Letting It Go [NOT 27/5/21]

Enough, already. Finally.

Empty football field
Photo by Juan Salamanca from Pexels

I think I am done with the NFL.

I know, what’s the big deal about that? I’m not sure it is a big deal, but it’s weird how these things evolve.

I grew up in Kansas City, watching the NFL and rooting for just about anyone other than the Chiefs, who SUCKED for most of the ’70s and ’80s. Chuck Noll’s Steelers, Bill Walsh’s 49ers, Joe Gibbs’ … Washington Football Team (currently) were all fun squads to root for.

My interest in baseball, basketball, and even college football waned as I grew older, but the NFL stuck. I now live in a city that has no NFL franchise, which means that I’ve been able to just root for whomever I wanted to in any particular game. And I stuck with the league through so many garbage people and incidents — Deflategate, Bob McNair, Jerry Jones, Jerry Richardson, Bud Adams, Al Davis, the concussion cover-up, retired players being denied health benefits, and on and on.

And of course, the Colin Kaepernick thing. Good lord. I should have been done right then and there. Hell, Google and Wikipedia list him as an “activist”, and not a football player.

Yep.

But I persisted, if somewhat less enthusiastically, until now. For reasons I cannot explain or even understand, this one did it for me. The final straw, as they say.

OH COME ON!

So some CHUD on some team told a Korean-American coach that while he was certainly qualified with the X’s and O’s, not only was he “not the right minority”, but also questioned whether an Asian person was part of a minority at all. I wish I was surprised. And I’m disgusted that I’m not surprised.

So I’m sure that I will at some point casually watch parts of a game or two this year, and I won’t say no to a Super Bowl party, given the last year-and-a-half. But I’m also sure that this will be the first season in memory where I do not actually turn on a game for the sake of watching it for the next three hours.

So what about you guys? Do you have conflicted fandoms, activities, or hobbies?

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35 Comments

  1. I’ve lost pretty much all interest in basketball now that there are “super teams” originally designed to beat the Spurs and now that the Spurs suck. I had a good 20 years though.

    I don’t watch 1/10 of the hockey I used to watch. I just watch the Leafs’ games mostly.

    I grew up a Washington football fan and hate the owner, obviously, but it looks like they’re somewhat headed in the right direction? I used to be able to watch any football game. Not anymore. Not to mention what you’ve listed in this post.

    Baseball is the only sport I can watch any teams play. I just love the mental aspect of the game.

    Leafs are down 2-0 halfway through the 1st period and Price is standing on his head…I’m not overly optimistic.

  2. I don’t watch football but that story is crazy! It’s bad enough that they thought he was the wrong minority, but why the hell would they say it to him in the damn interview? SMDH I’m constantly astounded by the boldness of racists.

    • NFL scouts are notorious for trying to bait Blacks in the draft with questions suggesting they’re gay, their mothers are prostitutes, and they’re criminals.
       
      The claim is they’re just testing a potential draftee’s coolness under pressure, but somehow the questions are targeted overwhelmingly at Black players.

    • Or that they questioned that a person of Asian descent is a minority in the U.S. Last I checked, a racial or ethnic group that is 5.7% of the U.S. population is considered a minority and has several “minority experiences” in a country founded on white supremacy. 
      I tried to find stats on NFL coaching staff of Asian descent, but the numbers must be so paltry that articles about coaching’s diversity problem don’t even mention APA numbers. The best I could find is Asian players (1.9%)
      Also, I don’t give a shit about American football, but I do care about APA representation and people not being gaslit, like Chung clearly is.

  3. I’ve also pretty much given up on football. In part it’s the concussions and horrible way former players are treated, the awful owners and taxpayer subsidies, the rules lawyering and instant replay fiasco.
     
    But the final barrier, to he honest, is the broadcasts, which I find unwatchable.
     
    It’s nuts to me that in an era of HD and huge screens that producers have decided not to make viewers feel like they’re sitting right above the field among a rocking crowd. Instead they chop and scatter the TV experience so it’s like you’re on a phone cycling through a dozen screens, never settling for more than three seconds, with disconnected announcers droning through it all.

  4. I boycotted the Eagles when they signed Vick. That was the last straw for me. I don’t miss it at all . I’ll watch the super bowl, but that’s it. Baseball in the summer and hockey in the winter, but hockey is getting tough to watch.

      • i dunno? i tried watching ice hockey a few years ago…stuck with it for one whole season
        mostly came to the conclusion they should have called it watch car commercials occasionally interupted by hockey
        preferably the same stupid commercials everytime theres a foul..or a goal..or someone fell over and had a boo boo
        i swear they stop the game to make space for commercials…

  5. I am to football what I am to Star Trek/Wars:  casual fan, but definitely not hardcore.  I don’t care about stats or fantasy teams or any of that shit.  I’ll watch almost any game, but mostly if certain announcers are calling it.  Even when I cared even less about football than I do now, I used to watch the Sunday afternoon games just to listen to Pat Summerall and John Madden.

    Stopped watching basketball when Jordan retired for the 2nd time.

    Stopped watching baseball when I fell asleep during Game 1 of one of the many, many Yankees/Dodgers World Series and realized just how fucking boring it is.

    Never cared about hockey.

    I will watch the more fringe sports, like cycling, gymnastics, figure skating, track and field, etc. But, again, a casual watcher only.  It’s pretty hard for me to be that into sports considering how much I’ve always sucked at them.

  6. I am not a sports person at all, except for baseball (Cubs fan forever!) I run into similar issues with problematic authors, though :/ Marion Zimmer Bradley is the main one who comes to mind. MZB really throws me because she was SUCH an amazing author and most of her characters (especially  the Darkover series) are feminist and ethical and all sorts of other good things… and yet, she herself was apparently an abusive asshole. I go back and forth… do I read these, do I not… trying to reconcile what I’m reading with what I know. 

    • I’m with you on this point regarding authors. Same with long-deceased artists, musicians, directors, or actors. Works I was taught to revere as canon too often glorify bigots and misogynists. 
      I remember the furore when it came out that Günter Grass had been in the S.S. How could a hypocrite who had hidden this about himself be trusted as the supposed voice of morality he purported to be? But did it invalidate his works? Did it undermine what otherwise seemed to be someone who had come to realise the evils he had embraced as a youth?  Honestly, I still don’t know.

      • The problem I have with most of these moral dilemmas is that, in the case of people like Grass, it doesn’t take into account the possibility that the person has repudiated their earlier beliefs and actions and have striven to change who they are.  Too many times, people are permanently ostracized in spite of their efforts to right previous wrongs.  Further, nobody is a saint.  Even bona-fide saints have aspects of their lives which weren’t particularly admirable.

        For my part, if I like the works of someone, but don’t like the human being, then I will usually try to get their stuff on the secondary market so they don’t get any royalties.  Win-win.

  7. Hi @MemeWeaver, nice to see you NOTing. I watched ice hockey when my son played it; he was a big Penguins fan. A million years ago, I was at a fancy restaurant in Pittsburgh called the Tin Angel, and sat at the table next to Jaromir Jagr. He was a teensy bit smarmy. The thing about professional sports in this country is that, as far as I can see, their business plan is based on the exploitation of young people, right down to the cheerleaders. I think that pro teams, especially football, are corrupt money machines, often appealing to the lowest common denominator of fandom. For example, the Kansas City Chiefs and Texans opening game last season had a moment of silence for black lives matter, and the crowd booed. That said, I think that college players should be paid. The earn nothing (often not even a degree) while the colleges rake in the royalties on star player licensed merchandise. Also, sports can be very painful for fans of the Maple Leafs.

  8. …I guess I’ve always been a bit lukewarm on the fan thing…anything done well by people who excel at it is generally watchable but I’ve always been too much of a heathen about sports to have ever felt particularly invested in the outcome one way or another…although it isn’t hard to see how the kind of thing you mention is just inherently stuff to rue & a barrier to any kind of enjoyment or enthusiasm

    …but even with stuff I generally like more than sport I don’t really find myself in the “fan” contingent…there are bands/singers/rappers/artists/actors/directors/&c who I like enough to think I’d check their stuff out mostly on the strength of their involvement…but very few about which I’d have the kind of reaction I see all over the place where people seem to have made the fact they like/support a thing some central focus of their whole self image to the point that they can’t abide it when it diverges from what they think is the true path

    …I mean, I can talk about the pros & cons of this or that bit of, say, star wars…or which star trek captain is better than which…or whatever…I even quite enjoy picking holes in some stuff…but really just for the sake of a conversation about those things…not because it pains me to live in a world where they didn’t make the movie/show I would have liked better…& I guess that’s as near as I get to understanding the highs & lows of life as a sports fan…so I find it easier to see why you might stop feeling attached to the NFL than I do to imagine what it would be like to have the attachment in the first place?

  9. A stream of conscious vomit:
    Been a Toronto guy, but the 2002 playoffs, 2004 NHL strike and the awfulness of the 2000s Loafs killed much of my hockey fandom.  The realization that CTE is slowly killing many of these guys has dampened my enthusiasm even more.
    Very casual Football fan, but the whole coverup of CTE and watching players get CTE killed any real enthusiasm for the sport.
    I don’t like watching regular season basketball on TV.  I find it boring except the playoffs and March Madness.  Watching Bball live?  Different story.  It’s a pretty fun (expensive) time.  I enjoy going to see a game.  Became more of a b-ball fan because of the Raps playoff runs and having friends who are big fans.  I enjoyed the 2019 run.
    Even my enthusiasm for March Madness has dimmed because the players work their asses off and don’t get shit while the NCAA gets rich and fat.  Plus all the scummy behind the scenes stuff (both staff and players) dims my enthusiasm.
    MLB… I realized I sided with the spoiled players more than the owners.  I love baseball still, but becoming less of a fan of the corporate side of things and their fucking tinkering of the rules.
    FYI, I’ve observed that the guys who would yell at ballplayers to shut up and play ball are usually the same assholes who whine and cry about not making enough money, bitch about taxes and would think about getting a gun if the manager cut his salary because he thought he worked like a lazy ass.  More of a projection/jealousy deal than anything.
    Outside of following scores, at this point I am almost done with sports.
    What about amateurs and the Olympics?  They’ve been dead to me ever since I read “Lord of the Rings” and the greed/corruption that seems almost like human universal constant.  I would gladly fight the local government if they were stupid enough to try and bid for one of the games.  FUCK THAT.  The GTA is what it is, but does it need to blow its finances to show the world?  Nah.  I’m okay with the GTA’s place in the world (AAA status, not fully major league) that I don’t need to pay billions for the approval of rich corrupt bureaucratic scumbags.
     
     

    • I think this must have back in the days when Get/Out was still Gawker Media, but one of their blogs published a map showing the highest-paid public employee in each U.S. state. For the vast majority, that employee was a college sport coach. 
      Pay your damn college athletes. It doesn’t have to be much, but undergrads who are RAs or hold posts like the EIC of the college paper often receive both tuition and board waivers as well as stipends. It’s possible to pay athletes for major programs a little something, too. And as graduate students in PhD programs, we had tuition covered along with a paltry stipend (but enough to keep us fed and clothed). Much as I dislike college sports, they deserve it. 

  10. I’m hit or miss on pro football. I was in high school for the 1 year the St Louis Rams were good and we had “the greatest show on turf” with awesome folks like Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, Kurt Warner, Marshall Faulk, and a bunch of other folks who I don’t recall offhand sorry.

    And then I went to grad school at Alabama and my first year there was shitty shitty Mike Shula’s last year, and then in came Nick Saban.

    Not gonna lie… SEC college ball is a whole nother level and it’s so much fun to be there. It was amazing. We had so much fun at games and tailgating and shit-talking etc etc. Oh and the marching bands! Oh so much fun. I loved it. 

    But the problem I have now with college football is two fold.

    1. Pay the damn players. They generate so much revenue for the school. People like to assume that all the players are there on scholarship. Not a chance in hell. I think Bama had like a quarter of their players on scholarships. I think NCAA rulings recently are that players can get revenue for some things, but it’s not the same as legit paying them. If the NFL wants to use the colleges as minor leagues/farm teams, they deserve to be compensated accordingly. 

    2. The concussions. I struggle with how to enjoy a game when there’s been evidence as early as high school that players are already giving themselves brain damage. I could kinda justify it if there wasn’t indications of the tau proteins already at the college age brains they’ve checked. But we’re literally having these young men destroy their brains and bodies for no compensation for our entertainment. 

    So I casually watch NCAA games now in the fall. If I miss a Bama game? Oh well. There’s always highlight reels later. Unless they’re playing Clemson because typically Clemson beats the crap out of them. I don’t want to watch thise highlights. 🙂 

  11. Never really had much interest in sports. 
    I guess my main conflict is in the local Sci-Fi community.  There was a bookstore that frequently hosted author signings, and I got to meet and get books signed by quite a few authors I really like, and even started reading some authors based on their appearance there.  I’d always try to buy my books from the shop, even though I really don’t keep many books, I don’t have the space, and I have easy access to at least three really great public library systems.  If I can’t find a book I want at one of them, it’s probably not in print…
    At some point last year or so, some credible accusations of abusive and predatory behavior by the owner were making the rounds.  They were shut down for covid, so I figured I would have some time to think about it.  I haven’t really followed up on it, but I should, since things are starting to reopen.  I was hoping there would be some sort of sale or transfer of the business to a non-abusive person, but I don’t think anything like that has happened.  I don’t want to support an abusive/predatory person, but I also would like to attend future author signings and support the authors.
    I’m considering getting the books elsewhere, and then bringing them and getting them signed, but I don’t know, something about that feels pretty shady…

    • AV Club had an obit of Eric Carle, the author of Hungry Hungry Caterpillar, and one commenter wrote:
       
       
      “So I used to work at a very well-known indie bookstore in NYC (it was awesome), run by a very well-known douchebag (not so awesome), and the store was attached to a bakery run by another dude. Eric Carle loved that store, but hated the owner, so he’d occasionally swing by and ask the staff what days the owner wouldn’t be there, then throw little get-togethers at the bakery on those days so he could hang out there without running into the douchebag. Friendly as all hell when he was there, got pastries for all the staff.
      I already love the guy as a children’s bookseller-turned-librarian, but boy oh boy do I love that he disliked the same douchebag I disliked. RIP you Very Magnificent Bastard.”

    • You can totally bring a book you bought elsewhere to a signing, I think people do it all the time. Seems like a good way in this situation. It might also be good if it’s the sort of thing where you’ll end up casually chatting with other fans – you can say to them “hey have you heard about how shitty the owner is here?” 

  12. I am watching & always watch the Lakers.  I bleed purple & gold.   The NBA is by far the most exciting when games are close.  I watch Seahawks but no other NFL.  My favorite sport to watch besides basketball is volleyball. Men’s, women’s, indoor or beach, I love it!  For what they do for social issues, not close, basketball rules.  No chance u will ever see a football field with BLM on it like NBA did.  Even if u hate sports u have to respect that!

  13. Bravo. I’m generally not into sport, save for a few. I have a strong aversion to American football, but occasionally get fired up about real football/futbol/calcio. 
    I think John Oliver summed it up well in his episode on FIFA several years back: 


    And his follow-up a year later: 

    I played for a few years as a young child (as in, before we really used formations) and, like any good Londoner, I have a chosen UEFA, Serie A, La Liga, Ligue 1, Premiere League, and London team. I get fired up every World Cup, and then maybe my interest lingers for a bit (mostly because I like La Liga), and then I’ll get fired up again around Euro Cup or even Copa America. 
    But I genuinely wonder if I can justify watching the World Cup again next year. There’s all the usual: racism, Sepp Blatter, match fixing, diving, corruption, boorishness, most of my players aging out of competitiveness… There’s the general crappiness of whatever the hell happened with the European Super League. But, really, I don’t know how I can support the event in Qatar after seeing the exploited labourers  slaves who built the stadia in Qatar returned home (to Bangladesh, India and Nepal) in coffins en masse. As much as I’d like to see Les Bleus repeat (or the Albicelestes bring it home for Messi, or La Furia Roja return  to their former tiki taka glory), I may have to just read about it later. I didn’t pay attention to the Sochi Olympics, but I still heard the major highlights. Could I really miss the World Cup final and be OK?

  14. I latched on to Liverpool in the 90s, what with the Spice Boys (neither as funny nor interesting as the name suggests) and then the procession of nearly-men, with the two Champions League wins being the highlights.
    One of the reasons for my enjoyment of EPL was the fact that these massive clubs often started out as local pub teams or factory worker union sports clubs, and those roots still show today. So after more and more teams got bought by Americans or petro-state tyrants, the shine is wearing off. NBC’s decision to move a bunch of games to the paid tier of their streaming service is tipping me over the line.
    I’ve gone from watching 80%-90% of the games shown stateside down to 20% tops. 
    Stopped giving a fuck about national tournaments altogether after seeing all the taxpayer-funded grifts and how much abuse the athletes endured under that power structure. 

  15. I’m a big sports fan but I’m also a very casual fan as well, if that makes sense. 

    I enjoy the games, the narrative, the way you can chat it up with a fellow fan you’ve never met before like you’re old friends ’cause you’re complaining about that player or that coach or that referee. 

    But sports fans — and especially football fans — have always leaned toward the reactionary side of things, which has become harder to ignore (Kaepernick, I think, woke some people up to a thing that was pretty obvious before that). Owners, who were always terrible, are richer and more powerful and don’t even pretend to care about how their actions look. TV networks see sports as the last live event people will tune in for and they desperately build lousy streaming networks around it so nobody can actually watch. The Olympics are a puff piece for dictators and a fat payoff for developers; the NCAA is slavery with a scholarship dangling at the end of a fishing pole; and FIFA just goes right ahead and uses slave labor, cause nobody does it like FIFA

    If you like the games, maybe you can overlook some of that. But while sports are a very big punching bag, an equally good question is what entertainment is NOT tainted by all of the same factors? You like TV or movies? I have some bad news about the sexual assault factory known as “Hollywood.” You like books? Cool, but publishing houses have all of the capitalism problems AND the best-selling author of the past 20 years is a wild-eyed TERF who can’t shut the F up about “the trans problem” online. 

    So yeah, sports are odious, but so are a lot of other things, and we’re all just trying to navigate that.

  16. I was very anti-sports growing up, because the school system was cliquey and there was a definite nerds vs jocks thing. And the school system was so pro football to the detriment of the arts, which sucked. It was a silly identity politics thing that I started to push past in college. I don’t mind baseball – I was in college when the Red Sox reversed the curse, so that was pretty awesome to be a part of celebrating. I wouldn’t call myself a baseball fan, but I don’t mind watching it sometimes. Soccer is kinda fun to watch. And I like watching basically all of the Olympics. But I still have a visceral distaste for football. I tried to watch it a couple of times and it was like 5 seconds of game play and then 5 minutes of talking and ads? I don’t get it. 

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