Posted on 07/28/2020 4:09:59 AM PDT by Kaslin
At the outset, I have to say that I’ve never been the biggest sports fan on the planet. So it isn’t a big sacrifice for me to say I’m not going to watch professional sports this year, or maybe ever again. I never actively shunned pro sports, and as a kid I wouldn’t have missed a Tigers or Lions game for just about anything in the world, I just found other things to do as I got older. But I’d wander back for interesting games or championships – there are few things a person isn’t directly involved with that are as exciting as a contest between great athletes when the stakes are high. But with the embrace of radicals like Black Lives Matter by all the leagues, I’m going to make a point of not watching any of it.
I won’t miss basketball at all. The game is boring. I know it’s “fast-paced,” but it’s really not. It takes forever and all that matters is the last two minutes. Each team seems to get 50 timeouts, which sometimes allows them to take the ball out at half-court rather than under the basket. I never cared enough to find out why.
It’s also just not exciting. The first time you saw a buzzer-beating shot to win a game may have been exciting, but haven’t you seen it a thousand times by now? And how many times can anyone get worked up over a 7-foot-tall guy with long arms jumping a foot to slam a ball through a hoop? It seems like everything spectacular that could be done already has been. It’s up and down the court like a really boring tennis match.
That the league has decided to overtake the NFL as the most-woke league in the world only made my resolve harder. That they’re going to paint “Black Lives Matter” and have messages on the backs of their jersey, and undoubtedly protest during the national anthem, killed what little interest I had in even knowing who won the championship.
As for the NFL, again, I don’t care. I didn’t grow up with a professional football team, I grew up with the Detroit Lions. Watching perpetual basement dwellers dwell in the basement is about as exciting as it sounds. The Lions have won one playoff game in the Super Bowl era (in 1991) and only make the playoffs via fluke.
Professional football for me is a distraction on the TV on Sundays – I don’t really look at the action unless it sounds like something exciting is happening. When the kneeling during the anthem started, I stopped even doing that. Now that they’ve gone all-in for Black Lives Matter, I’ll find something else to play in the background.
Baseball is back already (though games are being canceled due to COVID-19 outbreaks), and aside from videos on Twitter, I haven’t bothered to care. A 60-game season does mean anyone can win the World Series this year, but whoever does win will be there prostrating themselves on the altar of a bunch of left-wing radicals. I love baseball, but I love my country more.
It’s not that baseball players are kneeling during the anthem, it’s that the league has caved to the mob and brought politics onto the field. All these leagues have.
Sports served as a distraction from whatever else was happening in the world and our lives, now it’s the manifestation of the Democratic Party’s demands of conformity. I’m not interested in conformity. A bunch of different colored like-minded drones chanting anti-American slogans is not my idea of diversity.
If I want to be preached to, I’ll call a priest, not millionaires who play a game for a living. If I want to learn something, I’ll read a book, not seek out the “feelings” of someone in a profession known for having proxies take their classes for them. And if I want a distraction from the stress of daily life, I’ll practice self-dentistry before I give these pampered, privileged narcissists a second of my time.
Personally, if their whole seasons collapsed and had to be canceled because they snuck an infected super-spreader into their bubble, I’d be just fine with that.
Sports could have been bigger than ever, more important than ever, and could have helped bring the country together during the pandemic by being the distraction people need from everything we’ve lost. Instead, like everything else, liberal politics was rammed into it to the point that it’s just another appendage of the Democratic Party. You couldn’t pay me to be a Democrat, I sure as hell am not about to fund any of their fellow travelers. Until they get the politics out of sports, I’m getting the sports out of my
If you want to HURT pro-sports, cancel you cable-TV subscription.
A huge percentage (if not the majority) of your cable-TV bill is going to the sports networks, which funnel that money directly to the major sports leagues.
Pro & college sports were the only thing keeping cable-TV alive. Conversely, cable-TV revenue is the only thing keeping many pro sports leagues alive.
They won’t. They will be like MC Hammer, wondering where all the money went.
Yep. Been trying to get my wife talked into that very thing for a while now.
That game could get a little “dicey” if played in San Francisco, if you know what I mean ...
Don’t forget “ college “ sports.
They’re also infected with the same WOKE virus.
Unfortunately, they are history with me as well.
Go play golf. The market is flooded with used golf equipment at the moment. 20 year old clubs play just as well as the new, hot off the shelf clubs. You can get into the sport very cheaply today. Try 2ndSwingGolf, 3ballsgolf or Callaway Preowned.
Go bowling. Go to the pro shop and had a ball drilled for you (fingertip grip) and learn to throw a hook. It will change how you look at the game.
It took me a while to talk my wife into it as well. But now that it’s done, she’s not only onboard, but she tells others what a waste cable-TV was money wise.
I’m not nor have I ever been a fan of any stick and ball sports. I’ve probably seen about five full football games, one or two basketball and a couple dozen full baseball games. A few years ago, I was given tickets to see the Baltimore Ravens the year after they won the super bowl. Club level tickets with free parking and food.
I gave them to a friend.
Derek Hunter neglected to mention NASCAR, of which I was a fan. Until this year. Allowing that little twerp Bubba Wallace to drag out the race card and make everyone leave him alone on the track to affect the competition made me reevaluate my support.
Then NASCAR announced that teams were free to disrespect the flag during opening ceremonies.
I sent NASCAR an email. I’m no longer a fan. I attended three races in the last couple seasons.
I’ve completely shut it off. I think there were three races in the last couple weeks. I guess.
Check out marble racing on youtube.
Are you on an alternate e.g. sling tv or did you just turn off the evil red eye altogether?
As I got older and moved about the country, I got less and less attached to my "hometown teams" and only casually followed baseball, football and to a lesser extent, hockey. Modern basketball doesn't appeal to me for the reasons described here - 7 foot men jumping a foot to slam dunk a ball into a net is stupid to me. It was a better game when shorter men had to master dribbling and passing skills and shoot from 20 feet out.
But this politicization of sports has taken away all the remaining appeal they had for me. Instead, there are a lot of good books to read, hikes to take and old movies to catch up on for my entertainment needs.
Most teams are havens for felons. I could care less about them anymore and don’t care to watch.
Pretty much given up on all forms of Entertainment, plenty of great music and movies from the past.
Services like Sling & YouTube TV are still “cable” services—streaming cable services. They sell a package of channels.
I put up an antenna. I get about 50 channels—all free.
I subscribe to a couple of streaming services (Amazon Prime & Hulu). Occasionally I’ll subscribe to a specialty service (like Acorn, which has British TV) for a while, then cancel it when I’ve seen what I want.
I have a Roku, which has tons of FREE on-demand services available.
Once you get off the old system, where channels play shows on THEIR schedule, and get used to on demand (where you watch the shows when you want) you’ll never go back. The idea of being in front of my TV at a certain time, because that’s when the show is being broadcast seems ridiculous to me now.
If you want to be a cord-cutter, you have to break this “channel” mindset. Channels are dying. 20 years from now, TV channels will be as relevant as the rotary phone.
Then they are fools, and worse, hateful fools. And hateful fools deserve what they get.
You have a way with words!
Even when I was paying some attention to sports, I never understood why grown men would pay over $100 at a Pro Shop for an oversized Jersey with some other man's name on it and then wear it in public! Always seemed to me like a very girly thing to do.
Why would i not want support people who are fascist bootlickers?
Years ago we dropped network TV, then cable, then satellite. Over time, I stopped watching baseball (too boring and long), football (just doesn’t do it much for me anymore), and lastly hockey when I gave up my season tickets to the Redwings after their dream team stretch was over. We even stopped watching the Olympics, even though my wife is a former member of the USA Gymnastics team (she’ll stream an occasional event, but not frequently).
Now, we watch an occasional streamed series (we’re very picky and really only have like two that we watch at a time — and even then, they’re stretched over a long period) and rarely a movie if one seems interesting (less and less these days).
Somehow, though I grew up with television shows, movies, and sporting events on all the time, we don’t feel any sort of vacuum in our lives when we see the big screen in the living room totally black. I’m never sitting around wondering what to do, and my time is completely filled from the moment I get up until I hit the bed around 11:00 pm. If anything, I feel those video days were a waste now, and I wonder why I spent the time I did on them.
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