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Friday, August 28, 2020

As Sports Media Cheers On Athlete Boycotts, Fans Will Walk Away

Humanity is entertained by competition of all kinds. The pandemic has shown sports fans will find a new way to cheer and chant and boo.

It is sometimes underappreciated how new professional sports is as a dominant cultural phenomenon. For the vast majority of human history, sports has been overwhelmingly played by amateurs. And even in America, it is only in the past fifty years that this professionalized version of sport became a route to wealth. Baseball, which has the longest professional sports history in the United States, illustrates this: the average MLB salary is up an inflation-adjusted 3,000 percent since the late 1960s. Professional sports only became big money in the era of television, as a form of mass entertainment that did not require you to even go to the games to have a rooting interest, and for the multinational corporations to sell you beer and trucks and sugary gas-infused water.

This is not to denigrate professional sports or to suggest that the Olympics are more entertaining than the NFL. Pro athletes who play the games do incredible things. Pro sports is profoundly enjoyable as entertainment, and as human drama there are few things that can match it. But on a certain level, this Seinfeld comment may be his most true observation: you’re rooting for laundry. The same player you loved in one uniform, whose strengths you valued and whose failures you dismissed as quirks of the trade, becomes nothing but a hated rival, a traitor, who took the money instead of playing for less while garbed in the proper colors.

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16 comments:

  1. No gates, merchandise 70 percent drop, stocks dead in sports, athletes have to live a covid free bubble, no girls, no men, no clubs, and players are guaranteed a certain amount no matter what so why play? Boycott and they can party sounds smart to me. Thanks

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  2. I have walked away from MLB and NBA. If the NFL acts the same way, I am done with them. Thank God I still have golf.

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  3. Good night, NFL
    Good night, MLB baseball
    Good night,Basketball
    Good night NASCAR
    Anyone else care to join in with get woke go broke here?

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  4. 8:51 - spot on. the NFL Is on very thin ice with me. Beautiful Fall afternoons are perfect for golf. Even under the best of circumstances I’m close to abandoning the NFL. Tired of wasting Sundays indoors watching the TV. So, if they step one inch out of line, I’m golfing every Sunday.

    MLB and NBA are already done for me. And guess what - I haven’t had any urge to return to those leagues.

    I would love to see those leagues close down.

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  5. It's about time. Thank you blm for opening eyes. I'm glad people are finally realizing how ridiculous professional sports really are

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  6. I’ve replaced sports with target practice

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  7. Sports figures over estimate their importance in the world.

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  8. I'm done with all sports. It doesn't make any difference to me. I'm spending more time with family. Just bought an RV. My life is pretty damn good. The best it's been in years actually. I believe because I'm not watching the RACIST MILLIONARES CRYING.

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  9. Lost interest in NBA and NFL a long time ago and only recently dusted off watching some NHL. I much prefer the NCAA and have been watching classic college football in the interim.

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  10. you only have so much time on this earth. why waste even one second of it following these aholes?
    Shouldnt you be doing something more with that time?

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  11. We already walked away and the pros now it. Hence still trying to be relevant with their protests. Fine, your right...but don't think we give two ships how you feel because all you clowns do is entertain us. We don't watch, you don't get paid. Get it? Got it?

    You entertain us and remember that Jack!

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  12. No play, no pay. If I don't show up for work. I don't get paid.

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  13. They should all be fired and the teams shut down for good! Let their black A$$es get a job at McDonalds. We don't need these idiots.

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  14. They can go to hell as far as I am concerned. The NFL & the NBA are a bunch of idiots and the owners have no balls to put an end to it. Anyone not respecting our flag and all the blood and lives lost to protect our freedom and these idiots show no respect. SAD!!!!!

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  15. They could stop playing basketball tomorrow.
    Who cares. The NBA is a bunch of illiterate goons with attitude posturing over a ball. With the exception of Mookie, they are only there because of their keen primitive physical abilities and height characteristics.
    Sounds racist to me, by SJW definition anyway.

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