I came tearing out of the gates like a lion ready to bite a gladiator's head off. LDT...mine! Manning...mine! Brady...mine! and then I realized I didn't have enough money left to fill out a roster. That's the dream I had the night before the auction. I was just glad I slept at all. The anticipation was almost too much to take. When I woke up the morning of August 25th I knew it was that special day I'd been waiting for. Energy surged through my body and I felt like I just got a B12 shot. I was well aware that a beautiful girl named auction-draft was coming around the mountain when she came and let me tell you something...she was glorious in all of her wonderfully refreshing splendor just like tall can of Arizona raspberry iced tea on a hot summer day.
My research, done. My strategy, laid out. My hair, nicely gelled. My balls, solid brass. I'll be a son of gun if I wasn't the most ready pink skin you ever laid your sweet little eyes on. It was time execute. It was time...
The auction swept in like a tornado and passed almost instantly. It...was...over.
I'm not gonna lie to you. Mistakes were made. I'm thoroughly disappointed in myself. I had plans. I had big plans. I knew who I wanted and I had every intention of getting good values across the board. I was saving my money to make a run at Brian Westbrook and I got caught bidding up Willis McGahee. I got good value on McGahee, but it took me out of the running for Westbrook who also went way too cheap. I saved myself later by making a few savvy trades mid-auction to move some money around, but in the end I was left unsatisfied like a customer who just finished an overpriced, under tasty meal from the 5 & Diner. If, by chance, anyone had x-ray vision and happened to be staring at my crotch immediately after the auction they would have seen an inordinate amount of sweat hanging from my scrotum. Yeah, it was that intense.
They say that those who can't teach do and those who can't do teach. Well I did it and now maybe I should look into a career teaching others how to do it. Apparently during an auction the only thing I know how to do is take a doo doo in my pants. I honestly believe I had that, "Oh crap, I just shit myself!" look on my face afterwards.
Don't get me wrong, I actually think my team is possibly the best and definitely top three out of ten. But I left full of regrets and torturing myself by dreaming about what could have been. For only a few precious hours earlier Manning, LDT and Brady were all mine.
Let's not kid ourselves, who else do you really need?
Monday, August 27, 2007
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Rick: Abolish the Draft
Mark Rypien... not the name you usually associate with fantasy football stardom. But Mark Rypien was the first pick in my first ever fantasy football league, way back in the fall of '92. He finished that season with 13 TDs and 17 picks, and yet somehow I think the guy who picked him (who in his early adult years picked up the nickname Stupid Mother Fucker) won the league. This proves 2 things: a) Mark Rypien was actually good at one time (with 28 TD's and a super bowl ring the year before), and b) Fantasy drafts are a surefire way to ensure that some jackass wins your league.
Granted, the fact that the rest of us lost to a guy who picked Mark Rypien number 1 overall means we probably have no one but ourselves to blame. But because he was lucky enough to have the #1 pick, and we were stupid enough to not do a serpentine draft order (reversing each round) he got enough good players to fill out a decent team.
Well, that league has been running strong for 15 years (except for 3 seasons in the mid-90's when it folded due to the laziness of our dear comissioner... remember, you actually had to read boxscores to run a fantasy league back then). And in quite a few of those years, the #1 pick has been a sure path to victory. In one of my 3 championships, I had picked Marshall Faulk, in his prime, at #1, giving me a decisive and unfair edge over the competition. Similar results were seen in other years with Priest Holmes, and now LT. And it's not just #1... #2 is also a huge advantage over the lower picks. After I traded away Jerry Rice for Barry Foster and Art Monk, I learned to my dismay that marquis players are irreplaceable. Thus, even a serpentine draft order doesn't help, because the order of the first round has by far the biggest impact on the ensuing fantasy season.
The only solution? Abolish the draft! To celebrate the 16th year of our fantasy league, we're turning the corner and moving to an auction to figure out who goes where. Each team starts out with $200 fantasy dollars, and players go on the block in any order you want. The upside is enormous:
1) It's a level playing field. If you don't get LT, and he erupts for 40 TD's this year, whose fault is that? You should have paid more.
2) Bidding creates a sort of benevolent animosity between rival fantasy owners. If I can't kick dirt on your grave, at least I'll outbid you for Joseph Addai.
3) Uneducated owners can't get too lucky. Players can't just fall into their laps based upon the randomness of the draft and who picks ahead of them. Plus, they'll probably overbid on bad over-the-hill players and underbid on good up-and-comers, and their roster will look like the all-pro team I made in NFL2K (just 2K, as in 2000). You could even mess with the token dumb guy, and get into a bidding war with him for Michael Vick. Just make sure you back off before you end up with him.
4) All trades are possible. In the NBA, the salary cap seems like the obstacle to every dream trade. But in fantasy football with an auction and a salary cap, any trade is possible because one side just needs to agree to pay a little bit of "contract" to make the deal go through. No one wants to do the one superstar for two or three good starters trade in real fantasy football, but with contract money flying around you can always make a deal fair.
5) Tear up your mock drafts. A mock draft cheat sheet won't work anymore, because while Larry Johnson might be more valuable than Peyton Manning straight up, how much more valuable is he? Is he worth $20 more in fantasy money? That's up to you to decide. Even mock auctions aren't good enough, because they don't take into account who your bidding against, how much money they have left. Plus, players will likely go in a different order in every auction, changing the dynamics completely. To make it even crazier, we redo the points for TD's and yards by position every year, so most of the cookie-cutter online analyses you see don't apply.
6) Screw the other guy. It's midway though the draft, and I'm high on Santonio Holmes, but I can get him even cheaper later in the draft when the other teams have less money to throw around. I'm going to put Matt Cassel on the block, and I don't even have Tom Brady. But somebody does, and now that guy pretty much has to outbid me if he wants insurance in case of a Brady injury. Late in the draft, he probably could have got Cassel for $1, but now he has to spend at least $2. See how awesome this is?
7) Side bets. When I show up at the auction, I'm going to make a bet (real money this time) with someone on the over-under for Matt Leinart. I have no idea where Leinart will go, or how much he will go for, but it'll be a good chance to test my instincts. If the bet is small, no one is going to sabotage their fantasy team to try to win the bet by bidding him up.
I am psyched up about this auction, and I have no doubt we'll be ditching the draft for good.
Granted, the fact that the rest of us lost to a guy who picked Mark Rypien number 1 overall means we probably have no one but ourselves to blame. But because he was lucky enough to have the #1 pick, and we were stupid enough to not do a serpentine draft order (reversing each round) he got enough good players to fill out a decent team.
Well, that league has been running strong for 15 years (except for 3 seasons in the mid-90's when it folded due to the laziness of our dear comissioner... remember, you actually had to read boxscores to run a fantasy league back then). And in quite a few of those years, the #1 pick has been a sure path to victory. In one of my 3 championships, I had picked Marshall Faulk, in his prime, at #1, giving me a decisive and unfair edge over the competition. Similar results were seen in other years with Priest Holmes, and now LT. And it's not just #1... #2 is also a huge advantage over the lower picks. After I traded away Jerry Rice for Barry Foster and Art Monk, I learned to my dismay that marquis players are irreplaceable. Thus, even a serpentine draft order doesn't help, because the order of the first round has by far the biggest impact on the ensuing fantasy season.
The only solution? Abolish the draft! To celebrate the 16th year of our fantasy league, we're turning the corner and moving to an auction to figure out who goes where. Each team starts out with $200 fantasy dollars, and players go on the block in any order you want. The upside is enormous:
1) It's a level playing field. If you don't get LT, and he erupts for 40 TD's this year, whose fault is that? You should have paid more.
2) Bidding creates a sort of benevolent animosity between rival fantasy owners. If I can't kick dirt on your grave, at least I'll outbid you for Joseph Addai.
3) Uneducated owners can't get too lucky. Players can't just fall into their laps based upon the randomness of the draft and who picks ahead of them. Plus, they'll probably overbid on bad over-the-hill players and underbid on good up-and-comers, and their roster will look like the all-pro team I made in NFL2K (just 2K, as in 2000). You could even mess with the token dumb guy, and get into a bidding war with him for Michael Vick. Just make sure you back off before you end up with him.
4) All trades are possible. In the NBA, the salary cap seems like the obstacle to every dream trade. But in fantasy football with an auction and a salary cap, any trade is possible because one side just needs to agree to pay a little bit of "contract" to make the deal go through. No one wants to do the one superstar for two or three good starters trade in real fantasy football, but with contract money flying around you can always make a deal fair.
5) Tear up your mock drafts. A mock draft cheat sheet won't work anymore, because while Larry Johnson might be more valuable than Peyton Manning straight up, how much more valuable is he? Is he worth $20 more in fantasy money? That's up to you to decide. Even mock auctions aren't good enough, because they don't take into account who your bidding against, how much money they have left. Plus, players will likely go in a different order in every auction, changing the dynamics completely. To make it even crazier, we redo the points for TD's and yards by position every year, so most of the cookie-cutter online analyses you see don't apply.
6) Screw the other guy. It's midway though the draft, and I'm high on Santonio Holmes, but I can get him even cheaper later in the draft when the other teams have less money to throw around. I'm going to put Matt Cassel on the block, and I don't even have Tom Brady. But somebody does, and now that guy pretty much has to outbid me if he wants insurance in case of a Brady injury. Late in the draft, he probably could have got Cassel for $1, but now he has to spend at least $2. See how awesome this is?
7) Side bets. When I show up at the auction, I'm going to make a bet (real money this time) with someone on the over-under for Matt Leinart. I have no idea where Leinart will go, or how much he will go for, but it'll be a good chance to test my instincts. If the bet is small, no one is going to sabotage their fantasy team to try to win the bet by bidding him up.
I am psyched up about this auction, and I have no doubt we'll be ditching the draft for good.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Noah: A History Of Violins
You know how people do that thing where they rub two of their fingers together and say something to the effect of, "Do you see this? This is the world's tiniest violin playing just for you."? The bitch of it all is that people do this to make you feel worse about something you already feel bad about. And the extra kick in the nuts is that it's usually a good friend that does this. It's meant to make you stop complaining and stop feeling sorry for yourself, but it usually just makes you want to rip your friends' ears off so he won't be able to hear you whine anymore. Nothing has caused more men to act like frustrated babies more than sports over the last few decades. Nothing. Even though sports shouldn't be that important, they just are. Nobody is going to feel sorry for you if you're suffering from a sports heartbreak except the other fans of your team and nothing pisses you off more than when you want consolation, but instead your friends start telling you stuff like, "Sorry, but I have a bad case of the 'rub it ins' and it could last up to 24 hours."
The pain and agony of being a sports fan always seems to outweigh the elation and satisfaction that is offered by the hobby. I was lucky enough to witness one of my teams win a championship when the Diamondbacks took the world series from the Yankees in 2001. I was never happier as a sports fan. All the stress of life had melted away and for a moment I was nothing but happy. I was suspended in a state of euphoria that could never have lasted too long. That was the one moment when I, as a sports fan, was king. Now if you would, please join me as we travel to the other side of the coin.
Things that really hurt and happen way too often:
The pain and agony of being a sports fan always seems to outweigh the elation and satisfaction that is offered by the hobby. I was lucky enough to witness one of my teams win a championship when the Diamondbacks took the world series from the Yankees in 2001. I was never happier as a sports fan. All the stress of life had melted away and for a moment I was nothing but happy. I was suspended in a state of euphoria that could never have lasted too long. That was the one moment when I, as a sports fan, was king. Now if you would, please join me as we travel to the other side of the coin.
Things that really hurt and happen way too often:
- Your team chokes away a meaningful game in the waning moments.
- Your team chokes away a meaningless game in the waning moments. It still hurts.
- Your team is poised to make a deep playoff run only to have a key player injured and the team never recovers.
- Your NFL team builds up your hope for the upcoming season and then inexplicably goes straight into the dumpster by starting out 0-4. Again.
- You have to watch another teams' fans celebrate after they just stole a game that your team had well in hand.
- Your team cuts or trades away good players that you like and your team needs for salary reasons.
- You accidentally break something valuable in your house because your fantasy running back just got stuffed at the goal line on 4 consecutive carries in the final minute on Monday night and you lose by 5.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Noah: Living The Game
Adam "Pacman" Jones has officially crossed over from a human being to cartoon character. It wasn't enough to get suspended from the NFL for the entire season for that absolutely heinous fight at a strip club in Vegas that left one man paralyzed, but now he's a professional wrestler. I don't necessarily have a problem with pro wrestling, but this can't be a good idea for a guy who's trying to earn reinstatement with the NFL next season. Not to mention that wrestling is almost assuredly a breach of his contract with the Titans. Any standard contract in the NFL would not allow a player to put himself in that kind of danger without the team being able to recoup a good portion of his signing bonus if he's injured. Does he need money so badly that it's worth that risk or is he just nuts? It looks like this Pacman is stuck between a ghost and a hard place.
While watching Barry Bonds repeatedly get fooled on change-ups and swinging through fastballs tonight I couldn't help but notice two major things. First of all, I immediately felt how huge the moment was. It seemed the entire San Franciscan crowd was holding it's collective breath on every pitch. It was almost uncomfortable for me to watch it with such mixed feelings. I like to be watching when history is made, but I just wish the record was being broken by a clean player. Secondly, Bonds doesn't look comfortable at the plate at all. He keeps dipping his shoulder and it appears he's trying to lift the ball. He also seems to be swinging with only his arms. It's pretty hard to generate home run power if you're not using your legs. That being said, it's only a matter of time until he blasts one over the fence. You did it Barry. You're the all-time home run champ. Now take your giant watermelon head and get out of our lives already. Return from whence you came and don't let the door hit your ass on the way out. You might still be sore there from all the injections.
While watching Barry Bonds repeatedly get fooled on change-ups and swinging through fastballs tonight I couldn't help but notice two major things. First of all, I immediately felt how huge the moment was. It seemed the entire San Franciscan crowd was holding it's collective breath on every pitch. It was almost uncomfortable for me to watch it with such mixed feelings. I like to be watching when history is made, but I just wish the record was being broken by a clean player. Secondly, Bonds doesn't look comfortable at the plate at all. He keeps dipping his shoulder and it appears he's trying to lift the ball. He also seems to be swinging with only his arms. It's pretty hard to generate home run power if you're not using your legs. That being said, it's only a matter of time until he blasts one over the fence. You did it Barry. You're the all-time home run champ. Now take your giant watermelon head and get out of our lives already. Return from whence you came and don't let the door hit your ass on the way out. You might still be sore there from all the injections.
Noah: College Education
The 2007 college football coaches' top 25 poll was recently released and it begs one to ask an important question. Shouldn't college coaches actually know college football? I'm not saying they completely botched this thing, but Florida at #3. Are you kidding me? That absolutely leaps off the page. Even putting them in the top 10 seems like a pretty big stretch. I understand they're the defending champs, but who exactly is returning to the team this year? Their defense ranked 6th in points allowed last year, but they have only two of eleven defensive starters coming back for '07. That's not exactly the ratio coaches are looking for. The Gators defense is going to be in big trouble when they play good teams this year. On offense things don't look quite as bleak. They have a lot of talent on that side of the ball and Urban Meyer seems to believe in sophomore QB Tim Tebow. But any team that loses it's starting quarterback (Chris Leak), it's top rusher (DeShawn Wynn) and it's top receiver (Dallas Baker) is going to struggle at times. Consistency is what separates the top three or four teams from the next fifteen. I'm just not buying that a team with nine new faces on the starting defense and an inexperienced QB is going to be able to navigate the troubled waters when it matters most.
Just in case you haven't seen them yet, these are the rankings the coaches came up with:
1. USC (45) 0-0 1,481
2. LSU (4) 0-0 1,372
3. Florida (9) 0-0 1,278
4. Texas 0-0 1,231
5. Michigan (2) 0-0 1,218
6. West Virginia 0-0 1,205
7. Wisconsin 0-0 1,114
8. Oklahoma 0-0 1,026
9. Virginia Tech 0-0 1,005
10. Ohio State 0-0 919
11. Louisville 0-0 836
12. California 0-0 763
13. Georgia 0-0 604
14. Auburn 0-0 595
15. Tennessee 0-0 583
16. Rutgers 0-0 466
17. UCLA 0-0 454
18. Penn State 0-0 440
19. Nebraska 0-0 388
20. Arkansas 0-0 360
21. Florida State 0-0 301
22. TCU 0-0 233
23. Boise State 0-0 222
24. Hawaii 0-0 214
25. Texas A&M 0-0 209
Just in case you haven't seen them yet, these are the rankings the coaches came up with:
1. USC (45) 0-0 1,481
2. LSU (4) 0-0 1,372
3. Florida (9) 0-0 1,278
4. Texas 0-0 1,231
5. Michigan (2) 0-0 1,218
6. West Virginia 0-0 1,205
7. Wisconsin 0-0 1,114
8. Oklahoma 0-0 1,026
9. Virginia Tech 0-0 1,005
10. Ohio State 0-0 919
11. Louisville 0-0 836
12. California 0-0 763
13. Georgia 0-0 604
14. Auburn 0-0 595
15. Tennessee 0-0 583
16. Rutgers 0-0 466
17. UCLA 0-0 454
18. Penn State 0-0 440
19. Nebraska 0-0 388
20. Arkansas 0-0 360
21. Florida State 0-0 301
22. TCU 0-0 233
23. Boise State 0-0 222
24. Hawaii 0-0 214
25. Texas A&M 0-0 209
Friday, August 3, 2007
Kyle: What I Hate About Sports (Part 1)
In my last post I discussed what I love about sports. But as much as I enjoy sports, and consider myself a fan, there are several aspects of the sporting world that I loathe. I had originally planned this as a single post, but as soon as a I began writing, I realized I needed to break it up into parts. Here's part one.
I understand professional sports is big business. I understand that televised sporting events have been driven by commercials since the dawn of the medium. I accept these things. But the commercialization of sports is now completely out of control.
In the interest of full disclosure, let me state this up front: I despise ads. More than that, I consider ads to be a real societal evil. The constitution says there is no official American religion, but it is wrong. Consumerism is the American religion. And ads are that religion's propaganda. From the moment Americans are born, we are trained to be one thing above all--consumers. We are told that we must have lots and lots of possessions if we are ever to have a chance at happiness (like all those happy people in ads), and built-in obsolescence makes certain that we can never stop buying more, bigger, faster. It's the only way to sustain the economy of a country that concentrates its wealth at the very top and produces mostly junk and bombs.
With that said, it should come as no surprise that I do my best to avoid ads. Print ads are not really intrusive (unless you are reading the like of Cosmo or Vogue), so I'm okay with most magazines and web sites. "Hard copy" newspapers have been obsolete for a decade. And between Tivo and podcasting, I've managed to mostly eliminate the intrusive ads from my life. I even show up to movie theaters late, just to avoid the "pre-show entertainment"--an abomination that deserves its own column.
But the one time when I can't escape the long arm of the ad agencies is when I'm watching sports. Yes, I could Tivo sporting events, but it's deeply unsatisfying on a psychological level to watch something when I know the results are readily available on the internet. There's a reason no one in the US watches the Olympics when they take place on the other side of the globe. Also, in that situation, I have to avoid talking to anyone about sports so as to not ruin any surprises. I better remember to turn off my cell phone or one of my buddies is sure to call and rave about the amazing finish I've yet to see. And, of course, one of the best parts of watching sports is the group experience of collectively reacting to the action with delight, despair, disdain, and most importantly, comedy. Try throwing a Super Bowl party on the day after the game. See how that works out. The bottom line is that watching non-live sports sucks. But that's not even the issue, because while the commercials which interrupt the action are an annoyance, they are something I have come to accept as mentioned above. What I really hate is everything else. For instance:
Naming Rights
If you were born after 1987, you may not realize this, but stadiums were not always named after multinational corporations. They used to be named after aspects of the city in question (Three Rivers, Mile High), or you know, actual things related to sports. There are still a few relics of that bygone age such as Lambeau Field (named for Green Bay Packers founder E.L. Lambeau), and the wonderfully minimalist Giants Stadium. But mostly now we get to watch our teams play in places like Network Associates Coliseum, and my hometown groaner, University of Phoenix Stadium (in Glendale).
Since the taxpayers are usually footing a huge part of the bill on these structures which cost hundreds of millions of dollars and ultimately put more money into the pockets of the super wealthy, maybe we could at least name the damn thing. Or, if the owners sell the naming rights, maybe we should get a rebate. No? No takers? Oh, that's right, I forgot about all the money these new stadiums pump into the local economy for taxpayer benefit. I don't know how I overlooked all the low-paying service industry jobs the stadiums create. The bevy of new opportunities for waitresses, hotel clerks, bellhops, taxi drivers, ushers, and concessions vendors are surely more than fair compensation.
But it gets worse. Not only to we have to put up with these ridiculous names pimping global financial institutions, but they keep changing the names! Just when you get used to the stupid corporate moniker, the contract is up, and there is another pile of money to be made. My hometown baseball stadium is a case in point. When the Arizona Diamondbacks stadium first opened, they sold the rights to Bank One, and it became Bank One Ballpark. The name sucked, but at least you could use the acronym BOB, and after a while we managed to convince ourselves that "The BOB" was kind of cool. So what happens? Chase Manhattan buys out Bank One, and now we are stuck with Chase Field. The CF? Ugh.
Signage
Is it just me or has the amount of signage at sporting events increased exponentially over the last 20 years? I know signage has been a part of sports for a long time, but it seems that there is now an unwritten rule stating that every available surface must be plastered with ugly ads. And, of course, the advertisers are trying to draw our attention so they use the most garish possible colors, creating a panoply of eyesores. The Arena Football League has stooped to actually placing ads (for the US Army) on the players' uniforms. And yes, I realize NASCAR pioneered that concept years ago--another reason to hate NASCAR. What's next? Ads on the urinal cakes in the bathroom? No, someone already thought of that: http://www.peepeeface.com/
Television Commercials At The Stadiums
Speaking of Arena Football, I recently attended a local Rattlers game that was televised on ESPN. When they stopped for TV timeouts, they actually had the gall to play some commercials on the jumbotron! So I pay money for a seat at the arena and not only do I get to deal with the hassle of extra timeouts so the league can generate ad revenue, but I also get to suffer the indignity of being subjected to TV commercials! I can't even escape them with a bathroom break or a trip to concessions thanks to ubiquitous monitors and a deafening sound system. This makes me want to commit a homicide. So help me god if this unholy practice spreads.
Sponsors Galore
Apparently, we are no longer allowed to have anything remotely connected to sports that doesn't have a sponsor attached to it. The first thing I noticed getting out of control was the college football bowl games. They used to have names like the Citrus Bowl and the Peach Bowl, but those have given way to corporate monstrosities called the Capital One Bowl and The Chic-Fil-A Bowl. The bowls with a more prestigious history have at least kept their traditional names, but they have tacked on an incongruous sponsor ala the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl or FedEx OrangeBowl. The venerable Rose Bowl held out as a beacon of hope for a while, but sadly crumbled to corporate sponsorship in 1998. Of course, the current bowl system is essentially contrived to make every last dollar off the labor of the NCAA's unpaid "student-athletes". The NCAA will insist that they are doing a great social service by providing a scholarship to these young men, many of whom are underprivileged and would not otherwise have access to higher education. Of course, they do not appear overly concerned with the education of underprivileged kids that don't have a good 40 time. In any event, bowl games used to be a stage to showcase college football's best teams. But then they realized there was money to be made off mediocre teams too. Of the 31 current bowl games, 18 of them were created in the last 20 years. This has resulted in such classics as the Meineke Car Care Bowl, the Diamond Walnut San Francisco Bowl, and my personal favorite, the galleryfurniture.com Bowl. I can hardly imagine the joy which entered the heart of the player who realized one day he would be able to tell his grandkids that he scored the winning touchdown in the galleryfurniture.com Bowl.
But it wasn't enough for sponsorship to desecrate the bowl games. Now, everything has a sponsor. Pregame. Postgame. Halftime. Players of the game. Analyst notes ( i.e. Toyota's "Keys To The Game"). Replays! For god's sake, the local Suns games on FSN now have a sponsored shot clock!
But even that was not enough. Some marketing genius (i.e. asshole) had this epiphany: why have one sponsor for something when you can have two? I was recently watching a halftime show, and I don't recall the specific sponsors, but it was the equivalent of this: "Welcome to the Nextel halftime show, brought to you by General Motors". This is a frightening slippery slope. At this rate, by 2010 we will be treated to the Carquest and Wendy's halftime highlights brought to you by Boeing with a special thank you to Hershey's, where Curt Menefee will cheerfully recap a situation in which, "Facing 4th & long on the Tough-Actin' Tinactin down indicator, with 1:23 left on the Microsoft game clock, the Ravens trail the Colts by a score of 23--brought to you by Budweiser--to 30--the official score of Levitra." I think I'm going to throw up.
The owners in professional sports have a lot of ways to make money--from tickets sales to merchandise to concessions to television revenue. But I hate that they are now attempting to squeeze every conceivable drop of green out of their product with zero regard for the fan experience. It's the true spirit of capitalism: maximize profits above all else.
Every team trumpets the claim that they have "the best fans in the world". No wonder they think so. We keep enabling them to fill their coffers with gold while they continue to shower us with gold of a different sort.
I understand professional sports is big business. I understand that televised sporting events have been driven by commercials since the dawn of the medium. I accept these things. But the commercialization of sports is now completely out of control.
In the interest of full disclosure, let me state this up front: I despise ads. More than that, I consider ads to be a real societal evil. The constitution says there is no official American religion, but it is wrong. Consumerism is the American religion. And ads are that religion's propaganda. From the moment Americans are born, we are trained to be one thing above all--consumers. We are told that we must have lots and lots of possessions if we are ever to have a chance at happiness (like all those happy people in ads), and built-in obsolescence makes certain that we can never stop buying more, bigger, faster. It's the only way to sustain the economy of a country that concentrates its wealth at the very top and produces mostly junk and bombs.
With that said, it should come as no surprise that I do my best to avoid ads. Print ads are not really intrusive (unless you are reading the like of Cosmo or Vogue), so I'm okay with most magazines and web sites. "Hard copy" newspapers have been obsolete for a decade. And between Tivo and podcasting, I've managed to mostly eliminate the intrusive ads from my life. I even show up to movie theaters late, just to avoid the "pre-show entertainment"--an abomination that deserves its own column.
But the one time when I can't escape the long arm of the ad agencies is when I'm watching sports. Yes, I could Tivo sporting events, but it's deeply unsatisfying on a psychological level to watch something when I know the results are readily available on the internet. There's a reason no one in the US watches the Olympics when they take place on the other side of the globe. Also, in that situation, I have to avoid talking to anyone about sports so as to not ruin any surprises. I better remember to turn off my cell phone or one of my buddies is sure to call and rave about the amazing finish I've yet to see. And, of course, one of the best parts of watching sports is the group experience of collectively reacting to the action with delight, despair, disdain, and most importantly, comedy. Try throwing a Super Bowl party on the day after the game. See how that works out. The bottom line is that watching non-live sports sucks. But that's not even the issue, because while the commercials which interrupt the action are an annoyance, they are something I have come to accept as mentioned above. What I really hate is everything else. For instance:
Naming Rights
If you were born after 1987, you may not realize this, but stadiums were not always named after multinational corporations. They used to be named after aspects of the city in question (Three Rivers, Mile High), or you know, actual things related to sports. There are still a few relics of that bygone age such as Lambeau Field (named for Green Bay Packers founder E.L. Lambeau), and the wonderfully minimalist Giants Stadium. But mostly now we get to watch our teams play in places like Network Associates Coliseum, and my hometown groaner, University of Phoenix Stadium (in Glendale).
Since the taxpayers are usually footing a huge part of the bill on these structures which cost hundreds of millions of dollars and ultimately put more money into the pockets of the super wealthy, maybe we could at least name the damn thing. Or, if the owners sell the naming rights, maybe we should get a rebate. No? No takers? Oh, that's right, I forgot about all the money these new stadiums pump into the local economy for taxpayer benefit. I don't know how I overlooked all the low-paying service industry jobs the stadiums create. The bevy of new opportunities for waitresses, hotel clerks, bellhops, taxi drivers, ushers, and concessions vendors are surely more than fair compensation.
But it gets worse. Not only to we have to put up with these ridiculous names pimping global financial institutions, but they keep changing the names! Just when you get used to the stupid corporate moniker, the contract is up, and there is another pile of money to be made. My hometown baseball stadium is a case in point. When the Arizona Diamondbacks stadium first opened, they sold the rights to Bank One, and it became Bank One Ballpark. The name sucked, but at least you could use the acronym BOB, and after a while we managed to convince ourselves that "The BOB" was kind of cool. So what happens? Chase Manhattan buys out Bank One, and now we are stuck with Chase Field. The CF? Ugh.
Signage
Is it just me or has the amount of signage at sporting events increased exponentially over the last 20 years? I know signage has been a part of sports for a long time, but it seems that there is now an unwritten rule stating that every available surface must be plastered with ugly ads. And, of course, the advertisers are trying to draw our attention so they use the most garish possible colors, creating a panoply of eyesores. The Arena Football League has stooped to actually placing ads (for the US Army) on the players' uniforms. And yes, I realize NASCAR pioneered that concept years ago--another reason to hate NASCAR. What's next? Ads on the urinal cakes in the bathroom? No, someone already thought of that: http://www.peepeeface.com/
Television Commercials At The Stadiums
Speaking of Arena Football, I recently attended a local Rattlers game that was televised on ESPN. When they stopped for TV timeouts, they actually had the gall to play some commercials on the jumbotron! So I pay money for a seat at the arena and not only do I get to deal with the hassle of extra timeouts so the league can generate ad revenue, but I also get to suffer the indignity of being subjected to TV commercials! I can't even escape them with a bathroom break or a trip to concessions thanks to ubiquitous monitors and a deafening sound system. This makes me want to commit a homicide. So help me god if this unholy practice spreads.
Sponsors Galore
Apparently, we are no longer allowed to have anything remotely connected to sports that doesn't have a sponsor attached to it. The first thing I noticed getting out of control was the college football bowl games. They used to have names like the Citrus Bowl and the Peach Bowl, but those have given way to corporate monstrosities called the Capital One Bowl and The Chic-Fil-A Bowl. The bowls with a more prestigious history have at least kept their traditional names, but they have tacked on an incongruous sponsor ala the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl or FedEx OrangeBowl. The venerable Rose Bowl held out as a beacon of hope for a while, but sadly crumbled to corporate sponsorship in 1998. Of course, the current bowl system is essentially contrived to make every last dollar off the labor of the NCAA's unpaid "student-athletes". The NCAA will insist that they are doing a great social service by providing a scholarship to these young men, many of whom are underprivileged and would not otherwise have access to higher education. Of course, they do not appear overly concerned with the education of underprivileged kids that don't have a good 40 time. In any event, bowl games used to be a stage to showcase college football's best teams. But then they realized there was money to be made off mediocre teams too. Of the 31 current bowl games, 18 of them were created in the last 20 years. This has resulted in such classics as the Meineke Car Care Bowl, the Diamond Walnut San Francisco Bowl, and my personal favorite, the galleryfurniture.com Bowl. I can hardly imagine the joy which entered the heart of the player who realized one day he would be able to tell his grandkids that he scored the winning touchdown in the galleryfurniture.com Bowl.
But it wasn't enough for sponsorship to desecrate the bowl games. Now, everything has a sponsor. Pregame. Postgame. Halftime. Players of the game. Analyst notes ( i.e. Toyota's "Keys To The Game"). Replays! For god's sake, the local Suns games on FSN now have a sponsored shot clock!
But even that was not enough. Some marketing genius (i.e. asshole) had this epiphany: why have one sponsor for something when you can have two? I was recently watching a halftime show, and I don't recall the specific sponsors, but it was the equivalent of this: "Welcome to the Nextel halftime show, brought to you by General Motors". This is a frightening slippery slope. At this rate, by 2010 we will be treated to the Carquest and Wendy's halftime highlights brought to you by Boeing with a special thank you to Hershey's, where Curt Menefee will cheerfully recap a situation in which, "Facing 4th & long on the Tough-Actin' Tinactin down indicator, with 1:23 left on the Microsoft game clock, the Ravens trail the Colts by a score of 23--brought to you by Budweiser--to 30--the official score of Levitra." I think I'm going to throw up.
The owners in professional sports have a lot of ways to make money--from tickets sales to merchandise to concessions to television revenue. But I hate that they are now attempting to squeeze every conceivable drop of green out of their product with zero regard for the fan experience. It's the true spirit of capitalism: maximize profits above all else.
Every team trumpets the claim that they have "the best fans in the world". No wonder they think so. We keep enabling them to fill their coffers with gold while they continue to shower us with gold of a different sort.
Rick: Long live MMA
I'm the guy who ruins your UFC party by telling you that I know of a random Japanese guy who could beat the tattooed monster standing over his KO'd opponent. I'm the guy that watches events every week from the UFC, Pride, WEC, IFL, and EliteXC. I go online to watch Shooto and K1 Hero's fights on YouTube. I read multiple MMA blogs every day, since it's mainsteam sports news coverage (read: coverage by ESPN) is still in its infancy.
MMA shattered my love for the traditional sports by simply being better. It's faster, more explosive, and more technical (if you don't think so, you're not watching the right matches). A wise man once said that every sport is a combination of the two pure sports: running and fighting. Sometimes that fighting is in the form of swinging a club, throwing a rock, or pushing another guy past a line. But now we see fighting distilled to its essence, rather than disguised as something else. That's a big part of what makes me a fan.
MMA shattered my love for the traditional sports by simply being better. It's faster, more explosive, and more technical (if you don't think so, you're not watching the right matches). A wise man once said that every sport is a combination of the two pure sports: running and fighting. Sometimes that fighting is in the form of swinging a club, throwing a rock, or pushing another guy past a line. But now we see fighting distilled to its essence, rather than disguised as something else. That's a big part of what makes me a fan.
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