MY DISENCHANTMENT WITH FOOTBALL

I am losing interest in football.  This is more difficult for an aging boomer to admit than losing interest in sex.  After all, there are pharmaceuticals like Viagra or low T products available to address the latter problem and nothing for the former.  Maybe if I come out of the closet, other men will admit they prefer a good book to Sunday, Monday or Thursday night football.  Or that a walk in the park on a Saturday afternoon beats 12 hours of college games.  Or even that a concert at Heinz Hall on a Sunday afternoon is preferable to attending the Steeler game.

          I think my growing disenchantment with the game has many sources other than my age.  The recent firestorms over domestic violence, concussions and treating college players as chattel are a part of it.  On a more basic level, football has become more predictable if not outright boring to watch.  Teams use the same schemes, in the same situations, achieving the same results, with great regularity.  I could get my fill of the NFL for the week, watching the final quarter of scoring plays from all the 1 PM games on NFL Red Zone, from 3:30 to 4:15 PM each Sunday.  During this brief window, the action is fast, more unorthodox and actually exciting, as all the games come to a close.

          With the exception of the diehard football addict who will watch analysis of the sport all year round, I believe there are four factors that the football gods have encouraged to maintain interest in the game.  First, are the emotional rewards of supporting the home team.  Alcohol, social gatherings at home and at the stadium and hometown pride help drive this phenomenon.  Why else would communities spend billions of dollars to build football palaces that are used 10-12 times a year?  Why else would emotions run so high that the number of domestic violence cases in Allegheny County sky rocket after a Steeler loss?

          Second, for the millennial fans, who love games with their games, the fantasy football craze has added a new dimension much more intriguing than the office football pool.  Third, is the business of sports betting.  With the possible exception of bingo, no endeavor has ever been more embraced by the gambling crowd than football.

           Lastly, both college and professional football are able to display their product over ever increasing swaths of prime time commercial television.  Advertisers will pay top dollar for live football where consumers will actually watch the commercials rather than tape the game for viewing the next day.

          If it is not bad enough that football today is built on fan emotion, fantasy games, gambling and commercial television, there is still the dark under belly of the game that is difficult for me to ignore. Modern, big time football is dangerous to one’s health. It is not a career I would favor for my own child, or grandchildren.  It has become the province of the underprivileged athlete, seeking to claw his way out of poverty as a new age warrior, no matter what the cost.

           No one disputes that the nation’s top athletes are recruited by our largest institutions of higher learning to participate in a de facto NFL minor league.  Within this system players are exploited by their host university for financial gain under draconian NCAA rules for players.  The football coaches receive higher salaries than the university presidents. The players receive a de minimis education and are turned into gladiators for the NFL. 

          At the professional level, football demands that each player be physically and mentally stronger than his opponent, play through pain and injury and win at any cost, all within an ever changing set of rules the NFL happens to favor at the moment.  On the field, the mindset is violent and aggressive.  Off the field, young men with little social preparedness are expected to act with the decorum of English gentlemen at the nonstop public relations events sponsored by the league and in their private lives.  Talk about not bringing your work home with you.

           With advanced training techniques the players keep getting bigger, stronger and faster. As a result, career ending injuries are more common.  Some would argue that the players forced out of the game at an early age are the lucky ones.  Those who survive over the long run are crippled for life in their 40s and 50s.  Others lose mental capacity soon after retirement because of repeated concussions. 

          Unlike the Roman coliseum bosses, NFL owners pay the gladiators a portion of the gate and do not encourage their immediate demise.  In other respects, our need for controlled violence does not seem to have abated or changed all that much.  Our country will no doubt be more successful exporting professional football to the world than we were at exporting democratic values.

          I am not sure whether Cicero favored the spectacle of the Roman games to writing a good oratory or reading Plato and Aristotle.  I do know that the names of those gladiators have not survived the ages while the philosophy and writings of the ancients are as strong as ever.  There is so much to learn, so much to do and so little time.  In my life, football will occupy less of my schedule.

           Unless, that is, the Steelers make the playoffs, emotion overcomes reason, and all the negatives are forgotten.  Perhaps a winning team is the most potent medicine for reverse a waning interest in football.