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Why would an intelligent person voluntarily watch the 2009 Superbowl, where approximately 100 egotistical male jocks whose main vocational interest is obtaining lucrative endorsement contracts will run back and forth with a ball, when the viewer could experience so much more fun that day playing touch football in his or her own neighborhood? Does it serve the sport of football, for example, when just 50 athletes per squad (100 total) actually "play" while millions-most of whom would really benefit from some exercise--sit passively before their TV screens?
The current economic downturn is a good time to reassert individual involvement in recreational sports and to focus our energy on intra-murals, local amateur leagues, and municipal team athletics at all age levels. Rather than be spectator/consumers sitting passively before large screen TVs, chewing fatty snack foods, and obediently purchasing ho-hum commodities as directed by banal commercials, we as citizens need to turn away from these college and commercial marketing enterprises, don comfortable clothing, and go outside (or to the gym) to play-Yes, you read that term correctly-actually play the sports instead of watching self-important jocks do it for us.
We really can wean ourselves from these gross weekly spectacles, these grotesque parodies of sport that are so heavily promoted on commercial TV and radio networks by greedy for-profit enterprises like the NBA, NHL, NFL, NASCAR, and Major League Baseball primarily to sell us cleaning products, bland beers, bulky cars, unhealthy snack foods and bogus lifestyle enhancements. And, we will have more fun while we do it.
Sport–An Essential Part of a Balanced Life
Sport and athletic activity have traditionally been important components of a balanced, healthy life. Starting in ancient times people threw carved sticks at targets, made crude leather balls, fashioned elaborate baskets on the end of branches, and devised contests of skill and hand-eye coordination. Young and old alike have enjoyed baseball, soccer, stickball, swimming, tennis, basketball, rollerblade and ice hockey, volleyball and many other active games, while benefitting from physical conditioning and social inclusion. For the less agile, there are moderate sports such as golf, shuffleboard and bowling to accomplish the same ends.
From sports and athletic competitions comes the concept of sports(wo)man–ship, a tradition based on fairness and true concern for one's fellow athletes, and deeply rooted in the underlying nature of athletic games. "Good sports" are players who observe rules, compete safely, and refrain from gouging opponents or grabbing face masks. "Good sports" congratulate winners and losers, and always acknowledge these congratulations graciously.
Another important quality of traditional sport is that nearly everyone may participate. Even those who may seem at first ineligible (i.e., wheel-chair bound, mentally impaired, amputees) have opportunities to compete in appropriately structured leagues and teams. Some enjoy baseball only enough to play an occasional game at a picnic or neighborhood gathering. Others join city recreational sports leagues for retirees, young adults, or neighborhood groups. For others, there are hospital leagues, or lawyer leagues, where umpires, referees and a more organized experience are available. The critical issue here is participation, not spectatorship. And the crucial difference is that winning and losing are equally valid and enjoyable outcomes. After all, "all sports are trivial."
Virtually every one of these benefits are sacrificed when CSBs take over a sport.
How Do CSBs Operate?
Five common characteristics of these sports business enterprises include naming a company ("team") with a city, university or geographic adjective. This deludes people in that city (or region) into adopting the company employees ("players") as de facto local heroes or heroines, despite the reality that only a few of the players ever lived in their company's service area before signing a contract to play [sic].
An example of such a city-based adjective would be Portland, as in Portland Trailblazers. An even more obnoxious marketing strategy development involves re-naming a venue, e.g. Seattle's KingDome, with a clumsy corporation name like Safeco Field (!!).
Second, CSB ("team") owners promote a logo-often some type of mascot-to encourage local identification with their hapless employees ("players"). One Seattle university team uses an Alaskan dog (husky) as its logo and mascot; a company in frigid Detroit, Michigan, defying all logic, uses a tropical mammal (Lion).
Third, CSBs always develop a non-competitive structure to protect their market by preventing new teams from joining and by discouraging new leagues from forming. Oddly, Congress supports this strategy with a notorious anti-trust exemption that violates every legal and business principle of free enterprise and competition which we hear ad nauseum during each national election campaign. In the case of colleges and universities, the NCA[sic]A, for example, regulates times and conditions for recruiting high school athletes; of course, recruiting violation scandals are routine by-products of this college-based industry.
Fourth, CSBs sell advertising and broadcasting rights, and license the sales of logo products. There need be no discernable relationship between the sport-like activity and the product; as long as revenue can be extracted for the team, the league will likely license it. This leads to interesting speculation: maybe someday there will be NFL colonoscopes and Notre Dame stethoscopes in physician offices; or Denver Bronco shears in barber shops and WNBA curlers in hair salons and spas. Players mimic this greed by prostituting their names (in a game called endorsements) to sell aftershave, autos, and insurance policies.
As the New York TIMES recently wrote of this phenomenon:
Pondering the Ultimate Sky Box
