Posted on 10/18/2019 8:30:50 AM PDT by rivercat
It was ‘94. And yep, listening to the wealthy strikers whine about how they needed to “feed their families” was nauseating.
Too bad you missed the Yanks win 4 out of 5 WS later in that decade. The late ‘70s Yanks had a lot more character though.
| The fallout from those blunders (PI and helmet to helmet) continue as the NFL knee-jerked rule changes and wildly over officiate games. |
The author lumped the "knee" BS in with "personal behavior" thus vastly diminishing its importance. It's nothing more than a "protest" or a "personal cause." Utterly ridiculous.
| How are they contributing to the decline? Poor behavior, endless complaining, social media fails, contract hold outs, trade demands, petulant behavior, refusing to play unless they "get their way", are not tactics that endear yourselves to fans. Add in protests and personal causes, and it doesn't matter which side of the conversation you fall on, you alienate portions of the fan base. It's hard to recall a time when pampered athletes were so arrogant and dismissive of the fans. There will be consequences. remember, no patient can survive death by a thousand cuts. They're not the problem, but they ain't helping the cause much. They're behavior is a turn off, as in, I'm turning off my TV. |
In no particular order, here are the reasons why I've lost interest in the NFL:
1. My favorite team (the Giants) won their second Super Bowl. As odd as this may seem, the second championship was really a letdown because I realized that the excitement of the first one could never be replicated. I didn't even watch them win their third and fourth Super Bowls.
2. The combination of the salary cap and loose free agency rules destroyed my interest in my team. When I got to the point where I didn't even recognize half the names on the opening game roster -- and I was seeing my favorite players migrating to other teams -- my home-team loyalty disappeared.
3. I became fanatically interested in hockey -- which made me realize how utterly dull and boring football actually is.
4. My close friends with passionate NFL interests drifted away from football when they couldn't afford to keep their season tickets. The ticket prices were fine, but none of them were willing to cough up $5,000 to $25,000 to take part in that racket known as a personal seat license (PSL) that is used to raise money for new stadiums.
5. I found better things to do than waste my time watching hours of football. In fact, my interest in most forms of vicarious entertainment has diminished considerably as I've gotten older.
......
You'll notice there is no reference to Colin Kaepernick, kneeling during the national anthem, etc. I was already a former fan by the time that stupidity made the news.
It’s silly how “they” dodge the real issue. The disrespect and the kneeling started it all.
“Too bad you missed the Yanks win 4 out of 5 WS later in that decade”
Watched them all thru the 50s’ when Casey Stengel was their manager, all those W/S and all those wins. Lived in the Bronx and went to the Stadium often.
They did such a good job reaching their traditional fan base that their only growth prospects involved attracting new (casual) fans. In order to do that they changed their product in a way that alienated their traditional fans. It worked for a while, but casual fans are -- by definition -- not very loyal at all.
Once the casual fans left, the traditional fans weren't coming back.
Like the Lions' 4th down plunge for a TD in the first quarter? I have yet to see a television replay that shows the runner ever crossed the goal line. If the game was fixed for the Packers, then that initial Lions' touchdown would have been reversed.
Also - what the conspiracy theorists seem to forget is that the Packers were still likely to make a field goal on their final drive even without the phantom penalty. The so-called phantom penalty didn't significantly change the Packers' field position. It only changed the amount of time remaining on the clock. The reality is the Lions had difficulty moving the football on offense after halftime. There was no guarantee the Lions would have moved the football with even a minute left in the game and no time outs.
I've been out of NFL, NBA, and MBL since about 1995.
NFL went first. I got my Sundays back. I found I quickly didn't miss it. It spread to NBA and then MBL. Never even check what the home teams did the day before. Don't know the standings. Couldn't name more than a couple stars in each sport. Can't tell who was in the World Series. Same for the others, in their championships. Pro sports don't exist for me. I don't even care about college sports, either.
It's amazing how life is without those addictions.
I don't need to be entertained. Don't care about TV and movies. I like talk radio and some web sites because I learn from them.
Not knocking people that love any of those, it's just what I choose.
I’m afraid FRers highly overestimate this “decline”.
I’d be just as happy not watching, but I’m OK with it for now. Since they WENT BACK TO players not being on the field for any anthem. (Yes, please note, this was a recent phenomenon.)
My comment is that “it looked like the fix was in.” I did not say it was fixed, but the timing of the bad calls at critical moments in the game looked odd to me. Even if no ulterior motive was there, it just looked bad.
Perhaps the NFL should fire or fine the Mr. Magoo referees that made these calls to show they are serious about the integrity of the game.
Kneeling for the National Anthem
As the regular NFL season begins, I am not about to let your organization forget the true nature of your feelings of loathing towards this country and those who have and are serving in the armed forces.
The NFL, ESPN, And Nike may modify their overt expressions of contempt, but still endorse kneeling when the anthem is played to disparage the country in support of social justice illusions. However, veterans understand settling genuine grievances requires revering the essence of our country and trusting the freedoms it represents.
The Star-Spangled Banner provides the majestic musical/visual symbol of the Constitution I swore to support and defend as a Navy officer. My indefinitely binding oath requires standing for the National Anthem and kneeling to pray for the country.
The NFL, ESPN, And Nike endorses the offense of kneeling when the anthem is played to disparage the country and support dilutions of social injustice. Veterans understand settling genuine grievances requires revering the essence of our country and trusting in the freedoms it represents.
We are aware that when Armed Forces members make the ultimate sacrifice, they are wrapped in the Star-Spangled Banner for a traditional remembrance of freedoms found throughout our unique Republic. When America’s fallen arrive at Dover Air Force Base from the Middle East, their caskets are covered with a Star-Spangled Banner. When they are buried the flag is removed, elegantly folded, and given to a spouse, child, sibling, or parent.
We are aware that since the founding of the colonies and for all time the Constitution defines Americans as individuals who find their primary identity in pre-existing, natural, intangible liberties, and not in ethnicity, gender, class, or race, and certainly not in the acquisition of things, or the accumulation of sympathies for dilutional expressions of wounded virtue.
The country does not suffer a burden of social injustice prescribing kneeling for the National Anthem. Instead the country malingers under the burden of virulent mythologies producing urban black cultures where criminality is rampant and even excused. These cultures erase role models like Booker T. Washington and Fredrick Douglas. These men promoted cohesive families, education, entrepreneurship, and marketable skills as strongholds of competence for building individual character, and for enjoying and promoting personal liberty. If similar role models exist today, they have been effectively marginalized in these spiritually impoverished communities.
Previously success for all was defined in terms of marriage, families, careers, trade skills, etc. People stayed focused on freedom as they moved through and around the issues now termed insurmountable barriers to social justice. They moved past immediate frustrations seeking to entangle them and chose instead to hold fast the promise that all are granted an equal opportunity to prosper.
Quang Nguyen who escaped from Vietnam and founded Caddis Branding Agency said, “In 1982, I stood with a thousand new immigrants, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and listening to the National Anthem for the first time as an American. To this day, I can't remember anything sweeter and more patriotic than that moment in my life…..You see, America is not just a place on the map, it isn't just a physical location. It is an ideal, a concept. And if you are an American, you must understand the concept, you must accept this concept, and most importantly, you have to fight and defend this concept. This is about Freedom and not free stuff. And that is why I am standing up here.”
The precedented achievements of Vietnamese were preceded by those of Irish, Germans, Italians, Chinese, and Japanese descent. Focusing on possibilities for success because of freedom allowed them to avoid the paranoid reactions that would lead to criminality and victimhood. Kneeling at playing of the National Anthem, means embracing the cultural deformities arising from multi-generational broken families begetting broken individuals.
In a new world view, success becomes defined around manipulating people into codependent relationships. A fashionable consensus defines success as one group adjusting their behavior to validate the emotional damage others have decided to inflict upon themselves for unending perceived slights. The instigators reside as fragments of a swarm and trade adulthood and dignity for prestige lacking dreams to pursue or accomplishments to celebrate. The subservient parties reject the classic liberal principles that formed the basis for our Constitution in order to receive effortless addictive compassion as a drug of choice. This novel moral superiority only requires fabricating disgust for themselves and for this country. Both parties then shelter within a joyous cacophony of mutually supportive orations validating the miseries of their own making. I see both parties as feckless and their presumed causes as squalid and frivolous.
This theater of dilutional relationships proves not only personally futile but provides the opportunity for politicians become patricians to accumulate a useful constituency. As these acolytes and petty bureaucrats shout that there ought to be a law, a political class found at all levels of government stands ready to offer enchanting administrative laws and rules.
Supposedly these initiatives enable equal security and outcomes for all. However, these actions inject patricians and their mandarins with ever greater powers to compel obedience from citizens and receive the sensual gratification derived from the opportunity to control and order everyone and everything. Now they only need care for the self-proclaimed faction leaders who join their cabal for domination. All individuals then confront ever narrowing boundaries for exercising inherent needs for independence and mutually agreed voluntary cooperation. True compassion, true leadership arises from understanding how very few individuals cannot create, encourage, explore, repair, analyze, develop, build, cooperate, serve and/or teach, and become heroic as they exercise their intangible natural liberties.
I will always reject these political charades and remain impassioned when considering the founding of our country. The Constitutional Convention members in their spirited debates maintained a devotion to first principles and avoided the avarice and duplicity expected of a political class. In just 114 days they produced a document forwarded to the Continental Congress and states for ratification. The Constitution was a perfection of human wisdom seldom achieved; a miraculous achievement celebrated when standing for the National Anthem.
I will always choose success through the hazards and uncertainties of personal liberties over Faustian like bargains exchanging the essence of the human spirit for illusions of government benevolence. This country needs “a new birth of freedom” if we are to keep faith with the Constitution as the embodiment of the American ideal. Ronald Reagan said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the blood stream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same”. Now it is our turn.
Partial Bibliography:
The Life and Times of Fredrick Douglass by Fredrick Douglass
Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington
The Liberal Mind by Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., M.D.
ESPN president wants less politics at network: ‘It is not our jobs’ https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/espn-president-wants-less-politics-at-network-it-is-not-our-jobs-to-cover-politics/2018/08/17/6d54c706-a252-11e8-8e87-c869fe70a721_story.html?utm_term=.dfaa5f77d48a
Colin Kaepernick’s Nike Campaign Keeps N.F.L. Anthem Kneeling in Spotlight https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/03/sports/kaepernick-nike.html
Meaning of the Folding of the American flag https://www.truthorfiction.com/foldsoftheflag/
Conservative Black American Role Models Are Being Erased from History https://therevolutionaryact.com/best-black-american-role-models-erased/
Quang Nguyen Director/Founder Caddis Branding Agency http://caddisad.com/ Vietnam Veterans Appreciation Speech http://www.armsmart.com/includes/emails/Quang_Nguyen.html
The Case Against Liberal Compassion https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/the-case-against-liberal-compassion/
What the Jussie Smollett Story Reveals https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/jussie-smollett-story-shows-rise-victimhood-culture/583099/
The History and Danger of Administrative Law https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/history-danger-administrative-law/
Constitution Society: John Locke CHAP. V Of Property. http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtr05.htm
Property by James Madison http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com/property-by-james-madison-march-29-1792.html
Nice. You were fortunate. The dominance of those teams will likely never be seen again.
I grew up watching football. Now I despise it! Sick degenerates and criminals.
Unfortunately for the NFL I don’t give a damn anymore. I don’t support the NFL by watching the advertisements during games and no way would I ever buy tickets to see a game. I’d rather stick needles in my eyes. Good riddance.
Oh and when our local team wants the city to chip in $ for a new stadium and training facility, I’ll get out the photos of the players kneeling during the anthem and demand answers before we pay one dollar.
I switched to watching rugby. We just had the first tournament of Womens’7 World Cup 2 weeks ago in Glendale CO. A great weekend with a friend who got me into rugby. And the USA team took gold. There is a professional men’s 15 league in the US.
Agreed. Particularly Thursday Night Games, which are usually such trash as to be totally unwatchable. More injuries, sloppier play, bad match ups.
XFL returning at the right time, if they can 1.) get some star power and 2.) throttle back on all the rules and the ref’s interrupting they can make american football great again.
Fantasy isn’t even as fun, it’s completely broken this year. So few teams have a 3 down RB that you’re basically screwed if you don’t have a Saquon Barkley or Christian McCaffrey.
Perhaps the NFL should fire or fine the Mr. Magoo referees that made these calls to show they are serious about the integrity of the game.
I agree that the NFL's Mr. Magoos need to be publicly fined and/or disciplined.
But I also think SEC football officials and media are far more disreputable than NFL officials. It's not a coincidence that mid-level SEC teams' rankings are inflated prior to games against the SEC's power teams. And those power teams always seem to draw 4th down penalties on the underdogs when the power teams are trailing in the 4th quarter. The same goes for Clemson.
Sounds like I picked a good year to drop out.
Very eloquent indeed. You might want to go edit dilution and dilutional to be delusion and delusional. And perhaps shorten or condense to five paragraphs. I usually won’t read past 3 paragraphs in a really long piece but if I see that it is wrapping up I will go ahead and read two more. Other than that it is awesome.
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