Why we need to end commercial ('professional") sports now

::::::::

Cancel the Super Bowl!

(Or, Vince Lombardi Was a Putz)

The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.
- Chinese proverb

The time has come to close down commercial "sport" businesses and return sports to their rightful status as participatory, local, recreational activities for everyday citizens.

The quickest way to return sport to its rightful place as recreational activity for the population-instead of a travesty open only to the few, the dumb and the oversized-would be to cancel Superbowl XLIII and all such subsequent commercial football contests. This would serve as a dramatic statement that we, the public, no longer wish to patronize these grossly commercial distortions of the sports we loved to play as young people.

Yes, the upcoming Superbowl XLIII should ideally be cancelled immediately, and all the parasitic business enterprises which exploit televised commercial games to sell T-shirts, motor vehicles, vacation packages, beers, deodorants, insurance, floor cleaning products, power tools, toothpaste and dog food should find other uses for their advertising budgets-like bus stop kiosks.

Those businesses which call themselves "professional sports" delude themselves just as we ("sports fans") are self-deluded. Truly, there is no lasting glory where grown-ups devote their lives to performing highly-regimented seasonal games simply to sell tickets, garner endorsement contracts, and return large dividends to team investors.

Accurate Naming Helps Understanding

We must first honestly name these activities if we are to understand their effects.  Although different "sports" may be employed in different settings, team corporations uniformly exploit some sport-like activity, be it baseball, football, soccer, etc.  Their goal (you'll pardon the expression) is to convert a healthy community-based sporting activity into a business opportunity which can be exploited to produce a profit.

Colleges, too, compromise themselves and the sports they exploit, while spending public resources meant for education on small numbers of student-athletes, most of whom would not qualify academically for admission.  Although athletic departments protest that marketing revenue and ticket sales "earn" whatever they spend, and even that some of their profit supports scholarships in less popular sports like wrestling, the awkward fact is that college athletic departments drain enormous academic and administrative resources from (public) universities and divert attention from the primary raison d'être of a university.

Call Them Commercial Sports Businesses (CSBs)

The most accurate term for what are inappropriately called professional sports teams appears to be Commercial Sports Businesses (CSBs).  Let us agree for now to use the initials CSBs as a convenient abbreviation, so as to keep clearly in mind the essential commercial nature of these enterprises.

Another possible term, "commercial sports pimps and prostitutes" has also been suggested, although that phrase becomes a bit wordy and rolls less readily off the sportscasters' tongues, so we must settle instead for CSBs. 

In summary, CSBs distort the noble nature of sports just as Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevic distorts the noble nature of elected office in a democracy by auctioning an appointment to a U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder; in each case deliberate exploitation debases the very activity which it attempts to leverage for a profit.

Commercial Sports Businesses Sap the Vitality from Sports

Commercial "sports" corporations debase the intrinsic qualities of true sport beyond recognition, thereby negating the very virtues for which sports are valued.  League corporations, commonly called "professional sports teams", as well as the multitude of newspapers, network and cable sportswriters and sportscasters that fawn over them, have been willing accessories to this exploitation which has robbed sport of any integrity.

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               

          By FRANCIS X. CLINES New York TIMES, December 15, 2008

 Leaving no merchandising stone unturned, Major League Baseball has   authorized the use of team logos on a line of funeral caskets for people who want to carry their fandom unto eternity. Models for the Yankees (replete with interior pinstripes) and the Mets (with handles of mixed Dodger blue and Giant orange) went on sale at the Branch Funeral Home in Smithtown, Long Island.

The fifth stage (applicable only to team sports) involves setting up a formal selection process, sometimes referred to as a draft, for new players.  To accomplish this usually requires co-opting both publically-funded and private universities.  This chiefly works for the major sports-football, baseball and basketball. Alas, leagues for swimmers, high jumpers, and volleyball players have not yet developed. To be truly successful, this draft must provide endless opportunity for legal sparring and publicity seeking by both players and agents.

The end result of these five steps is a nefarious mess of interdependent CSBs.  Included in this mass of sports exploiters would be the leagues (e.g., the NFL), the players and owners (e.g., the Chicago Cubs), print media, and the TV and radio networks (e.g., NBC Sports), corporate sponsors (e.g., Coca-Cola and Nike) and all the other symbio-toxic groups like the officials; the manufacturers of team logo sweatshirts, beer steins, umbrellas, et al.; the advertising agencies; and the hordes of sports "agents," writers, pundits and other sorry prostitutes camp followers.

Professional Versus Commercial Activities

Our society recognizes professional activities that are best performed by individuals with (a) special training or education, (b) a highly technical body of knowledge, and (c) the ability to exercise independent judgment when confronted by non-routine situations; society also acknowledges that (d) evaluating the competency or performance of professionals may only be accomplished by colleagues within the profession.  Professionals organize societies to examine (test) prospective members, license and self-regulate performance, and, often, collaborate with state agencies to establish credentials and eligibility.  Physicians, pharmacists, and lawyers may be considered typical members of professions. 

An alternate definition of professional may simply be "someone who makes a living at" a particular activity, whether that activity be gardening, athletic performance or auto mechanics.  In this limited sense, an athlete may be termed "professional," but too often the more restrictive definition (see above) is applied to commercial athletic workers of great physical coordination but no significant level of education, specialized knowledge or independent judgment.

Doing Sports Properly

Sports are contests between balanced players or teams without undue advantages.  A football team of 250 pounders playing a team of 150 pounders isn't sport; it is a massacre.  10th graders playing basketball with college seniors would be a travesty, too.  Players must also adhere to accepted rules.  Basketball players may not grab opponents' shirts when they jump for a rebound; football players can not grab a facemask or block from behind.

The TV-based activity we call professional basketball provides a good example of a sport gone sour.  As the NBA evolved into a league environment where basketball rules were distorted to enhance TV drama, two essential element of the sport were lost.

First, basketball's appeal used to be the triumph of grace and quickness. The best players were sometimes laughably skinny, but they could dart through slim spaces and twist into shooting position before the opposing team could react. Today the "best" NBA players look like linebackers and weigh almost twice what good basketball players formerly weighed because the action under the backboard is primarily designed for heavy-footed, big-butted brutes blocking the lanes.  An astute sportswriter, Bill Millsaps, of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, said it best:

          "(Basketball) used to be such a lovely finesse sport, now it's a

          dock fight. It's just football without the helmets and shoulder

          pads. They score baskets the way the Chicago Bears used to

          score touchdowns."

Second, and even worse for the integrity of basketball, rules that once encouraged skill and grace have been degraded by NBA owners and officials for maximum TV appeal.  For example, "hacking" or "reaching in" was formerly a real disgrace if repeated-but it now is an accepted strategic move to stop the clock and regain possession.  Similarly, traveling once caused an automatic whistle; now one sees players strut 6-7 steps without a call. "Over-and-under" (besides being the mark of sub-standard skill at dribbling) used to be a clear dribbling foul, but today's players now flaunt it while truckin' down court.  Any time a sport incorporates fouling as deliberate strategy, the demise of the sport can not be far away.

Even tennis suffers from this CSB infection. Like basketball, tennis used to be a sport of agility and grace:

       "One answer to why public interest in men's tennis has been on the wane in recent years is an essential and unpretty thugishness about the power- baseline (PB) style that's become dominant on the tour. Watch Agassi closely sometime...he's amazingly absent of finesse, with movements that look more like a heavy-metal musician's than an athlete's...what a top PBer really resembles is film of the old Soviet Union putting down a rebellion. It's awesome, but brutally so, with a grinding, faceless quality about its power that renders that power curiously dull and empty."

          David Foster Wallace, "The String Theory," from Esquire.

Balance, Balance, Balance

It follows that if one team consistently wins most of its games it must be over-matched against its opponents, rather than more skilled or better coached in the sport.  Thus, there can be justifiable pride in winning, only if the contestants are evenly matched; there is only ignominy for a team that wins disproportionately. 

Put another way, if 9th grade teams routinely win against 7th grade teams, where is the glory of their victories? Yet we commonly see professional commercial sport workers spiking balls in the end zone or hooting derisively from the infield at their defeated opponents when the broadcast revenues for the winning team (e.g., NY Yankees) are measured in multiples of those for the losing team.  So, when a New York team with a vast personnel budget beats an Arizona team with less robust salary revenues, where's the glory?  We wouldn't idolize the 9th grade pitcher who mowed down successive 7th grade batters, would we?

The corollary to this is that in a sporting activity no individual or team will win a disparate or disproportionate number of competitions if the teams (or players) are truly balanced.

Commercial Sports Cost Communities Too Much

There is also an ugly sixth disadvantage commonly practiced by CSBs, and that is the blackmail and extortion which they employ to force municipalities, states and counties to give them tax abatements and subsidies which taxpayers must fund. In King County, Washington, for example, despite serious majority opposition to Paul Allen's blatant extortion tactics, timid city, county and state officials overrode voter resistance and funded sports complexes which are still being paid for decades later. And those subsidies and tax breaks don't even guarantee reasonable admission costs for regional taxpayers.

Even a decade ago, ticket prices were outrageous.  This writer recalls attending a Seattle Sonics game (Good riddance, Sonics! Glad to see you gone!) when seats too far away from the court to see players' facial expressions cost $75, and that price didn't include the $5 beer which tasted like horse urine. Football seats, I understand, can be even more expensive these days, while season tickets can cost more than modest used cars.

Taking 4-5 neighborhood boys to a Mariners game 10 years ago set this writer back several hundred dollars, and the boys couldn't even see the plays because of the distance from the field.  The boys (and this writer) would have benefitted far more by grabbing some mitts and a ball that day, as we often did, and heading back to the local schoolyard for a couple of hours playing pick-up ball.

Commercial Sports Foster Cheating and Illegal Gambling

Professional athletes routinely cheat on the court (where traveling and over-and-under fouls are rarely even called these days), on the rink, and on the field (e.g., grabbing a facemask, clipping) to gain unfair advantage; they frequently cheat by using steroids, stimulants and growth-promoting drugs; and occasionally they cheat by throwing games and shading point spreads; and many B-Ball players commonly foul their opponents to regain possession. This is as true of the tarnished Olympic Games as it is for the tawdry NASCAR circuit. What awful examples we display to our children!

Newspapers rarely cover these cheating offenses as fully as they cover winning touchdown passes and home runs, but cheating occurs far more frequently than game-saving catches or quarterback sacks.

As a result of inordinate emphasis on winning to obtain greater marketing revenues, sports officiating has demonstrably been compromised in many leagues.  League profit, rather than recreation and personal development, has assumed primacy where it should rank way below tertiary in importance.

It is self-evident that officiating in televised games is crooked, as with a recent football game (Wisconsin/Fresno State) where the last play (a touchdown) was called back and re-adjudicated to favor Las Vegas bookies who had offered a smaller point spread.

An even more egregious example may be seen in the recent Oregon Ducks vs. Oklahoma Sooners game, where two blatantly incorrect calls changed the outcome of the game and left even the Oregon home team's TV crew shaking their heads in disbelief that Oklahoma had lost. (rivals.com September 16, 2006)

News media occasionally are forced to cover this type of corruption, even while burying many other examples. The Seattle TIMES, June 11, 2008, printed the following deplorable story which relates to commercial (NBA) basketball:

"NBA officials allegedly told referees not to call technical fouls on star players so that ticket sales and TV ratings of the games wouldn't be affected," a disgraced ref told the FBI according to court filings Tuesday.

The bombshell letter filed in Brooklyn federal court by the defense attorney for disgraced gambling referee Timothy Donaghy contained claims of favoritism, improper gratuities, conflict of interest, blown foul calls and alleged interference by league officials in the work of refs in the NBA. 

Commercial Sports Cause Major Life-Long Injuries

Because of the pressures to win, to break records, and to fulfill multi-million dollar contracts, athletes are motivated to shake off injuries and even to play while hurt seriously, despite prudent medical advice.  (Sadly, team physicians often compromise their Hippocratic Oaths by sending players too injured to play back into tight games; admittedly, if they acted otherwise, team owners would surely fire them and hire more compliant physicians.)

Any person who has worked in health care has likely witnessed in their treatment rooms prematurely aged patients-usually former NFL players-crippled by arthritic joint degeneration at an early age of 35-40 from the constant and excessive force characteristic of professional contact sports. 

Neurologists also see many examples of brain dysfunction (remember the glorious Muhammed Ali at the peak of his career-before his brain damage became manifest?) in retired professional athletes. Now, a recent study confirms that chronic brain injury from concussions is even worse than anecdotal evidence had previously suggested:

 "What's been surprising is that it's so extensive," said Dr. Ann McKee, a neuropathologist at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Bedford,      Massachusetts, and co-director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy (CSTE). "It's throughout the brain, not just on the superficial aspects of the brain, but it's deep inside."

CSTE studies reveal brown tangles flecked throughout the brain tissue of former NFL players who died young -- some as early as their 30s or 40s. McKee, who also studies Alzheimer's disease, says the tangles closely resemble what might be found in the brain of an 80-year-old with dementia.          (CNN American Morning, 1/29/09)

Actually Vince Lombardi Was a Putz

Perhaps the greatest recent damage to all sports, both college and professional, has been the pernicious win-at-any-cost philosophy embodied by former Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi.  One of Lombardi's most telling quotes was: "If winning isn't everything, why do they keep score?"  Well, Vince, you've just told us that after a lifetime of coaching you still didn't "get it" that sport is really about playing, and that winning or losing is just a by-product of an important human activity that intrinsically promotes life skills, character development, health, personal satisfaction, camaraderie, and teamwork.

Here's another of Lombardi's mixed-up, (and sexist) thoughts that confuse sport with war: "I firmly believe that any man's [sic] finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he [sic] holds dear, is that moment when he [sic] has worked his [sic] heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious." (Emphasis added) This tragic confusion between playing a sport and fighting a war-truly a life-and-death matter-can ruin the benefit and suck the fun out of any sport. Perhaps Lombardi himself suffered too many concussions during his own playing career to understand this.

Hundreds of coaches have reaped millions of dollars in fees for conducting clinics and delivering speeches that glorify Mr. Lombardi's philosophy that only winners qualify for respect.  Thousands and thousands of eager young athletes have been permanently disenchanted with sports by the derisive criticisms of their coaches and teammates after dropping a pass, missing a pitch, or failing to block a shot. Maybe each locker room should keep a few pistols, with a single round at the ready, available for the hapless athlete whose blunder loses the game.

Lombardi drove his own players as if each game, each kick-off return, and each play would be the final judgment on their worth as human beings.  While no one would dispute that encouraging each person to do their best is commendable, only the very simplest of acolytes would accept Lombardi's thesis.  What Lombardi utterly failed to comprehend is that the process of practice, study, self-improvement and of playing (yes, "playing' is the operative term here) is the core of the sport-not the result, or score, of a game or season.

But for the generation of men and women who lionized Lombardi's philosophy, one solution (appropriate for those oafs who can never attain major league status in commercial sport-like activities) may be to convert their former love of the sport itself into a life style of TV viewing reinforced by the players, coaches and commentators who echo Lombardi's win-win-win approach.

Must We Disband CSBs Instead of Reforming Them?

The only feasible solution for the integrity of sports themselves is a complete dismantling of the ridiculous structures which have grown up to exploit our natural love of playing games.

As with the insurance companies that plague and distort the noble professions which organized to provide health care, CSBs are intrinsically corrupt and endemically inclined to sublimate the requirements of the sport they exploit in favor of their own (profit) goals at the expense (Amen!) of the fans or patients they should be serving.

So, let us all turn off our TVs and go forth to the garage, the attic, or the sporting goods store and pick out the gloves, balls, rackets, or whatever we need. Then, off we must go to the field, gym or court to lose ourselves once again in the pleasures of participation in games with our neighbors and friends in the sports of our choice.

Authors Bio:
I am a progressive activist. After 28 years in health care management I left in disgust at the mess that commercial health insurance companies have created.

I must work to live (self-employed) and enjoy performing with several classical & jazz groups.