than 28,000 domestic seats and more than 30,000 overall. Now Sagan and his team have to track every game, ready to shift planes before fans have even left the stadium. Read the full story.
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