
Questioning the value of sports is seen as blasphemy - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/39/sport/stadiums-and-other-sacred-cows
======
Animats
That's so over, as NBC just discovered the hard way. Millennials aren't
watching the Olympics in large numbers.[1] In the 18-to-49-year-old age group,
the audience has been 25% smaller than the London Olympics four years ago.

NBC CEO Steve Burke described his "nightmare" before the Olympics: "We wake up
someday and the ratings are down 20 percent. If that happens, my prediction
would be that millennials had been in a Facebook bubble or a Snapchat bubble
and the Olympics have come, and they didn’t know it." That almost happened.
Ratings were down 17%. NBC/Comcast has prepaid for the Olympics through 2032.
That looks like a bad deal now.

This is happening for other major sports. The average age over the past decade
of National Football League and Major League Baseball viewers has increased by
four and seven years, respectively, to 47 and 53. Baseball is a dying
industry.

Of the top 100 high schools in the US, 67% do NOT have a football team.[2] In
1998, the top 10 had only one school without a football team. This year’s top
10 has seven.

[1]
[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-19/nbc-s-12-b...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-19/nbc-s-12-billion-
olympics-bet-stumbles-thanks-to-millennials) [2]
[http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/local/americas-most-
ch...](http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/local/americas-most-challenging-
high-schools-top-100/915/)

~~~
douche
One of the problems with the Olympics is it is dominated by the sports that
nobody cares about the other 47 months of the four years. Track and field,
swimming, gymnastics, rowing, etc, etc, are not money sports; they aren't
something that people dial into, even for their world championships.

And for the money sports, the Olympics have become a side-show. It is,
economically speaking, idiotic for a professional athlete to put their career,
and millions and millions of dollars in earnings, at risk for nationalism. So
in many cases, the best in the world don't bother to show up.

Also, the NBC coverage is just awful. No wonder nobody wants to watch when it
is wall-to-wall puff pieces, talking heads, and a few chopped and spliced
highlights of the actual events.

~~~
bsder
Well, it sure doesn't help that the website is horrific when a huge part of
your younger demographic _only uses the internet instead of TV_. I wanted to
see highlights of the judo stuff. The landing page for "olympic judo" better
have links to video _RIGHT AWAY_. Instead, you have to hit the landing, hit
the headline, hit the video, wait for some silly player to zoom it's way in,
wait through an _ad_ , and ...

Never mind, YouTube or Facebook will have it. And, I'm on a desktop computer
with a fast connection. I presume that the experience on mobile without an ad
blocker borders on glacial.

Holy spaghetti monster, Batman. Make your website _STICKY_. Feed me more until
I'm ready to explode. You have the most amazing athletes in the world on
video, _MAKE USE OF IT_. Top 10 judo takedowns. Best soccer highlights. Worst
wipeouts. And _THEN_ give me the ability to drill into longer and longer
videos.

It's not that hard to make me want to click things on your website _when I
already came there_. But, this is what happens when it's about the _ad
revenue_ instead of _sports coverage_.

NBC has only themselves to blame.

As for the sports themselves, the other perennial problem is subjective vs
objective judging. One thing that MMA has over boxing, for example, is an
objective measure of victory. A lot of the olympic sports that have "busyness
and spectacle" also have judging and we see in boxing what happened.
Gymnastics has similar issues.

~~~
brokenmachine
Although I agree with you mostly, MMA has had some WTF results here and there,
nowhere near as bad as boxing overall though.

------
roymurdock
“All other trades are contained in that of war.

Is that why war endures?

No. It endures because young men love it and old men love it in them. Those
that fought, those that did not.

That's your notion.

The judge smiled. Men are born for games. Nothing else. Every child knows that
play is nobler than work. He knows too that the worth or merit of a game is
not inherent in the game itself but rather in the value of that which is put
at hazard. Games of chance require a wager to have meaning at all. Games of
sport involve the skill and strength of the opponents and the humiliation of
defeat and the pride of victory are in themselves sufficient stake because
they inhere in the worth of the principals and define them. But trial of
chance or trial of worth all games aspire to the condition of war for here
that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all.”

― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West

------
drivingmenuts
Growing up in a very small rural school in Texas, I've seen, and been a victim
of, the attitudes surrounding sports. In my school, if you didn't play
football or basketball, you weren't a man (track didn't really count - it was
just pre-pre-season for football). I played basketball (badly) and did UIL
competitions (well), but no one really gave a damn about the scholastic stuff
- you couldn't letter in it. Game night would come around and there was
literally nothing else to do in town (also, you didn't call anyone during
Monday Night Football unless you wanted an earful of colorful invective). The
coach was the highest paid, yet least qualified, teacher out of any of our
instructors (he usually taught the Health class - we actually got more sex ed
in the Ag class (don't laugh)).

Of the colleges I've attended, they spend more money on the sports programs
than any two or three other programs collectively, even though very few
players would be able to move on to a higher level than college football or
basketball.

It's maddening and frustrating to be surrounded by that culture and unable to
convince anyone that a little bit more emphasis on academics would pay far
greater dividends. I'm not against sports for the health benefits, but beyond
that, it's mostly luck and I just don't buy that it's worth it.

~~~
johan_larson
I once visited Lubbock, Texas, home of Texas Tech, a big football school. And
there, the stadium just towered above the rest of town. The good burghers of
Lubbock didn't build themselves a sports arena. They built a damn cathedral.

~~~
angry_octet
This is the reason questioning sports is blasphemy: sport is religion.
Stadiums are places of worship. Coaches are bishops.

Fortunately the mechanism of feeding pro sports (TV advertising) is fading
somewhat, as people's attention is drawn to other activities. But I wouldn't
be surprised if Facebook bought the rights to e.g. basketball.

~~~
zipwitch
Sports-worship is an accepted sect of American Civic Religion.

------
slg
I don't get the joy that so many smart people get in looking down on sports.
Sports are no more inherently better or worse than other forms of
entertainment. I don't see how sitting down and reading a book is somehow more
noble than watching and cheering for someone like Usain Bolt to prove that he
is the fastest person in human history. You could rewrite half that article
subbing in other forms of entertainment and it would be laughed off the front
page. But since it is criticizing sports, you will get a comment section where
everyone posts their favorite anti-sports quote.

~~~
Houshalter
This has nothing to do with looking down on sports themselves, but the
institutions that manage them. The article mentions the Olympics practice of
costing host cities huge amounts of money and other problems. There are also
football stadium that get very unfair subsidies. Taxpayers subsidize high
school and college athletics and the benefits may not be worth it. There are
now serious concerns about serious brain damage being caused by some sports.

The article also mentions youth athletics which is the worst. Parents are
overly harsh on their kids. The events are overly competitive when it's just 9
year olds playing what should be for fun. The games aren't designed very well
for small uncoordinated kids, and many kids get excluded.

So there are many things to criticize sports over. The main point the article
was making was not that sports suck. Just that they aren't allowed to be
criticized in our society. Suggest that you should change youth sports, or
that the football team doesn't need a brand new million dollar stadium, and
people will give you a funny look and ignore you.

~~~
slg
Like I said in my other post, a lot of that is directly caused by sports with
the exception of the brain injury concerns. I think that is a serious issue
that should cause extensive rule changes in youth sports like football and
soccer.

The other issues are just normal human problems that happen to occur in
sports. Yes, subsidies are an issue, but as I addressed in my other reply you
shouldn't blame sports for that, blame the politician that uses sports to
placate the masses. Yes, some sports parents are too harsh on their kids, but
I have seen just as many parents have a similar attitude towards their kids
when it comes to other pursuits like music.

I also don't by that sports "aren't allowed to be criticized in our society."
None of these issues should be news to anyone. One of the US's recent Olympic
bids was squashed by public outcry over the cost it would take to fund it. The
architect of the most recent deal to give public money to build a new stadium
was just voted out at the first chance the public got. For the first time in
my memory an NFL team just moved to a new city and is building a new stadium
without any public money. The reason these things are happening is because we
are starting to wake up to these issues exactly because people have been
criticizing them for a decade plus.

------
jwatte
Given that we all have different interests, hobbies, religions, and political
beliefs, yet we all need to cooperate so that business and society actually
can work, we have invented sports so that we have something common to talk
about.

Literally. Without commercial sports, people who need to connect to other
people for a variety of reasons, couldn't.

I find it annoying and wasteful, but I understand the societal need,
especially among those who aren't engineers. (Sales, BD, etc.) Engineers can
typically connect over their specialty, but that doesn't work when talking to
other specialties.

~~~
spiderfarmer
Really? There are so many things to talk about. Weather, news, common
experiences, the things you see around you. Even though I do enjoy sports
(soccer, F1 racing), I seldomly connect to other people because of it.

And if sports are wasteful, all forms of entertainment are. Why do you think
like that? The thoughts in my mind are not so precious to the world that it
shouldn't be distracted by 'useless' entertainment, and I guess neither is
yours.

~~~
jwatte
I think you're not in sales, then?

Yes, of course there are a few other things to talk about, but even "news and
weather" is dangerous, because some think Louisiana is currently showing us
the future of global warming, and others think it shows that people who choose
not to insure their property should not be rewarded with a bail out, lest
there be moral hazard.

Sports is the safe bet.

~~~
spiderfarmer
Personally I would never skip a subject just because someone might disagree.
Are sales people really trained to be as superficial as possible?

~~~
jamestnz
No, but sales can often be based upon personal relationships, at least to an
extent. So you see why a salesperson may be accustomed to treading lightly
around contentious topics. If you stake out a strong position on a
controversial topic, you risk alienating your conversation partners.

Of course friends can discuss whatever they want. But in less familiar
company, one may want to avoid topics that can lead to disagreements. Politics
and religion being the classic examples.

Or, as the Professor told Eliza: "Stick to the weather, and everybody's
health".

------
spoinkaroo
It's interesting that this college obsession for sports isn't just at the big
state / football schools, but has trickled down to top tier universities and
liberal arts schools. Many students continually get admitted in the area I
grew up in for things like field hockey / crew / lacrosse / volleyball etc.,
while students qualified far more academically get rejected.

Glad that whole process is long behind me, and I wonder if sports are
continually going to be prized as time goes on.

------
todd8
The article definitely resonates with me.

An intelligent friend of mine told me that she figures that I don't enjoy
watching baseball because I was just a nerd in school and don't realize the
value of sports.

I was captain of my swim team in junior high and lettered every year in high
school in swimming. I also pole vaulted in high school (not very well). In
college I did one year on the swim team and one year on the gymnastics team (I
wasn't very good). I did Judo for around 20 years and competed in the state
championships in my 30's (not very well). I qualified and ran in the Boston
marathon in my 50's. In most races i was in the top 15% of my age cohort.

I was never a great athlete in any sport, but overall more active than most;
however, _because I don 't want to drink beer and yell for players that I have
no connection to other than that they live in the same city_ she thinks that
I'm too nerdy to appreciate the value of sports.

------
enraged_camel
“When I was in high school I asked myself at one point: "Why do I care if my
high school's team wins the football game? I don't know anybody on the team,
they have nothing to do with me... why am I here and applaud? It does not make
any sense." But the point is, it does make sense: It's a way of building up
irrational attitudes of submission to authority and group cohesion behind
leadership elements. In fact it's training in irrational jingoism. That's also
a feature of competitive sports.” -Noam Chomsky

~~~
truth_sentinell
That's a very nice quote. I feel the same way when other people that have my
nationality win a sport event or do something that's not common, and I'm
supposed to be proud because of it, and he put the name of the country in
altitude. I'm like wut? I don't know him, and never will. I seriously don't
understand nationalism.

~~~
johan_larson
If you want others to give a shit about you, you need to show you give a shit
about them. If you want the service of institutions that large groups of
people have built and run and pay for, you need to show you are part of them.
They did not build these institutions for others, they built these
institutions for themselves.

Things like national sporting events are put on in part to showcase the
accomplishments of the group and to encourage affiliation to it. They are
ritual. They are like church services. They are like parades.

If you go out of your way to denigrate them, you are showing disrespect not
just for the event itself, but for the group that put them on. And if you
persist in these acts of disaffiliation, don't be surprised if that group
increasingly excludes you in ways large and small. You want to see what it's
like to be an outsider in your own country, someone who really truly is
considered one of THEM rather than one of US? Try asking an African-American,
particularly an old one. It isn't pretty.

You are not so strong and wise you can build a good life for yourself, alone.
All through your life, you need to lean on what your family, your town, your
people, and your state have built and are willing to share with you. So try to
be civil and show a bit of respect when they are celebrating.

~~~
truth_sentinell
Ok. That escalated quickly. But I think you're mixing pears and apples here.
We don't live in a tribe anymore. We live in cities with millions of people,
with the average humans having what? 10 friends? Most people don't give a shit
about others already. Just go to into a train, they don't even look at each
other. Also, I don't understand how I must cheer others of my country in order
to live in society? It seems you're implying that you have to care about
others in order to use public services? I pay my taxes! That's all there is to
it. And on a side note I do care about other people, but people with special
circumstances and without flags.

~~~
mark_edward
Some people want to pretend we still live in villages and fiefs where we can
actually know and care about the people who provide for us.

I can't even number how many people touched the parts of this laptop.

------
monkmartinez
John Oliver on sports stadiums:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcwJt4bcnXs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcwJt4bcnXs)

~~~
dominotw
I always thought cities funded these stadiums to improve their brand, attract
investments, jobs ect.

~~~
bmh_ca
They do.

The promises don't materialize.

Nowadays it looks like Olympics and its ilk (Pam am games) are just fraud by
global construction contractors on the masses.

~~~
Systemic33
This is why most of the european countries would love to host the olympics,
but in a model where it's split over multiple countries. Because hosting it by
yourself is purely a prestige project that politicians try to put on their CV.

------
sixo
I (like, I imagine, many people here) have never been interested in sports but
managed to get very interested in eSports - itself a blasphemy to sports-
culture - for a little while a few years ago, which has made me more
sympathetic to sports fandom. The special charm of eSports was that the entire
scene felt like it was _ours_ \- like it belonged to the generation of gamers
who grew up playing the precursors of the popular games (RPGs & RTSs that were
the progenitors of MOBAs, and of course Nintendo-land). This tribal feeling
was foreign to me, but I imagine it's the same sense of allegiance that
functions in normal-sports culture.

------
carapace
For what it's worth, if I understand correctly, Gurdjieff held that sports
were a null activity of no worth and pernicious influence. (A cursory search
turns up no references, sorry.)

------
caub
it's much better to have millions of people exercising, rather than a huge
stadium and 20 people doing sport

entertainment vs real sport for everyone

