The Speciousness of Football (part 2)

Continuing on.........I think I bring a unique experience to the table in this discussion: I was in Pittsburgh when they won the super bowl in 2006. Pittsburgh is a town that lives and dies with football. Casual Friday in Pitt is not casual Friday, it is jersey Friday. If the CEO of PNC bank went to work in a Troy Polomalu jersey not a person would bat an eye. I found this rather odd, yet extremely agreeable (agreeable because I think that if we all agreed that casual friday be made into casual everyday we would all be happier). On Sundays when the Steelers were playing the city was a ghost town (except of course the area right around the stadium). The bars were packed around the University of Pittsburgh, but no one was outside, no one was moving from bar to bar, everyone was static. Every Sunday I half expected to see one of those wild west dust balls go rolling down the street only to have John Wayne AND Clint Eastwood pop out of an alley, look at me sternly and say, "What the fuck are you doing not watching the game pilgrim?" It was essentially impossible to NOT be a football fan in Pittsburgh. When Big Ben fell off his motorcycle without a helmet it was the only thing that anyone talked about, and he wasn't even hurt.

Ironically enough, this state of affairs actually turned me OFF to football. But first, a little history of Kyle. I am a sports fan through and through. It is an addiction. However, being the contrarian that I am I decided early on that I was not going to be a typical fan. Most people think that a person is only a "true" fan if they grew up near the team that they root for. I reject this totally and completely. I grew up in Rochester NY but I have been a fan of the (inhale deeply) The Milwaukee Brewers, Los Angeles Dodgers, Atlanta Braves, Florida Marlins, New York Yankees, Detroit Tigers, and (currently) the Pittsburgh Pirates. That is just baseball. But Kyle, I thought you were only supposed to have one team, and aren't you supposed to keep that team for all eternity? No. I fell in love with a punk-ass-gangster mother fucker named Gary Sheffield. My allegiance was to him, not a team. Sheffield, being a gangster, doesn't take any shit. As such, he moved around a lot. So I am known as a "player-fan" and not a "team-fan." This poses a problem for my potential relationship with football. Nothing sticks. But that point has been made by Ben so I don't need to go over it again. My original point was that the hullabaloo surrounding Steelers games made me dislike football. Why? Because I realized that watching football usually has nothing to do with the actual game. As I have thought about my football-as-an-event claim throughout the day I decided that football was something more than an event (or perhaps something less). Football is an excuse.

The observation that many people congregate around football is not very profound. However, the ability for people to congregate AND completely debauch themselves is something to note. Yes, I realize that people get drunk and do stupid shit at all types of sporting events. But there is something unique with football: 99% of games are played on a Sunday during the afternoon and night. When I was 14 watching three games of football back to back to back was a completely acceptable excuse for spending an entire day on the couch. Once I came of age and beer was added to the mix, the laziness only increased, but never once did I feel guilty for doing nothing for an entire day. This is what I think truly attracts people to football: the fact that no one will give them shit for taking an entire day off from life. Moreover, it always appears that football and gluttony go hand in hand. People tailgate for baseball games, and hockey games, and even golf, but it seems that people really "do it up right" on Sunday. No one has the endurance to get fucking wasted and eat four dozen hot wings for 162 baseball games, or 82 hockey or basketball games. But because football is played primarily on Sundays, and there is only sixteen games a year, people just cut loose, and this kind of action is championed by the sport and the fans (just look at the ads). This is precisely why football is an excuse, because most people want to be cutting loose all the time, but they can't, they have jobs, they are cogs in the machine. But on Sunday, well, football is on, what else could I possibly do but get obliterated? Football is an excuse to have an event dedicated to beer, the clogging of one's arteries, and sitting on the couch. And I am brought to my next observation.....

I would rather watch hockey live than on TV, same goes for baseball, same goes for basketball. However for football I would ALWAYS rather watch the game on television. I would think this even if I lived in Miami and going to games didn't mean freezing your scrotum off (as it does in Buffalo). There is never a good angle, I can't hear the refs whistle, I have no idea why any flag is thrown, and beer costs a pound of flesh. When I watch it on TV I have my own beer (myriad choices, not simply bud or bud light), I get a digital representation of the first down line, I get all sorts of stats, I get distractions in between plays, the bathroom has a toilet and not a trough, and I usually have some friends over and we can have a nice chat while we watch the game (one might argue that the commentary for football is atrocious, and they would be right, but it is better than listening to the person sitting next to you at a live game, they are infinitely more retarded than the typical football commentator). Sport should be MORE magical in person than on television. Football is the exception to this rule.

Finally (haha), do you know how fucking easy it is to be a football fan? Your team plays sixteen fucking games. Almost every one of those games happens without conflicting with your real life. Knowing the good players and teams consists of reading the sports page once a week. This is not a challenge. And that is essentially the crux of why I do not care for football anymore. It requires almost no effort, being a football fan is gift wrapped. Compare that to the marathon of a 162 game season for baseball (with a seven game championship), a nine and a half month season for hockey, and 82 game season for basketball and you will see that football is just a good excuse to do nothing for a day, it isn't a real commitment to anything. And it is my firm belief that being a fan of something should require one to commit more than just a day of drinking and eating.

Yet at the same time it is the most popular sport in America. Everyone has to go to a super bowl party (even if they don't know, or care, who is playing). Having a basic understanding of the game and knowing who won "the game" on Monday allows for easier socializing in almost every arena of one's life. It is common ground for so many. I mean if it wasn't for football people would have to talk about what happened at church when they are getting their Monday morning coffee, jeez, maybe football isn't so bad after all....

For myself, I will leave football to the commoners, I have no use for it.