Posted on 09/04/2014 10:08:28 AM PDT by the scotsman
"Are you ready for some football?"
'It's the shouted rhetorical question that has started Monday night National Football League (NFL) broadcasts for decades.
For the millions of Americans who make the NFL by far the most popular US professional sport, the answer has long been yes. And it will be again on Thursday night, as NFL season kicks off with a matchup between the Green Bay Packers and the defending Super Bowl champions Seattle Seahawks.
Continue reading the main story “ Start Quote Fans need to recognise that the game isn't going to change until we force the issue by walking away” End Quote Steve Almond
Author
Every Sunday (and Monday, and some Saturdays and Thursdays) for the next five months, millions of Americans - and plenty of Brits, thanks to three regular-season games in London - will feast on a bacchanalia of gridiron pageantry.
Best-selling author Steve Almond, however, won't be watching.
The self-professed long-time American football fan writes in the Los Angeles Times that he feels guilty about watching a sport whose participants risk traumatic brain injury. More than that, however, he says he objects to "the cynical commercialisation of the sport, its cultish celebration of violence and the more subtle ways in which football warps our societal attitudes about race, gender and sexual orientation."
He says that he, like other spectators, are enabling the corruption of a game he used to love.
"Fans need to recognise that the game isn't going to change until we force the issue by walking away," he writes.'
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
I agree. So much for the free market.
I am still hanging on (barely- because of the Eagles), but I am really sick of how much of a religion it has become and ESPN and the disgusting politics....and the pink crap. I am also sick of the recruitment/scouting system/process from high school on up. There are so many talented and athletic kids who are overlooked and never drafted because they aren’t tan enough. They aren’t allowed to play certain positions. Then there are guys who barely make it are often cut for no apparent reason even after having terrific preseason games.
One F1 clip I never tire of watching is the the last few laps of the 1979 French GP where Gilles Villeneuve and Rene Arnoux went at it tooth and nail for second place.
qam1, never underestimate PC, forced acceptance of culture and white guilt.
Last year there were legit complaints about the Dodgers OF Puig. Don’t remember if the gripes were showboating, lack of discipline, whatever.
Anyway, like clockwork some Pajama Boy “writer” on CNN/SI sobbed all over his enlightened article about “cultural” differences and youthful indiscretion. Excuses, excuses. How dare middle America voice their opinion towards a man of color and culture.
Same BS I saw last year with the Winnipeg press. I follow the Jets. They have 2 black guys. Dustin Byfuglien and Evander Kane. Dustin is a stand up, solid player.
Kane is a typical immature urban attitude player who has underachieved. Fans get on him because he doesn’t produce and his urban attitude - ex during the strike and with economy being rough, he’s tweeting pictures of himself in Vegas with a wad of cash bragging about his money. Not the end of the world but most hockey fans don’t go for flash and ego.
But sure enough, the lily white press writes that criticism of Kane is “racially tinged”.
I mean in my 40 years or so of watching and reading about sports figures, its so rare to see fans voice their displeasure over an athlete. Right or wrong, it just doesn’t happen much. SARC
I’ll have to check that one out.
Tickets are too expensive....
The same can be said about baseball and basketball......look at the crowds, very, very few blacks in attendance.
I know I can’t afford tickets anymore. I got 4 free tickets to see the St Louis Cardinals last year. I couldn’t believe the price of the tickets.
I also had a stroke when I bought 4 hotdogs, 4 fries and 2 large cokes to the tune of $40 something.
I broke down and bought tickets to see the Blues-Jets hockey game last spring. If you think baseball tix are expensive, hockey tix are insane. I felt guilty buying them
I think a lot of the really bad apples in baseball get weeded out before they get to the pros. NFL and NBA have super popular farm systems where it’s harder to nix out problems if they have real talent. Not that MLB doesn’t have its share of jerks, for sure.
It used to go too far the other way, sticking someone just because they homered off you last AB is just as bush as staring at your dead center homer as it leaves. Too much of that bat flipping garbage goes on today too.
Freegards
At one time I was an avid football watcher. My fav was the Dallas Cowboys coached by Tom Landry. Those days are long gone. And the Cowboys have never been the same since.
In the fall of 2008 I quit watching TV altogether. From what I read now of the NFL, I’m not missing very much.
Reminds me of Robert Downey Jr.'s line from Back to School: "Me and Standish and Redding are doing the anti-pep rally to point out that a violent ground acquisition game such as football is, in fact a crypto-fascist metaphor for nuclear war."
Nor can I......I even turn down tickets to events because first off, I get bored watching live sports and second, the extreme hassle I have to go thru to drive into detroit, navigate the maze of idiotic streets to get to the respective stadiums, find parking (and pay for it) then figure out how the hell to get out of there after the games end..........
As a side note, a few years ago when my niece and her husband were still married, they had season tickets for the Red Wings. As a Christmas present, they gave me a pair of tickets valued at $175 ea. for some exclusive section of cobo arena that catered only to season ticket holders, accessed by a private elevator provided they had these tickets. Free food, all kinds of stuff...............I gave them to my neighbors who are red wing fans.......They of course loved the experience.
And Jim’s career was seriously impacted by injuries. I’m sure there’s a few, and the lack of contact in baseball is probably very tempting, but they do long term damage too.
As you know, real football is played with the feet. :D
Aye ready!
Hell... Sometimes the kickoffs go through the uprights. LOL
(that should NOT happen)
LOL
I take it you are keeping up with the positive on field and depressing off-field news at Ibrox?.
My dad’s best friend is Johnny Hubbard btw. And the three of us had a chat on Ayr High Street today. We chat most mornings with wee Johnny.
Yes to both. I’m thinking that people should be strung up for what’s happening now ... naming rights for Ibrox sold for one English pound?
And if you do have another conversation with the master of the penalty, tell him he has a fan in the States :)
The NFL has gone totally PC. I have lost interest. A team drafting a player who isn’t good enough to play in the league just because of where he says he likes to stick his whacker for a good time was the last straw.
Remember Howard Cosell? He was the best.
Those days are gone forever.
Ibrox should never be named, but if it was, at least do it for big bucks that we badly need.
Will do.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.