Fair Weather Fan

Watching the NCAA men's basketball tournament has reminded me of what a fair weather fan of sports I am. When I was a kid, going to L.A. Rams football games at the old coliseum and Dodgers baseball games at Chavez Ravine, I used to keep detailed records of players' and teams' statistics on a daily basis all through the seasons, and I hardly ever missed a game on the radio. Now, in my autumn years, I have no interest in watching or listening to any games of any kind until it is playoff time; I pay no attention to the regular season. Is this just a function of getting old or am I some kind of traitor to sports?

I'd ask if 'The Games' are traitor to the fans? They demand huge tax breaks and subsidies building new venues and we get a few dozen minimum wage jobs serving hotdogs by the people who's homes were lost to emminent domain. Tickets price people out, there is more merchandising than STAR WARS and fans are killing each other. Add some star who
has to display his religosity or politics and then roars off in some fantasy car that would supply a food bank for a decade to shoot his GF or fight dogs. When the championships roll around the stores beat us up with price hikes on buffalo wings and beer and idiots with their tribal flags drive on double moron mode announing 'WE WON'

Watching the NCAA men's basketball tournament has reminded me of what a fair weather fan of sports I am.  When I was a kid, going to L.A. Rams football games at the old coliseum and Dodgers baseball games at Chavez Ravine, I used to keep detailed records of players' and teams' statistics on a daily basis all through the seasons, and I hardly ever missed a game on the radio.  Now, in my autumn years, I have no interest in watching or listening to any games of any kind until it is playoff time; I pay no attention to the regular season.  Is this just a function of getting old or am I some kind of traitor to sports?

John, its partly that you're a traitor to sports and partly that sports is a traitor to you. The quest for ever more dollars has ruined sports as far as I'm concerned. The focus on individual performance over team performance (I'm looking at you Devin Booker) has watered down team sports and created classes among professional athletes. Officials deftly (or not) stage manage games to achieve outcomes that sponsors think would be most profitable. The NCAA tournament is a great example - and the NCAA is pro sports - they make more money than the NBA, funny how profitable you can be when you can dispense with the expense of athlete payroll. In any case, NCAA wants a wild and wooly first week of games where anything can happen, at least anything within certain parameters. The cinderella upsets can happen in the first weekend, maybe even in the first half of the second but nobody wants a small market, mid-major school going to the final four. Thats just bad for business. Butler did it a few years ago and that caused such sphincter contraction among NCAA and the sponsors that you can rest assured that won't happen again. Its just so tough to watch when the often better teams are getting jobbed by the league/officials to ensure the correct outcome. The athletes can't complain, they're part of it all but it hurts to see these young kids, most of whom will never play pro ball, get their hearts torn out.

I used to be a big hockey fan but not anymore - I'm a traitor as well I guess but I will stick to my opinion that sports and the media are the biggest traitors of all.

While I realize others will disagree, for me it comes down to this:

Because it's big business, John, and has no relationship to sports, at all.  I am delighted that our football team left town.  And why did they?  Because they were ticked off that they couldn't milk the taxpayers to help pay for a new stadium that was going to cost more than one billion dollars!  I am with KAV on this one.

Now, in my autumn years, I have no interest in watching or listening to any games of any kind until it is playoff time; I pay no attention to the regular season.  Is this just a function of getting old or am I some kind of traitor to sports?

At least in NHL hockey, as well as some other hockey leagues around the world, you have a regular season that is grueling and just seems to last forever. That is then followed by these cut-throat playoff games, where all the outcomes are decided in a fraction of the time compared to the regular season. Because of this, I think it’s normal to be more interested in any type of playoffs, as that is where the “real” action is.

But also what KAV, Marko and Freddy said. Sports is just about fame and fortune these days. Grown people and young adults acting so serious and cool, while playing a game! Sports used to be about having fun in the fields, the water, the ice, the backyards. Now, it’s some kind of “ultimate system of achievement and merit” that gets put before science and arts, and its professional participants are paid exorbitant amounts — just to play! Just to have fun! Frankly, sometimes I think none of us should be supporting any of this. We should be playing in our own backyard leagues, for free.

I chalk up my lack of interest in basketball to the treacherous migration of the Sonics to Oklahoma City...