Why I gave up watching pro football, by Daniel Ruth

[HAB911]

Part of my "The company you keep" series, installment two ( https://www.democraticunderground.com/1172203296 )


SNIP

It is also certainly true that no organization is better at marketing its product than the National Football League. (With the exception of the NRA*) It sells brutality masked as entertainment. It sells a vicious, crippling sport as an American tradition. It's sells family values while abandoning its employees for the sake of a dollar. And there is no shortage of customers eager to be served up young men willing to risk having their brains turned into tapioca.

SNIP

The sports bars will be packed. The stadiums will be sold out. The television ratings will be high as the public eagerly awaits another year of literal gladiatorial combat. There will be blood, enough for our dining and dancing pleasure.

But I can't do it anymore. Perhaps you see incredibly gifted and superbly conditioned young men performing on the gridiron. I did too, once. Now I see guys who won't remember their kids' names when they are 50. I see Darryl Stingley and Warren Sapp.

I used to be a rabid fan. Now I feel like a recovering enabler. No more.

http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/ruth-why-i-gave-up-watching-pro-football/2329228

*note by HAB911

[dchill]

1. Now I don't feel quite so alone.

Baseball may be our national pastime, I don't know, but football is our national disorder.

[HAB911]

3. I gave up when I was forced to pay

for removal of "our" stadium and build another for Malcolm Glazer. CTE is just icing on the cake.

[brush]

6. I thinking it's starting to slip in the ratings

Last season's ratings slipped from over exposure IMO.

And the NBA is becoming more and more popular. Since the Warriors v Cavs rivalry materialized, the hot-stove league, if you will for basketball news has exploded on ESPN.

There are several different daily segments on NBA off-season moves, whereas before, those segments would be devoted more to football.

Baseball of course has continued to dwindle in popularity because, ironically, of what saved it before in the late 1990s and early 2000s — the home run.

And by that I mean the proliferation of home runs and nothing else.

Articles have been written about how nothing happens in baseball now because of the new uppercut swing that is now taught.

It results in either big home runs or strike outs so nothing much happens in between.

Poor baseball. It's prisoner to it's historic numbers and reluctant to change because of them, thus being the most poorly promoted and least well-run of all our major sports.

[JonLP24]

9. NBA revenues were down last year

Which caught teams by surprise in terms of the salary cap.

NFL ratings picked up after the election particularly for Cowboys primetime games which ironically were the games I didn't watch. Sick of seeing the Cowboys on TV all the time.

[riverbendviewgal]

2. I agree with you

And felt this way since the 60s when I was a student at a NJ high school in the 60s. I went to two games only. I never been to a professional or college game. Never watch them on TV. Football reminds me of Rome's coliseum history with the gladiators. Hey, Mr Baur, my US History teacher, if you are on DU, you were right in your prediction that Empires implode from corruption at 200 - 250 years. Happy 4th of July everyone.

[brush]

4. What about Warren Sapp? Has he exhibited signs of concussions in his speech?

[HAB911]

5. Warren Sapp to donate his brain to concussion research

http://www.tampabay.com/sports/football/bucs/warren-sapp-to-donate-his-brain-to-concussion-research/2327891

[gilpo]

7. Lacrosse is the game with honorable tradition

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_lacrosse
Forget the lax bro thing and go with the real tradition of the game.

Played for healing and the entertainment of the creator

[central scrutinizer]

8. And it's boring

Like the first three and a half quarters of an NBA game.