This is about American Football

January 31, 2015 5:08 AM

Here's a horrifying game you can play during this Sunday's Super Bowl and the nearly 12 hours of pre- and postgame content: count the number of times you hear some variation of "deflated balls" and compare that to the number of times during Super Bowls XLV or XLVII you heard the phrases "two-time accused rapist" or "accused co-conspirator in a double murder." Or just compare "deflated balls" to "brain damage." Then see if the first number dwarfs a combination of the last three by an order of magnitude. It will.
posted by josher71 (276 comments total)

This is a great article. I don't *get* NFL fans. They are literally supporting the worst that humankind has to offer.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:14 AM on January 31, 2015 [10 favorites]

It's unknown as to why, but the article posted above was published then un-published by Rolling Stone.
posted by mcstayinskool at 5:22 AM on January 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

As profitable as it is, as big as it is, it's dead in a generation because people aren't going to let their kids play.

This is just the vigorous twitching of a soon-to-be-marginal sport.

Think how big boxing was in the 60s and 70s under Ali. Where is it now?
posted by leotrotsky at 5:29 AM on January 31, 2015 [10 favorites]

As sad as the inevitable demise of the NFL will make me, it does put us one step closer to a robotic league. GO TECMO.
posted by davelog at 5:36 AM on January 31, 2015 [19 favorites]

There is a reason that the NFL hasn't made any attempt to settle the deflated football issue. They got through two weeks of pre-game hype without anybody asking about Ray Rice beating his wife, Adrian Peterson abusing his kids, brain damage as a natural result of playing the game, PED test failures, or anything else. I tuned out all season, although as a Patriots fan since I was a kid I have got sucked back into the game during the playoffs.
posted by COD at 5:38 AM on January 31, 2015 [8 favorites]

This is a great article. I don't *get* NFL fans. They are literally supporting the worst that humankind has to offer.This is a great article.

Pick literally any hobby. It has horrible people involved in it. The entertainment industry has many scumbags. They get away with stuff the same way football players do, using the advantages of celebrity and money.

Rule changes are probably going to lead to the sport looking completely different in the future, but I highly doubt the sport is going away. There have already been a ton of evolutions in what the sport has looked like and continual improvements in safety were usually major drivers. It's just such a dangerous activity from the start that it's never quite gotten where it needs to be.

Despite the article repeatedly claiming the collapse of Goodell World, the sport is more popular than ever and he has the support of the only people he needs support from, the owners.

Boxing is kind of different because the focus is on individuals so much instead of teams and town identities. If I was a fan of Ali I might stop watching when he stops boxing, but I'm never going to stop watching the Eagles regardless of who comes or goes no matter the rule changes unless they leave the city.
posted by Drinky Die at 5:40 AM on January 31, 2015 [35 favorites]

As profitable as it is, as big as it is, it's dead in a generation because people aren't going to let their kids play...Think how big boxing was in the 60s and 70s under Ali. Where is it now?

I dunno. Texas and Oklahoma alone can probably keep the NFL supplied with talent for several more generations. What will happen is the football world will adopt some seriously improved headgear and move on as if all was well.

As for where boxing is...It's morphed into an even more violent gladiator sport, MMA, Pride Fighting, and all those other versions of bullshit human cockfighting. That shit is huge now. I can pretty much find it on one cable channel or another every night of the week. Boxing may be dead, but that doesn't mean the public's taste for human-on-human violence is waning. It's just moved on to something without those big, sissy gloves, and fewer rules. Plus cages!
posted by Thorzdad at 5:41 AM on January 31, 2015 [11 favorites]

As for where boxing is...It's morphed into an even more violent gladiator sport, MMA, Pride Fighting, and all those other versions of bullshit human cockfighting. That shit is huge now.

Not Monday Night Football huge by any means, only big relative to the train-wreck that is contemporary boxing.
posted by leotrotsky at 5:44 AM on January 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

This is about ethics in American Football.
posted by Dashy at 5:44 AM on January 31, 2015 [10 favorites]

Homeland Security nabs $19.5 million in “unsafe” NFL fan gear
posted by indubitable at 5:48 AM on January 31, 2015 [7 favorites]

Not Monday Night Football huge by any means, only big relative to the train-wreck that is contemporary boxing.

True, but that's probably only because MMA-style fighting is still relatively new as compared to how long football has been around. Plus, the major networks are still squeamish about putting something so overtly brutal on OTA tv. That's starting to change, though. FoxSports1 carries fighting regularly, and, while it's a cable channel, it quite often bleeds-over onto the Fox network.

I agree, though, it really can't ever become as huge as pro football. MMA-style fighting just doesn't scale the way football can.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:51 AM on January 31, 2015

As profitable as it is, as big as it is, it's dead in a generation because people aren't going to let their kids play.

How much worse can football get to parents? Everyone knows about the long-term injury risks, everyone knows that the league will cover up or flat-out forgive any off-field crime, and everyone knows that it's all a big money mill for the owners, with a few scraps tossed to the players until they're no longer useful. And yet, the worst numbers anyone can come up with for parents not letting their kids play is about 10 percent. The NFL drafts around 250 players each year out of the 90,000 who play college football. Those 90,000 come from the 1.1 million who play high school football. If you lose half of the high schoolers, the NFL will still have plenty of people to pick each year to feed through the sausage grinder.

Think how big boxing was in the 60s and 70s under Ali. Where is it now?

Boxing didn't go away because of the injuries or the corruption, it went away because it was replaced by football. What's going to replace football? Basketball? Got to be tall to play basketball. Baseball? Already had its chance. Soccer? No, sorry, the vast majority of Americans have tried it and rejected it. Hockey? Rugby? Ultimate? Cricket?
posted by Etrigan at 5:53 AM on January 31, 2015 [7 favorites]

Fun rant, but the idea that the coverage won't include a bunch of depressing stuff just because of self-censorship is pretty weak.

This is the Big Game. It's spectacle. It would be no more appropriate to talk about rape convictions here than it would be while covering the Oscars -- it just isn't what people tuned in for.

And truthfully why should it be? It's not like these topics lack coverage. It's not some hidden underbelly that is desperately waiting to be exposed -- unless there is some dramatic new development it would just be a retread of news everyone was already depressed about last week.

The f'd up stuff going on with the NFL doesn't have to be front and center every single time you mention football. Sometimes it's okay to just shut up and watch the game.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 5:54 AM on January 31, 2015 [19 favorites]

The f'd up stuff going on with the NFL doesn't have to be front and center every single time you mention football. Sometimes it's okay to just shut up and watch the game.

Actually, watching the game mostly reminds a lot of people that the NFL players are likely to die much sooner than other people, of terrible brain injury.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:57 AM on January 31, 2015 [8 favorites]

Can't we be more inclusive and just generally sneer at all spectator sports?
posted by signal at 5:57 AM on January 31, 2015 [19 favorites]

What's going to replace football?

League of Legends
posted by I-Write-Essays at 6:01 AM on January 31, 2015 [14 favorites]

Soccer? No, sorry, the vast majority of Americans have tried it and rejected it.

It will not eclipse American football in my lifetime but I think this will change. Older people who rejected soccer will die off. MLS and televised leagues from around the world will continue to gain traction in the USA and I expect it to grow steadily until it is talked about with hockey, basketball, etc... as one of the major sports.
posted by josher71 at 6:04 AM on January 31, 2015 [18 favorites]

How much worse can football get to parents? Everyone knows about the long-term injury risks, everyone knows that the league will cover up or flat-out forgive any off-field crime, and everyone knows that it's all a big money mill for the owners, with a few scraps tossed to the players until they're no longer useful.

I can imagine a future world where urban and rural families grow up imagining football as their lottery ticket out of poverty. Hell, we probably have it now. If you live in a dead end recession struck area with struggling schools, high school sports is one easy area to give (a very small subset of) kids the idea that they're good at something and have promising career ahead of them if they just work hard enough. It's a related reason to why the military recruits so heavily from poor areas. The NFL is replete with stories of poor kids who grew up in the middle of nowhere and got talent scouted, then worked their way into their spots. It's probably one of the few places where a jock kid from West Texas or Baltimore can look at their chances as being level with a rich boy from New England or California. And, yeah, sure, you may get maimed or horribly crippled by the time you're 30, but at least you had a couple decades of Being A Man.

If we want to diminish the roles that football plays in American culture, we also need to promote access to other careers.
posted by bl1nk at 6:07 AM on January 31, 2015 [30 favorites]

My first impulse is to agree with roomthreeseventeen. The long-term impact of football on the brains of children and adults is well documented. With that said, I don't see the point in moving forward without looking for a solution that works for many if not most actual football fans. There are people who love football, and there are people who understand the severity of the situation. The people in the overlap between those two groups are who I would want to hear more from.
posted by IShouldBeStudyingRightNow at 6:08 AM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

NFL football is going to suffer as it makes the same mistakes professional leagues everywhere are making - moving to exclusive add-on cable packages that require fans to pay $1000+ plus to subscribe to.

I watch some football but not as much as I would like to because I will only use broadcast TV. That means I got to see Sunday games, none of the Monday games and half a season worth of Thursday games until the suddenly switched to a sports network.

The end result is that i feel less interested in the league as a whole because I can't really follow any of the team narratives.

In the short term this means more money for the league as they sell themselves to exclusive cable channels for big bucks but in the long term it will undermine local support and destroy what little remains of public willingness to subsidize local sports that they can't even follow.
posted by srboisvert at 6:11 AM on January 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

I want to like MLS, but even as a very casual soccer fan it's pretty apparent the level of play is lower compared to other professional leagues. I think that will be a very long time in changing. Not to mention, if we are talking about replacing football because of brain injuries, The Cost of the Header.

Actually, watching the game mostly reminds a lot of people that the NFL players are likely to die much sooner than other people, of terrible brain injury.

A records-based study of retired players conducted by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) concludes that they have a much lower death rate than men in the general population, contrasting the notion that football players don't live as long.

That isn't to say the brain injury issues aren't in crucial need of being more heavily addressed, the life expectancy of a professional athlete should probably be much better than the general population considering it's usually a career for people who take care of their bodies. But hey, this is also a sport that encourages players to have a very high BMI. It might be killing more people than the brain damage ultimately.

Players with a Body Mass Index of 30 or more during their playing careers had twice the risk of death from heart disease compared to other players, confirming traditional concerns about the effects of obesity.

"That makes sense," Atkinson said. "You're heart can only carry so much and support so much. Some of guys during the time I played got up as high as 300 plus pounds, and that's got to weight heavy on the heart as well as the other organs."
posted by Drinky Die at 6:13 AM on January 31, 2015 [7 favorites]

So not this American Football then?
posted by LizBoBiz at 6:13 AM on January 31, 2015

It will not eclipse American football in my lifetime but I think this will change. Older people who rejected soccer will die off. MLS and televised leagues from around the world will continue to gain traction in the USA and I expect it to grow steadily until it is talked about with hockey, basketball, etc... as one of the major sports.

People have been saying this exact thing (with the substitution of "NASL" for "MLS") since the 1970s. It absolutely might happen eventually, but it's going to take something more than Drew Carey and FA Cup matches on Fox Soccer Plus.
posted by Etrigan at 6:23 AM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

What's going to replace football? ... Rugby?

One can hope!
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:28 AM on January 31, 2015 [9 favorites]

Watching football after a traumatic brain injury

(h/t Jessamyn)
posted by nubs at 6:35 AM on January 31, 2015 [6 favorites]

People have been saying this exact thing (with the substitution of "NASL" for "MLS") since the 1970s. It absolutely might happen eventually, but it's going to take something more than Drew Carey and FA Cup matches on Fox Soccer Plus.

There wasn't a big US domestic league for, what, nine years in between NASL and MLS? That's a long time to be out of the public eye. MLS continues to grow in popularity, albeit slowly. The rise in easy television viewing of other leagues is also a tremendous boost. I can watch every Stoke City game on tv now, and in 2007 I didn't even know what the Premier League was.

Anecdotal: I work at a sports bar. The change in even the the six years I've worked there in regards to soccer has been big. Many younger people follow the EPL at least casually and are knowledgeable about the USMNT. I'm bullish on soccer in the USA.
posted by josher71 at 6:36 AM on January 31, 2015 [5 favorites]

This was the year I gave up on the NFL (I only watched one game this season and that was in the interest of hanging out with a friend I hadn't seen in months). The Ray Rice thing was the straw that broke the camel's back, but it had been a long time coming as it slowly dawned on me that the league exemplified a lot of things I hate about the society I live in.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:46 AM on January 31, 2015 [5 favorites]

What's going to replace football? Basketball? Got to be tall to play basketball. Baseball? Already had its chance. Soccer? No, sorry, the vast majority of Americans have tried it and rejected it. Hockey? Rugby? Ultimate? Cricket?

I'd cynically argue that the only reason for football's "popularity" is that the play is so punctuated with loads of absolutely boring dead time where nothing happens (i.e. play ten seconds, stand around for the next ten minutes) that it's the perfect vehicle for television advertisements. Baseball has lots of dead time to fill with commercial breaks too, but that's mostly between innings. And soccer, hockey, basketball and most other sports can't be interrupted so easily because they're played mostly in realtime.

So Cricket it is then.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:57 AM on January 31, 2015 [17 favorites]

I can imagine a future world where urban and rural families grow up imagining football as their lottery ticket out of poverty. Hell, we probably have it now.

here's a really good article on that from the Tampa Bay Times. Actually I might have found this on metafilter, I can't remember.
posted by bracems at 6:57 AM on January 31, 2015

Unfortunately, as long as football gives people an excuse to piss away their sundays drinking during the winter, it will survive. As I get older I can only do serious drinking during the day, and there are just too many reasons not to drink during the day. As long as football provides an excuse, it will stay.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 6:58 AM on January 31, 2015 [5 favorites]

I can imagine a future world where urban and rural families grow up imagining football as their lottery ticket out of poverty. Hell, we probably have it now.

I don't think we have to wait for that future. And unlike, say, basketball, where height will eventually be a factor, or American Idol, where a certain amount of natural talent will eventually be a factor, football has a place for the big and the slow and the small and the fast and that probably seems like better odds.

But football is also a deep-rooted tradition that will not go down without a fight: 'Friday Night Tykes' is the most depressing show on television. FYI, this is a show about youth football in Texas that the NFL finds troubling.
posted by Room 641-A at 7:03 AM on January 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

Rolling Stone used to be about telling truth to power [40 years ago!], but I think they are pretty chickenshit if they let the NFL get to them.
posted by Renoroc at 7:06 AM on January 31, 2015 [4 favorites]

I'm absolutely bullish on soccer as well. NBC Sports' push into serious Premier League coverage is setting the stage, along with Fox's coverage of the UEFA and CONCACAF Champions Leagues, but it's also clear that An MLS* is starting to grow too. There are two major new franchises starting play in 2015 (Orlando and NYCFC, which is backed by the Premier League's Man City), and one more scheduled for 2017 (Atlanta).

And just look at the return of Jozy Altidore and Mix Diskerud, and the arrival of overseas talent like David Villa, Steven Gerrard, and Frank Lampard (eventually, maybe). Also the fact that MLS is as popular as MLB with 12–17 year olds—and that's pre-2014 World Cup; I have no doubt the numbers are even better now.

Soccer's not perfect either (yay international corruption), but its profile is definitely on the rise in the States. It'll take decades before it overtakes the NFL, but I truly think I'll see it come close in my lifetime.
posted by cvp at 7:06 AM on January 31, 2015 [7 favorites]

Also betting we won't hear the phrase "billion dollar taxpayer-funded stadiums that get used ten days per year" very often.

The NFL is America's Horcrux.

People predicting it's demise are grossly underestimating the depth and breadth of it's popularity. The NFL isn't popular because it's compelling sport. It's popular because they've done an absolutely masterful job of building a brand and an experience around the game itself. Staging (almost) all games on Sunday, creating easy ways for each fan to personally have a stake in the outcome through betting or fantasy (but again, only requiring you to be invested one day per week), tailgating for those who go to the games, and an easy, pre-packaged viewing experience for watching on TV, the NFL has made football an experience, not a sport. It's TV deals are so rich, teams are profitable before they sell one ticket to a game or one piece of merchandise.

This season has told you everything you need to know about the threats to the NFL. it's domestic violence issue was on full display. We've had a wave of stories about what playing football does to the players' brains. The attacks have never been louder, but they've barely made a dent. The NFL knows how to make it's fans feel okay about watching it's product, and it's aided and abetted by the sponsors and the media who each have a stake in the league's ongoing success.

I hate the NFL for so many reasons, but saying it's about to die is wishcasting pure and simple.
posted by dry white toast at 7:09 AM on January 31, 2015 [19 favorites]

I'm done with the NFL and I've been invested in it for far too long. Details are here. I won't switch to soccer and I doubt if many former football fans like me will. I'll just find something a else to occupy my time in the fall and early winter for those three to nine hours I used to waste in front of the TV. Books to read, book to write, films to watch, weather to enjoy, dog/cats to spoil, music to play, spouse to love, or just surf the Blue. If anything, it's an epiphany as to how much time I've wasted on this tax-dodging organization and their misbegotten brand.
posted by Ber at 7:18 AM on January 31, 2015 [6 favorites]

I'd cynically argue that the only reason for football's "popularity" is that the play is so punctuated with loads of absolutely boring dead time where nothing happens (i.e. play ten seconds, stand around for the next ten minutes) that it's the perfect vehicle for television advertisements.

and

The NFL isn't popular because it's compelling sport. It's popular because they've done an absolutely masterful job of building a brand and an experience around the game itself.

Both of these (and several other) comments miss why football is a fantastic viewer sport: you get to watch two brilliant coaches play chess with professional wrestlers. It's sufficiently turn-based for strategy to really enter it, but there's definitely the closest we're going to allow to gladiatorial combat during play. Basically, there's something there for both the highbrow and lowbrow audiences to enjoy, and it's something that many people can appreciate on both levels.

There isn't a single other sport where I wouldn't rather just be on the field playing it myself instead of watching (this goes double for soccer), and heaven knows given the brain injury risk you couldn't get me to play football for any plausible amount of money.

Unlike virtually every other sport American football is made to be watched, not played, and that's why - while safety will of necessity increase - it's never going to go away entirely.
posted by Ryvar at 7:20 AM on January 31, 2015 [27 favorites]

Forgot to include a caveat: none of what I said above means that the NFL organization itself is anything less than wholly corrupt and awful and completely willing to be both composed of and employ a lot of incredibly horrible people.

The NFL as an organization needs to go, but football itself shouldn't, and won't, be going anywhere.
posted by Ryvar at 7:22 AM on January 31, 2015 [4 favorites]

I hate the NFL for so many reasons, but saying it's about to die is wishcasting pure and simple.

It's not going anywhere soon. When it does goes somewhere all of us will be dead.
posted by uraniumwilly at 7:24 AM on January 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

There isn't a single other sport where I wouldn't rather just be on the field playing it myself instead of watching (this goes double for soccer), and heaven knows given the brain injury risk you couldn't get me to play football for any plausible amount of money.

The NFL as an organization needs to go, but football itself shouldn't, and won't, be going anywhere.

So who's going to play it then? Poor people?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:24 AM on January 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

Do you mean who should play it or who will play it?

Should: nobody until safety is radically overhauled.
Will: poor people because if you've got the wrong body type for basketball but the right body type for football it beats the hell out of joining the military as a means of escape.
posted by Ryvar at 7:27 AM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

Someone needs to actually play the game and risk serious brain injury to give you your spectacle of watching brilliant coaches play chess with gladiators.

Football needs to die.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:27 AM on January 31, 2015 [4 favorites]

I've been advocating the robot idea for years. If the robots are made menacing and proto-militarized enough, it could surpass human players for popularity. Hell, introduce explosions and small arms fire. People will eventually look at football played by humans as mind-numbingly dull.
posted by sourwookie at 7:30 AM on January 31, 2015 [7 favorites]

Someone needs to actually play the game and risk serious brain injury to give you your spectacle of watching brilliant coaches play chess with gladiators.

Football needs to die.

Better safety equipment and fairly light-handed modifications to the existing rules could easily bring safety in line with other professional sports that aren't rugby or boxing. The equipment changes are likely to happen under the current NFL. The rule changes won't. Which is one of the many reasons that, again, the NFL organization needs to die.
posted by Ryvar at 7:32 AM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

NFL Football, along with oil/gas-powered automobiles and the defense industry, is increasingly becoming one of the lock-in problems for the twenty-first century United States. There is a huge component of our economy invested in it that, should it collapse or even significantly reduce in size, there will be ripple effects for many levels of society.

In the case of football, there is the obvious question of the stadiums that so many cities built that, absent a team, will be stuck with an no obvious equivalent revenue stream to offset it. The players who view pro football as a step up lose that option. We're left with several hundred broken men of a forgotten era.

These problems will echo through the whole feeding system, to varying degrees, from pee-wee football on up. High School stadiums will have reduced utility. More-so for college stadiums, plus all the donations and other revenue that are used to justify institutions of higher learning to be the farm system for the NFL. Players who use scholarships for that step up will no longer have that option.

Of course, the owners, television networks, and advertisers lose that revenue stream. I don't feel too bad for them. Not that I think they will get what they deserve. Quite the opposite. Either they're rich enough to shrug it off, or they will find the next big shiny object to put on display.
posted by MrGuilt at 7:37 AM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

Have there been many studies on concussion risks in sprint football?
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 7:42 AM on January 31, 2015

NFL is going nowhere. All the people who don't like it will quit watching. Oh, wait...they don't already? Well that's a big hit. You don't get that jolt of watching people put themselves at risk unless they actually do. And by the way, the ratings for Friday Night Tykes, a reality show about hard-hitting peewee teams are apparently through the roof. They have recently started broadcasting high school games here and again, very popular.

People like watching other people hurt each other in strivance for some -even bullshit- goal. If you don't get that, fine. But you're in the minority. Football is going nowhere.

This place kills me...
posted by umberto at 7:43 AM on January 31, 2015 [16 favorites]

Actually a really good article about what sucks about the NFL for football fans ruined by a pull quote that's a dog-whistle for non-football fans.

As for soccer - and im watching EPL as I type this and super excited for the late game today...there is a reason why the MiB tagline is "America's Sport of the Future since 1973"

Also the peak of the season is after football is over anyway. Its not competing with Football as a spectator sport.
posted by JPD at 7:55 AM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

If you don't get that, fine. But you're in the minority.

I actually would still like football if there were no injuries at all.
posted by josher71 at 7:55 AM on January 31, 2015 [11 favorites]

want to like MLS, but even as a very casual soccer fan it's pretty apparent the level of play is lower compared to other professional leagues.

MLS is comparable to the English Championship, the second tier of English soccer. That's actually pretty good.
posted by josher71 at 7:59 AM on January 31, 2015 [4 favorites]

> I want to like MLS, but even as a very casual soccer fan it's pretty apparent the
> level of play is lower compared to other professional leagues.

I played soccer in HS. Made it up to second string and got to start a lot of second halves. Then later on the Hispanic population where I live started to shoot up. Two other things shot up at the same time, the quality of local Hispanic restaurants and the quality of local amateur and HS soccer. If I were playing now I would be a benchwarmer for certain.

There are some very good young Americn players in the pipeline. I hope there's a good US league for them to play in.
posted by jfuller at 7:59 AM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

I would say that football is a compelling game, primarily due to the insane complexity of it. Listen to a serious X's and O's guy like Hugh Millen, (who is on the radio often here in Seattle), talk about blocking schemes of the nature of pass coverage and coverage responsibilities. It's crazy. And all that stuff is going on on every single play, even a simple handoff to Beastmode.

Go Hawks
posted by Windopaene at 8:00 AM on January 31, 2015 [8 favorites]

Soccer isn't happening because it has no past. Baseball has DiMaggio and Willie Mays, football has the Steel Curtain and the Immaculate Reception; hell, even golf has Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. What can you name-drop in U.S. soccer to make a comparison or give a jolt of nostalgia?
posted by argybarg at 8:00 AM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

Some people talk like risking injury for entertainment is a perversion. Dancers, acrobats, stunt performers, jugglers, many musicians, and all athletes take on physical danger for an audiences benefit. Everyone has their own limits for what risks the can stomach their entertainers taking on. it isn't pathological to enjoy this form of entertainment, the risk highlights the skill. It is why people pay to watch instead of do it themselves. Don't mistake your arbitrary comfort level for moral law Those with different risk aversion are not necessarily less empathetic than you.
posted by subtle_squid at 8:03 AM on January 31, 2015 [28 favorites]

Pele? Landon Donovan?
posted by josher71 at 8:03 AM on January 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

What can you name-drop in U.S. soccer to make a comparison or give a jolt of nostalgia? Pele was on the Jon Stewart show. [Shrugs]
posted by uraniumwilly at 8:04 AM on January 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

leotrotsky: As profitable as it is, as big as it is, it's dead in a generation because people aren't going to let their kids play.

Michael Wilbon is a highly successful and prominent Sports Reported. He's covered sports for decades. He has a column at the Washington Post, and a show on ESPN. And Michal Wilbon won't let his young son play football for fear of serious head injury.

Is the NFL going away next year? Of course not. Will it still be a huge power house in 15 or 20 years? I wouldn't bet on it.
posted by Frayed Knot at 8:04 AM on January 31, 2015

What MLS accomplishment can you compare to Pele's? Using what metric?
posted by argybarg at 8:06 AM on January 31, 2015

You asked about America's soccer past not comparison to MLS.
posted by josher71 at 8:08 AM on January 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

so no chance for Major League Cricket?

(... won't even mention Curling)

((ok, how about a cross between Curling and Shot Put where Linebackers try to catch the stones?))

(((never mind)))
posted by sammyo at 8:09 AM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

Wilbon . . .

Rich guy doesn't want to let his son play football? What is the relevance of that? When poor rural school districts have trouble fielding a team, then the NFL will have something to worry about. Knowledge of the risk of concussion has been building for a decade or more, and high school football in places like Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, etc. don't seem to care.
posted by skewed at 8:09 AM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

IMO football is a bit like porn. Beautiful young athletic people risk bodily harm for the entertainment and profit of others.

Athletes and performers get paid and it appears that most of them enjoy what they do but that doesn't diminish the fact that the profit systems that are in place are corrupt and need to be regulated/reworked but they're definitely not going away any time soon.

The "people" want their entertainment.
posted by M Edward at 8:10 AM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

Given the number of little tots playing soccer these days the sport obviously has a future in the US.
posted by lydhre at 8:11 AM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

I literally got a concussion on Super Bowl Sunday last year so guess who's gained a real contempt for the sport?
posted by Small Dollar at 8:12 AM on January 31, 2015

Seriously, it's the television coverage that we have now that will grow soccer as a sport.
posted by josher71 at 8:12 AM on January 31, 2015

Seriously, it's the television coverage that we have now that will grow soccer as a sport.

What, you got some kinda problem with 10 commercials for every 2-3 minutes of football?
posted by uraniumwilly at 8:18 AM on January 31, 2015 [4 favorites]

Should have been more clear.

If a baseball player hits 60 home runs in a year we start talking about Babe Ruth, and along with that Roger Maris and Mark McGwire and the old days and the painful newer days and on and on, and we start arguing about asterisks and PEDs and (if you're a stats geek) slugging percentage ... there's a whole weight of culture pressing behind everything that happens in baseball.

I don't think there's any similar set of references and comparisons when I watch American soccer. I'm not against it, I just think we underestimate the role that culture and history play in being a fan.

And I played soccer as a boy and had no trouble compartmentalizing it as the sport I played vs. the sport people watched.
posted by argybarg at 8:21 AM on January 31, 2015 [4 favorites]

The most sickening moment in recent history I have had while watching a sport was when that poor German kid got concussed in the World Cup Final. HE COULDN'T STANDUP STRAIGHT and it took until he completely collapsed for anyone to notice.

For a moment I had a thought about it being a big conspiracy, the NFL paying off someone to get a soccer concussion on national TV so they could point and say "hey look it's not just us."
posted by M Edward at 8:23 AM on January 31, 2015

I don't think there's any similar set of references and comparisons when I watch American soccer. I'm not against it, I just think we underestimate the role that culture and history play in being a fan.

I agree. But I hope that changes over time.
posted by josher71 at 8:26 AM on January 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

Soccer has been the number one sport for kids participation in the US for years.

Pele was Stewart's generations Lampard. Or if Messi comes here when he is 35.

Landon Donovan would have been a serviceable player in a top flight European league but not a star.
posted by JPD at 8:28 AM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

Donovan was a first teamer during his loan at Everton. But yes, he would not have been selected for the English national team had he been English. Although, frankly, the English coaches selections are often a source of much puzzlement.
posted by josher71 at 8:32 AM on January 31, 2015

Football isn't going anywhere. Soccer is too boring for Americans and people who think it will ever take off are deluding themselves. The metric system will be in widespread use in the US before soccer is more than a niche sport.

Also, I always laugh at the American-centric attitude of people who say boxing is dead. Worldwide it is still one of the most popular sports, and growing in many areas. Also the highest paid athlete in the world is a boxer.

Ok you hate sports, don't understand them, and don't know anything about them. We get it. Soooo why are you commenting on it?
posted by holybagel at 8:34 AM on January 31, 2015 [10 favorites]

My favorite comment about the English national tea! Is that its the only national side that could plausibly relegated from its home league. A bit hyperbolic but amusing.

I love pretty much all codes of football. I think Soccer in the US can't develop because the MLS is at too much of a financial disadvantage relative to the big four European clubs and the current structure prohibits some lunatic from trying a moonshot with their own cash -which is probably good for survivability but precludes the stretch success goals of the most fervrent fans. As long as it's seen as an inferior product to what is shown in the mornings it'll never be massive enough to persuade the type of talent needed for the league to become world class on its own.

Its like a path dependent chicken/egg problem thats only solved by some lunatic with a big checkbook getting incredibly lucky.
posted by JPD at 8:42 AM on January 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

If a baseball player hits 60 home runs in a year we start talking about Babe Ruth, and along with that Roger Maris and Mark McGwire and the old days and the painful newer days and on and on, and we start arguing about asterisks and PEDs and (if you're a stats geek) slugging percentage ... there's a whole weight of culture pressing behind everything that happens in baseball.

1. At one point, baseball was a new young sport without history. How could this new ridiculous upstart sport ever compete with real sports like pedestrianism? I mean, everyone looks at it and thinks "where is baseball's Captain Robert Barclay Allardice, the Celebrated Pedestrian of Stonehaven? The sport has no history!"
2. I (gladly) live in a west coast bubble, and the idea that soccer lacks historical weight in the US is much less persuasive here. Seattle and Portland, to take the biggest example, have had a decades-long, league-spanning soccer rivalry.

posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 8:53 AM on January 31, 2015 [6 favorites]

A game created by the Ivy league elite has somehow become the sport of the common man. Meanwhile baseball, the game of farmhands and cowboys has been made into a game for elitist stats nerds and investment bankers. A nation that celebrates the triumph of individual freedoms and liberty has picked a game where men must precisely follow instructions from a boss on the sidelines and his army of consultants.
posted by humanfont at 8:55 AM on January 31, 2015 [32 favorites]

Ok you hate sports, don't understand them, and don't know anything about them. We get it. Soooo why are you commenting on it?

Can you show me in the thread the comments that make you think people commenting don't understand sports and don't know anything about them?

This is a good article about MLS re: its popularity and it's comparison to other leagues.

"The first temptation is to compare the league to other North American professional sports, like the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL. Of course, any comparison has to keep in mind that MLS is only 19 years old, a baby compared to the NFL (94), NHL (97) and MLB (145), and still many decades younger than the NBA, which was formed 68 years ago. Also, MLS has only 19 teams, compared to 32 NFL teams, 30 MLB, 30 NBA and 30 NHL."
posted by josher71 at 8:55 AM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

Football isn't just a social event, it's an intrinsically social event. It's common currency to talk to strangers about, it's something you do on the weekends with friends around food, it's a reason to care about where you live (and identify with your neighbors) when globalized markets have made locality largely irrelevant outside of rent prices and proximity to your job. In many ways Football is a salve for alienation, despite the easily recognizable awful aspects of the sport and the organization that runs it. Most of the football fans I know hate the league, especially hate Goodell, but still love their teams. Living close to DC I know a bunch of nominally left leaning DC football fans who recognize how terrible the team name is, but whose identities are so wrapped up in being fans of that specific team name that the common joke is, "I wish the Redskins would change their name. That way I could stop rooting for them."

On an individual level the NFL is a major corrective for a lot of flaws in modern American capitalism, even as the sport itself still encapsulates so many of those flaws itself. It's unfortunate, but true, and I would say unlikely to change no matter how many glaring embarrassments the league suffers.
posted by codacorolla at 8:59 AM on January 31, 2015 [8 favorites]

TV creates a powerful barrier to new sports.

MLS just quadrupled their TV revenues to 90 mil a year

The NFL is something like 6 billion a year.

College football is also like a billion plus.
posted by JPD at 9:02 AM on January 31, 2015

Football isn't just a social event, it's an intrinsically social event. It's common currency to talk to strangers about

Unless, of course, you don't follow football. You can mutter something about not following it, and shift to the weather. If you want to stay on topic, and live in an NFL city, you can complain about paying for the stadium. But, you lack that "common currency" if that's not your thing.

And that's OK. But let's not assume it's a ingua franca for all Americans. To do so is to disrespect those who simply aren't interested.
posted by MrGuilt at 9:12 AM on January 31, 2015 [5 favorites]

They are literally supporting the worst that humankind has to offer.

Worse then the Tea Party and Wall Street?
posted by juiceCake at 9:13 AM on January 31, 2015 [5 favorites]

TV is becoming less of a factor for the new sports as it melds with the internet/streaming - I just watched a Premier League (YNWA) game on my iPad. Wrestling has its own subscription service. The smaller/niche sports can incubate online, build a fanbase, and then start to step forward on to television.

Chelsea/Man City are playing in 20 minutes on NBC. Tune in to see what petrodollars can do!
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:14 AM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

And that's OK. But let's not assume it's a ingua franca for all Americans. To do so is to disrespect those who simply aren't interested.

I, personally, don't particularly care what you like and don't like. However it's foolish to say that a multi-billion dollar cultural industry watched by 60-some percent of Americans isn't a primary touchstone of life in America. The vast number of thinkpieces about how bad the league is, and how bad people are for supporting it, written by the salty members of the 40-some percent that get posted here every year around Super Bowl time is evidence enough.
posted by codacorolla at 9:17 AM on January 31, 2015 [10 favorites]

Radiolab just had a really good episode dealing with the topic, including talking to one woman who's dad was a football player and her son who was born into this legacy and their family's conflicting feelings about all that is bad and good about football.

Disclaimer, I am not a fan. That being said, I don't see why football must be either all good or all bad. Like many things, football needs some changes and I don't think those changes are insurmountable.
posted by KernalM at 9:19 AM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

Ooh they just ran a rugby sevens ad. That's another sport of the future.
posted by JPD at 9:20 AM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

I predict that NFL will eventually suffer when high school programs, and, then, someday, NCAA programs, drop it entirely because of the combination of risk and cost.

In, say, Vermont, maybe.

I picked VT as a hypothetical example of a non-football state. What you're imagining will not happen in the traditional football states. First off, that cost you speak of is offset by the millions that wealthy alumni are willing to donate for big new stadiums and training complexes and the like. Big football schools make a lot of money off of football. The risks and costs are just a price of doing business, they're not an impediment to that business.

There's also this joke, in the south anyway, about football being the local religion. It's a joke, yes, but it's actually a pretty accurate comparison. Adherents of both are willing to wear blinders and pretend that the faults with [religion/football] don't exist, provided that they can keep [celebrating Christmas/following their team] without having to think too much about it.

Not saying any of that is good, but it's how things are. You may as well predict that the U.S. stops celebrating Christmas as a national holiday because a certain percentage of Americans don't believe in god.
posted by mudpuppie at 9:22 AM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

Ooh they just ran a rugby sevens ad. That's another sport of the future.

I saw that and thought "Maybe I should take an impromptu trip to Vegas!". Don't know shit about Rugby Sevens but Vegas + new experience sounds fun.

Also, Stoke won today. Up to ninth!

Come on Man City! Beat that smug genius Jose!
posted by josher71 at 9:25 AM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

VT here. Oh, is it Super Bowl weekend again?
I pretty much don't watch television, so I only see a little bit of sports now and then, but to me, the appeal of football is visceral. I mostly would rather do sports than watch sports, but football (along with boxing) is something I would rather watch than do. I don't like the violence, but I know my body responds to it. It's very compelling. I don't think you need commercials or fantasy leagues or any of that to find the sport fascinating.
I also like the 'chess' aspect of the game. I did most of my NFL watching in the '80s, and learned a lot from Madden about what was really going on during play, and that contributed to my enjoyment of the game. The time between plays allows for that kind of analysis in a way one does not get in soccer or basketball- I have no idea what's going on there.

But the idea that soccer is boring indicates to me that people don't understand what's going on. They seem to understand only actions that put points on the board- that's your cue to cheer or groan. Look at any highlights reel, and 90% of what you see are points being scored. Sometimes, these are game-changing events, but usually, the course of the game is altered by less obvious events: the OG unable to contain the DT throughout the game, the CB being good enough to cover the WR alone, allowing the FS to go somewhere else... I saw some World Cup last year, and I was astounded by how exciting it was, but then I don't need to see a score to get excited.
posted by MtDewd at 9:25 AM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

I love football. I love to play touch football, I love to watch football. I love the big personalities and even the spectacle. I seriously considered dropping thousands to go to Arizona this weekend. As others have mentioned, it is the most compelling turn-based strategy sport going.

That being said, there's a metric shit-ton that needs to change if the sport is going to survive. And the thing is, there is no reason why things can't change while preserving what's good about the sport. Accused of a crime? Immediate suspension until your day in court. Convicted? Out forever. There is nothing Michael Vick offers the league that outweighs what his uniformed presence on the field says about the NFL's values. Head hits? Suspended for the season. The NFL could easily spend billions on researching TBIs and how to prevent and treat them, and hey wouldn't that also be nice for car accident victims and injured vets?

Roger Goodell is a scumbag and needs to go. Football's not going anywhere in the next ten years, but it very well might in the next 40. Over and over again, he has chosen to ignore the growing threat to football, and here's why: he is picked and employed to serve at the pleasure of the owners who could care less financially what happens to the league in 40 years, and who could care less what happens to the players after they leave their teams. The changes that are needed to make football something intelligent middle class Americans would continue to spend money on long term, may well decrease revenue in the short term and Goodell has shown repeatedly that he won't address any of this. No one is more pissed off at Goodell than the player's union.

If I may digress slightly, all of this is what makes this weekend's game compelling. Goodell has no more important owner-ally than Patriots owner Robert Kraft. Two years ago, the Patriots roster included a man who is now on trial for murder. Perhaps Deflategate does distract from domestic violence and murder, but the point remains that Bill Belichick was caught cheating a couple years ago, got off with a slap on the wrist, and now very likely cheated his way to the Super Bowl, all while owner Kraft was sharing beers watching the game with Goodell.

By contrast, the Seahawks play team football. Any player can make a big play at anytime and it all depends on the call made by coach Pete Carroll. They practice yoga and work with mindfulness coaches. When one of their biggest stars was becoming a behavioral liability he was traded away immediately for a conditional draft pick. They have a fan base that they actively cultivate and acknowledge more consistently than any team in football. When the Seahawks pulled off their miracle win against the packers 2 weeks ago, the first thing coach Pete Carroll said into a microphone was "I just have to thank all the 12s out there who never gave up on us."

If there is a future for football, it looks much more like the Seahawks than the Patriots, and that's why I'm watching. And because for one day a year, chicken wings and beer are fucking delicious.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:26 AM on January 31, 2015 [24 favorites]

There's also this joke, in the south anyway, about football being the local religion. It's a joke, yes, but it's actually a pretty accurate comparison.

Much like auto racing, where sometimes both audience and driver die during the course of the event.
posted by uraniumwilly at 9:26 AM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

(Oh, and fuck John Terry)
posted by josher71 at 9:26 AM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

Sevens is fun to watch in person. I was going to go to the rugby world cup this but had something come up and need to bail.

Rugby Union matches are fun. An England match at Twickenham partially answers the question "the great grandchildren of Downton. Where are they now"
posted by JPD at 9:29 AM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

Oh, I didn't realize the World Cup is in England this year! I need to be getting back there anyway...
posted by josher71 at 9:33 AM on January 31, 2015

Well, I don't hate sports and I don't hate football, but I do hate what an ugly, gigantic tax revenue bleeding corporate monster football has become, and how it encourages more aggressive, violent instinctual drives, but what I resent most is the social pressure to conform and go along with all the football rituals and the floating drunken mess of social chaos and self-destructive and hateful petty behavior that inevitably surrounds football. It's football culture, not the game itself, that I loathe. Hell, I even loved playing football as a kid (though I was a mediocre player), but this football as identity crap is depressing.
posted by saulgoodman at 9:41 AM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

Well, I don't hate sports and I don't hate football, but I do hate what an ugly, gigantic tax revenue bleeding corporate monster football has become,

While I get you blaming the NFL for that, it is hardly just the NFL. The single biggest boondoggle ever foisted on a city wasn't an NFL stadium, it's the baseball park in Miami, which, when all is said and done, will cost Miami taxpayers $2.5 billion.
posted by eriko at 9:45 AM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

Topical current xkcd.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 9:45 AM on January 31, 2015 [6 favorites]

It's going to be a long time, if ever, before youth football dies in Texas.

The joke is that football is the state religion of Texas, but honestly I'm not at all convinced that it's a joke. I taught at a semi-rural middle school last year and football was the clear, if never directly stated, reason for the school to exist.

The football team were like unto gods, and remember I'm not even talking about high school football, this was middle school. At least two of the members of the team were transfer students, and for those who aren't familiar with schools in Texas "transfer student" is a polite way of saying "on permanent probation". The principal is, in a lot of ways, looking for any excuse they can find to revoke the transfer; especially if the kid is an academic underachiever but also just generally. When the average transfer student puts one toe out of line their transfer is revoked and they are kicked out within a few hours.

Except for the football transfer students. Both of them were constantly in and out of serious trouble, semi-constantly in ISS (In School Suspension), always in trouble for various things up to and including fights and cussing out teachers. If they hadn't been football players they'd have had their transfer revoked the first time they got in even a little trouble. But since they were football they got away with it, and they knew it, and they were both utter shits to teachers because they knew they could get away with absolutely anything.

On one occasion both the transfer football players were taken away from a school event by the police because they weren't supposed to be in ISS and thus barred from the event. A normal student would have been put in out of school suspension or worse. Those two, remember in normal circumstances transfer students are out on their asses for doing something even slightly out of line, were back in school and out of ISS the next day because it was a game day and students in ISS can't play.

And this was for a crappy little middle school football team that was in the bottom of its division.

Before every football game there was a pep rally, we'd waste close to half the day on organized worship for the football team. No other sport got any pep rallies, and they were lucky to get even a brief mention in the daily announcements if they won.

Every family in the whole district turned out for these little middle school games, and there were always parents showing up to the pep rally to join in the worship of the team.

And this was for a crappy little middle school football team that was in the bottom of its division.

So, yeah. Even if other states start cutting football due to injuries and brain damage and so forth, I don't see Texas joining in that anytime soon. Not when even at middle school football was such a power.
posted by sotonohito at 9:46 AM on January 31, 2015 [16 favorites]

There is a wide variety in how much a given city has paid for a football stadium.
FYI
posted by OHenryPacey at 9:48 AM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

So, yeah. Even if other states start cutting football due to injuries and brain damage and so forth, I don't see Texas joining in that anytime soon.

Ditto UC Berkeley.
posted by uraniumwilly at 9:49 AM on January 31, 2015

And don't even get me started on squandering money on football stadiums, whether professional football, college football, or high school. My district was dirt poor, the library was a joke, the "computer lab" was running machines that were so old they were hand cranked, the "science labs" didn't even have actual chemical showers or eye wash stations [1] or really much equipment at all, but the district built a wonderful new stadium for the high school team that cost several million.

I hope with all my heart that San Antonio fails in its foolish efforts to attract an NFL team, the last damn thing I need is my taxes going up to buy a billion dollar stadium for billionaire team owners.

[1] They had 2 liter bottles of saline solution to wash people's eyes out with.
posted by sotonohito at 9:50 AM on January 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

the short answer to 'where is boxing now' will become evident the moment the impending match between Mayweather and Pacquiao is actually announced.
posted by OHenryPacey at 9:58 AM on January 31, 2015 [7 favorites]

I used to be adamantly anti-sports (particularly football due to it's popularity), but as I've grown older I find myself appreciating the game more. I don't feel as much need to identify as a "somewhat nerdy person who hates sports because that's what we do" and can watch a game here or there without feeling I have to either promote it or knock it down. Not to say the dangerous aspects don't bother me, but I really think the safety gear will improve and it won't be as bad as it has been in the past.

The NFL itself is a horrible business that needs some serious changes (as does the NCAA and FIFA, and so many other sports organizations). But that doesn't mean I can't enjoy the strategy of a well-executed play.
posted by downtohisturtles at 10:15 AM on January 31, 2015 [5 favorites]

> As the evidence mounts that football can lead to brain damage even in young players

Cite?

I think we're right to be suspicious that repeated bonks on the noggin cause brain damage, but the studies I've read of were pretty thin. The only thing I heard of for youth was that cognitive function test scores decrease during the season & come back afterwards. The margin of error is large enough that they can't tell if there was a small decrease (and season after season might cause cumulative loss of cognitive ability).

The whole concussion protocol thing seems to be an attempt to avoid re-concussing a healing brain, which can lead to death, but is rare. Study of repeated sub-concussion injury is thin. Our smartphones can have accelerometers, but only a small sample size of kids' helmets get them.

With regard to the article, compare occurrences of "deflated" to "protocol". That seems to be code word for the CTE mess that sportscasters are allowed to utter these days.
posted by morganw at 10:24 AM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

saulgoodman--I am guessing you do not follow soccer. Football and associated fan behaviour has nothing on soccer and it's overtones of nationalism and sectarian violence.
posted by rmhsinc at 10:28 AM on January 31, 2015 [4 favorites]

What's going to replace football?

I vote Buzkashi.
posted by George_Spiggott at 10:31 AM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

Not to mention the horrible track record of FIFA in... essentially everything. It's not like forgoing the use of your hands suddenly makes your sport of choice unsusceptible to high level corruption and human frailty.
posted by codacorolla at 10:31 AM on January 31, 2015 [6 favorites]

Seriously, it's the television coverage that we have now that will grow soccer as a sport.

That and the fact that within our lifetimes the demographics of the US are going to be a lot more diverse. As mentioned upthread, an influx of Hispanic/Latino immigrants tends to be followed by growth in soccer fans instead of US football fans.
posted by poffin boffin at 10:32 AM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

I think we're right to be suspicious that repeated bonks on the noggin cause brain damage, but the studies I've read of were pretty thin.

See the Frontline piece for more.
posted by Brian B. at 10:35 AM on January 31, 2015 [4 favorites]

Not to mention the horrible track record of FIFA in... essentially everything. It's not like forgoing the use of your hands suddenly makes your sport of choice unsusceptible to high level corruption and human frailty.

John Oliver's excellent primer on FIFA for Americans.
posted by George_Spiggott at 10:35 AM on January 31, 2015 [8 favorites]

I guess what we need is to change the country so that millions of Americans aren't so desperate to forget about their miserable lives for a while that they cling to football, basketball, baseball, etc.
posted by ob1quixote at 10:49 AM on January 31, 2015

Oh Jesus Christ. Yes bread and circuses. Any popular entertainment I don't enjoy is just bread and circuses.
posted by JPD at 10:50 AM on January 31, 2015 [20 favorites]

oHNO PPL ENJOY A THING i bet they sekritly want to die
posted by poffin boffin at 10:51 AM on January 31, 2015 [19 favorites]

Youth Football Linked to Long-Term Brain Damage in NFL Players
posted by josher71 at 10:51 AM on January 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

I don't follow any sports currently because my time is already at a premium to me and I just can't afford to prioritize entertaining diversions at this particular stage in my life. If I need a diversion, I'll do something with the kids or consume some form of entertainment that doesn't come with so many strings attached. Football eats up so much of people's time, I don't understand how serious fans get anything done in their real lives.
posted by saulgoodman at 10:52 AM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

Time and emotional energy. A person only has so much capacity for caring and emotionally engaging with things. Pouring my emotional energy into sports feels like a bad use of a precious and limited resource my family needs more.
posted by saulgoodman at 10:55 AM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

I just neglect my family. They are all adults so it's much easier.
posted by josher71 at 10:56 AM on January 31, 2015 [7 favorites]

I just have the under-butler Marshall the children in the conservatory whilst I host my standing foursome from the club in formal parlour. We let the older children watch in the study if they've finished their morning walk-up.
posted by JPD at 10:57 AM on January 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

What's going to replace football?

Kabbadi!
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:00 AM on January 31, 2015 [4 favorites]

I'm sorry if that sounds elitist, but I'm 40 and don't have much time between fulltime career and what few personal interests I have left, and this is my life.
posted by saulgoodman at 11:00 AM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm sorry if that sounds elitist, but I'm 40 and don't have much time between fulltime career and what few personal interests I have left, and this is my life.

Didn't sound elitist to me, I was just joking around. (Sort of. Don't push it, mom.)
posted by josher71 at 11:01 AM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

I mean, what? Do you read books? Magazines? Do you watch a single show on tv? Follow a podcast? Anything? Liking either football or any other sports is not this 9-5 supercommitment that destroys your life. It's a thing you do for 90 minutes on a saturday afternoon.
posted by poffin boffin at 11:02 AM on January 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

And then once every year, or every 4 years or every 2 or whatever you get a little out of hand.
posted by poffin boffin at 11:03 AM on January 31, 2015

But we barely have a roof over our heads, much less a conservatory!
posted by saulgoodman at 11:03 AM on January 31, 2015

IMO football is a bit like porn. Beautiful young athletic people risk bodily harm for the entertainment and profit of others.

There's I think a libertarian cliche that says that prostitution and professional sports (boxing being the old saw) are similar (perhaps moreso than porn and prostitution) because both "performers" are making a choice (in theory, depending on the environment and the actual other choices available) to "sell their bodies" and potentially sacrifice some part of their health or well-being for money, on a regular basis.

I sort of agree but Libertarians typically say this in defense of prostitution in favor of legalizing it rather than a statement against professional sports. I tend to think that prostitution is specifically more "like football" now as it remains illegal, with greater risk of infection by STDs, greater risk of violence, etc, more "inevitable harm as a function of time," and that regulated prostitution is probably less "inevitably dangerous" than pro sports.

Not saying anything in particular here although I do find that vestige in my brain and find it amusing to look at it from both directions now, seeing where the metaphor falls apart or the equivalence is over-drawn.
posted by aydeejones at 11:09 AM on January 31, 2015

Pouring my emotional energy into sports feels like a bad use of a precious and limited resource my family needs more.

Says someone with more than 10,000 comments on the Blue.
posted by Etrigan at 11:10 AM on January 31, 2015 [34 favorites]

Surely, saulgoodman meant "limited resources outside of MeFi time, which as we all know is sacrosanct."
posted by tonycpsu at 11:13 AM on January 31, 2015 [6 favorites]

...and that regulated prostitution is probably less "inevitably dangerous" than pro sports

To qualify that, less inevitably dangerous than pro sports that involve human bodies moving at fast velocities and colliding into other bodies and things. There are countless ways to engage in a professional sport without an inevitable "as t increases" body-bruising war against entropy. Says the guy who could black and blue himself shooting with a bow and arrow
posted by aydeejones at 11:15 AM on January 31, 2015

No conservatory?!!

Surely you have an orangerie? Or at least a simple garden folly?
posted by JPD at 11:45 AM on January 31, 2015 [4 favorites]

Hey Etrigan--I have to kill time somehow while I'm waiting for code to compile and Microsoft updates to download. I'm stuck in front of a computer screen for the majority of the time in my life thanks to work. So to take the edge off, and to make up for not having any opportunity to socialize in the normal flow of things, I like to pretend I still get to talk about the world with other adults like a proper human being. That time's already wasted. Now this time--well, it's a rare down time at home.
posted by saulgoodman at 11:48 AM on January 31, 2015

There are a lot of people who believe that football promotes the character traits required to "keep America safe": Loyalty, teamwork, following orders but being able to think on your feet, willingness to endure pain and hardship, willingness to sacrifice your health and maybe your life for the team. Football culture explicitly connects itself to military culture, and we're living in a time when the drumbeat of "keep America safe" is loud. Don't assume that football is just around the corner from its death because you don't know anyone who voted for it.

I'm not a football fan myself, but I don't expect it to go away anytime soon.
posted by clawsoon at 12:00 PM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

To echo what Slarty Bartfast said above: I don't think it's a coincidence that the Seahawks are rising upwards in the national attention while also aggressively cultivating the impression that they Football Differently. The yoga, the mindfulness coaches, the expulsion of Harvin, the constant media statements that they're a team, etc. I am not saying that they really DO "football different," I don't know one way or the other, but they are definitely consciously building that image. Could be that Seahawks management is playing the long game about the future of the league, and the sport.
posted by KathrynT at 12:04 PM on January 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

Y'all are out of your fucking minds if you think professional soccer taking over from football will improve the overall ethics of athletics. Most professional soccer players left school at 14, they can barely read and they are involved in FAR FAR more scandals than NFL players. The league's don't even try to pretend to care if their athletes go to college or behave. Roy Keane, Suarez et al would be kicked out of the NFL on their ass in 10 minutes for behaving like a fairly average soccer prima. Cantona was arrested for assault during a game. Maradona, the shit he pulled. Half the players are thugs and the fans fucking celebrate it.

The way mefi talks about the NFL comes across really racist and classiest, to be honest.
posted by fshgrl at 12:06 PM on January 31, 2015 [24 favorites]

Oh and FIFA is basically murdering slaves right now, today, to bring you the next world cup. Well kinda, but they are at least letting it happen. Pretty sure the NFL stadiums were built using Davis-Bacon.
posted by fshgrl at 12:11 PM on January 31, 2015 [9 favorites]

The BBC did a little series on football soccer in the US a few months ago and talked about how the structure of pro soccer leagues in the rest of the world doesn't match up with the way that sports business works here. Teams in the US can't be promoted if they do well or demoted if they don't and they can just pick up and move to another city which I guess isn't done in other countries?
posted by octothorpe at 12:11 PM on January 31, 2015

The amount of "people don't really like football, they just like it because the media tells them to" in this thread is weird and gross.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:27 PM on January 31, 2015 [16 favorites]

You pro seahawks do know Carroll is a 9/11 truther who dabbles in Landmark Forum pop psych and basically bailed on USC as soon as he put them on probation right. I'm cheering for them Sunday but let's chill the fuck out with how special they are
posted by JPD at 12:36 PM on January 31, 2015 [6 favorites]

Where is that PG? I hadn't noticed any of those comments. I think some people were arguing there's too much money to be made and too large and eager an audience for the stuff to expect the media and investors to stop focusing on it so much. But I didn't notice any comments implying people were being brainwashed by the media into having their fight instincts tickled for fun because that's a silly way to look at it. Or do you just see that argument as implicit because people are arguing the demand would shrink if football got less media attention? I mean, whether you think people make their own choices or not, it's not that controversial an idea that people would probably lose interest if there were a wholesale media blackout on football is it?
posted by saulgoodman at 12:49 PM on January 31, 2015

I think we're right to be suspicious that repeated bonks on the noggin cause brain damage, but the studies I've read of were pretty thin.

I'm standing in line at the supermarket right now, so linking is hard, but I just attended a medical conference about high school sports and the evidence is actually pretty good that even high school football played by the rules is associated with long term cognitive changes. Not the just the big hits, but the little repeated ones.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 12:54 PM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

You pro seahawks do know Carroll is a 9/11 truther

also why is he always chewing something
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 12:58 PM on January 31, 2015 [5 favorites]

This, this, and this are the ones that I'm thinking of.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:59 PM on January 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

Y'all are out of your fucking minds if you think professional soccer taking over from football will improve the overall ethics of athletics.

Who said this? Can you link?

The way mefi talks about the NFL comes across really racist and classiest, to be honest.

Can you explain more? I didn't see this in this thread.
posted by josher71 at 1:01 PM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

I posted this in the other super bowl thread but apparently it is stale. In Simmons' mailbag column today he has video of Clay Matthews ringing Russell Wilson's bell in the NFC championship game and his e-mailer claims medical expertise, Wilson was concussed, and that is why he played so horrible until his wits returned to him late in the fourth quarter.
posted by bukvich at 1:03 PM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

The amount of "people don't really like football, they just like it because the media tells them to" in this thread is weird and gross.
posted by Pope Guilty

To be fair, football as presented to most people is very much a cultural accompaniment of beer, country pop music, and Fox. It is a red-meat-eating spectacle practically bursting with the ugly ethos of American imperialism. It is also not a game that most people are going to look at and say "wow that looks like something I want to play!"

If I could design a sport to be reflexively hated by the Metafilter demographic, I'm not sure I could do better. ...competitive circumcision/cat-declawing biathlon, perhaps?

This is a pity because there's a rich intellectual component to the game at a strategic level - above and beyond the tactics shared by all sports - and it goes as deep as you care to follow it.

Personally I always hated football and considered it the domain of knuckle-draggers right up until I moved in with an ex who watched the post-season religiously. First it was just on in the background, then it was something to watch while curled up on the couch with her, and finally it was something I actively enjoyed viewing and learning about. Without that experience, I think I'd be reacting in a somewhat dismissive fashion, too.
posted by Ryvar at 1:06 PM on January 31, 2015 [7 favorites]

Ryvar, that was me and visiting my parents- at first dicking around on a gameboy or whatever while the game was on, eventually watching and paying attention. It's tactical in a way that no other sport I'm aware of is- save perhaps Moopsball.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:11 PM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

Moopsball.

Formations must be set up by 11 A.M. to allow a full hour for war cries and the hurling of epithets across the hundred-yard no-man's-land. These will be graded. It is a time for the uttering of mighty oaths, and each wizard is allowed an incantation at the head of his team.

Oh my God yes.
posted by Ryvar at 1:17 PM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

Maybe that's part of why I can't get back into it. My inlaw is one of those boomers who just sits in front of the TV with a surly attitude toward everyone else when it's game day. He's the only grandpa the kids have got and he makes it pretty clear he considers the game more important than seeing his grandkids or kids on the rare occasions we're able to make it into town for a visit (and he's an old school yankee Democrat).
posted by saulgoodman at 1:22 PM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

I think the big obstacle to soccer in the US is that the game basically has no breaks. When do you show the commercials?
posted by uosuaq at 1:28 PM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

The way mefi talks about the NFL comes across really racist and classiest, to be honest.

Can you explain more? I didn't see this in this thread.

Its the totality of the discussion. But if I had to summarize I'd say calling a primarily black league "the worst human kind has to offer" and suggesting the country would be better off focusing on a league comprised almost entirely of white middle class players kinda jumps out at me.
posted by fshgrl at 1:32 PM on January 31, 2015 [6 favorites]

I think the big obstacle to soccer in the US is that the game basically has no breaks. When do you show the commercials?

I wouldn't doubt that the TV networks are reticent to get behind soccer for just that reason. If you can't break for a commercial every few minutes, then there's not much point in broadcasting the game.
posted by octothorpe at 1:33 PM on January 31, 2015

You pro seahawks do know Carroll is a 9/11 truther

So is Adam Baldwin but I still have my Jayne hat.
posted by Room 641-A at 1:37 PM on January 31, 2015 [4 favorites]

Its the totality of the discussion. But if I had to summarize I'd say calling a primarily black league "the worst human kind has to offer" and suggesting the country would be better off focusing on a league comprised almost entirely of white middle class players kinda jumps out at me.

Excellent.

And all the while, white people admiring the talents of African Americans, often including their gracious personalities, is a bad thing for 50-60 percent of Americans to experience? Aw, hellll no.
posted by uraniumwilly at 1:38 PM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

...a primarily black league...

If you look at the NFL more closely, you see that it's a league of mostly white men giving orders to mostly black men.
posted by clawsoon at 1:38 PM on January 31, 2015 [5 favorites]

Except this post is specifically about the behavior of a few players.
posted by fshgrl at 1:41 PM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

I gather that some balls were deflated, or something?
posted by Wolfdog at 1:49 PM on January 31, 2015

MLS diversity.
posted by josher71 at 1:53 PM on January 31, 2015

I also don't see people making the argument that people would be better off focussing on soccer.
posted by josher71 at 1:56 PM on January 31, 2015

codacorolla: Football isn't just a social event, it's an intrinsically social event. It's common currency to talk to strangers about...it's a reason to...identify with your neighbors...

Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports:

For highly educated folks, it’s a sign of cultivation to be eclectic in one’s tastes. But to signal to others that you belong in the intellectual elite, it can pay in cultural capital to dislike things, like sports, that are enormously popular among the least educated parts of society.

This ignorance among highly educated people limits our ability to communicate, bond, and build relationships across different segments of society. It limits our ability to engage in conversations and build a common culture that crosses our highly stratified and segmented societies. Sports are not politically or culturally unproblematic. But they provide an easy — and enjoyable — way to build common ground with our neighbors and fellow citizens that transcend social boundaries.

posted by cosmic.osmo at 2:07 PM on January 31, 2015 [5 favorites]

Look man, it hurts my career every day that I can't pretend to like football, so don't give me any crap about how I'm posing for cultural capital. That's condescending faux populist bullshit.
posted by saulgoodman at 2:15 PM on January 31, 2015 [14 favorites]

I mean, for most people there is no meaningful cultural elite with power to influence anything important with whom to curry favor. The actual elites all seem to love their football as much as anybody in my experience.
posted by saulgoodman at 2:17 PM on January 31, 2015 [4 favorites]

Taking time out of your life to do something as pointless as watch sport and talk about it is a tiny refusal to grow up and abandon fantasy life, and that's fine. You could say the same thing about listening to classical music or reading Goethe.

I love soccer so much that I wake up twitching sometimes.
posted by colie at 2:17 PM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

That's called Restless Leg Syndrome, colie.
posted by uosuaq at 2:20 PM on January 31, 2015 [10 favorites]

I really wish I knew sports more. I'm the only guy in my office who isn't OBSESSED with sports, fantasy teams, etc. and it can be alienating at times. My parents are first generation immigrants who never watched sports and my home state had no professional sports teams, so I don't have the decades of watching and caring about sports that my coworkers do. The depth and breadth of their knowledge about NFL and NBA teams alone, let alone college players, is astounding. If I really wanted to, then yes, I could buy that cable package, start watching sports games, go on ESPN and sbnation, etc. and learn, but it would be a real project. To even approach their level of familiarity with all the teams, players, statistics, and ongoing sagas would probably take as much time as learning a foreign language.

I don't view it as being part of some "intellectual elite" or look down on people who like sports. If I could flip a switch and have all of the sports knowledge my coworkers do, I absolutely would to fit in better. Most people in finance are pretty well educated and went to elite schools, and with few exceptions they are OBSESSED with professional sports. I haven't met a single other person in the industry who isn't. I have no idea what group of "elites" the article above is talking about who competitively brag about how much they don't care about sports. Must be the same people I've never met who Mefi loves to hate on for saying they don't own a TV. (and no, I'm not trying to be "elite" by saying I don't have a cable package)
posted by pravit at 2:28 PM on January 31, 2015 [15 favorites]

Once again, my post was about why many people enjoy NFL football. I can understand not liking the game, not liking the league, and in fact being disgusted by both. However saying "Man, I can't understand why these neanderthals like them their sports ball" is silly. It's more than just a fantasy escape for the dull, it's an intrinsic part of American social life.

I have no idea what group of "elites" the article above is talking about who competitively brag about how much they don't care about sports.

Read the subtext of any number of comments in this thread, or the Hawks thread, or the deflated ball thread. I don't particularly feel like calling out specific users, but the examples are easy enough to find.
posted by codacorolla at 2:32 PM on January 31, 2015 [6 favorites]

Really though Breaking Madden has ruined me for us football, there is no possible way an actual game played with actual humans can ever be as thrilling to me as beeftank and tiny linebacker.
posted by poffin boffin at 2:34 PM on January 31, 2015 [15 favorites]

Read the subtext of any number of comments in this thread, or the Hawks thread, or the deflated ball thread. I don't particularly feel like calling out specific users, but the examples are easy enough to find.

But are any of those users actual elites? I think that pravit made an excellent point overall.

Tangentially and shaggy-dog-ily, I grew up in a very small town in the Canadian West, and one of my few connections to elite culture were the bits of Ideal Ivy League Man characterization that I read about. Team sport was always a part of it. The "well-rounded man" was surely a leader on the rugby pitch or the gridiron, a team player in the rough-and-tumble of elite competition.
posted by clawsoon at 2:44 PM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

I was careless and screwed up the attribution for the quote in my comment above. I meant to link this comment by codacorolla. Could an admin fix it?
posted by cosmic.osmo at 2:56 PM on January 31, 2015

Mod note: Got it.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:20 PM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

I was watching my favorite ads the other weekend and they kept getting interrupted by little slivers of football game. Really annoying.
posted by telstar at 3:29 PM on January 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

"The NFL isn't popular because it's compelling sport."

Says who? I don't think you understand the amount of strategy involved in football. It's easy to write it off as bread and circuses for meat-heads, but in doing so you come across as disdainful of things you don't like and/or understand.
posted by MattMangels at 3:38 PM on January 31, 2015 [5 favorites]

For anybody who is interested in being a part of NFL conversations, can be pretty doable if you are willing to watch some games. (And if you aren't, well then it's not for everybody so who cares?) I think that's part of why it has such appeal. The issue a few folks have mentioned with splitting so many games off onto premium channels is definitely a concern, but crucially all the local team games are broadcast over the air. (I don't think this is going to change.) If I was gonna recommend how to pick a team to someone just trying to get involved, it would always be the local team even if they stink and a lot of other teams are more compelling. Griping about how much they stink is much of the community discussion.

The presumed marquee game of the week is also broadcast over the air on Sunday nights with a show summarizing the day's games beforehand so you can keep up with the rest of the league. I think I would be satisfied as a new fan just watching the local team and the marquee matchup. Hell, watching Sunday night would probably be too much football, it mostly is for me and I've been following the NFL for years.

One of the other things about American Football being so complex is that I don't think there is too much pressure on people to know all the rules. I sure don't, but you can still follow the games anyway because there is so much time for explanation from commentators rather than having to focus more on description in an ongoing game.

And if you just hate commercials, try going to a bar that plays the NFL Red Zone some Sunday. That's a whole different viewing experience.
posted by Drinky Die at 3:42 PM on January 31, 2015

IMO football is a bit like porn. Beautiful young athletic people risk bodily harm for the entertainment and profit of others.

Man, one of us is watching the wrong sort of porn. I think it's probably you.

I think the idea that the NFL will go away in "a generation" is naive to the point of incredulity. It's not going anywhere. The rules and equipment will likely be modified over the next decade but the NFL itself is here to stay for the foreseeable future.
posted by Justinian at 3:43 PM on January 31, 2015 [5 favorites]

"If you look at the NFL more closely, you see that it's a league of mostly white men giving orders to mostly black men."

Is this a serious comment? I truly cannot tell. It honestly sounds like something I'd write if I was trying to create a parody of MetaFilter comments.
posted by MattMangels at 3:44 PM on January 31, 2015 [6 favorites]

No, the lack of black coaches is a serious issue. It is something they are making efforts to work on.
posted by Drinky Die at 3:46 PM on January 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

I really look forward to seeing what happens in the NFL when Goddell's tenure ends. It will be interesting, though I'm sure ESPN will make it as dull as possible.

As for people who don't like American football (or any sport), I know things like the Super Bowl must really drive them nuts. All the hype is annoying for sure. The thing I don't get is the need to let everybody know. Is it cathartic?

The intellectual elitism is definitely something that hits close to home, since I work in a profession full of people who consider themselves intellectuals, and many of them go out of their way to let people know how silly they think sportsball is or remind us they don't own a TV. So much wasted energy.
posted by kendrak at 3:47 PM on January 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

Oh and just because I can make most things about Association Football, The FA is likely to instate something like the Rooney Rule because yeah... they have a problem.
posted by kendrak at 3:52 PM on January 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

I was appalled to learn that Russell Wilson is only the second black quarterback to win a Super Bowl. And DOUBLY appalled to learn that this is because, historically, the NFL does not hire black men to play quarterback. Pointing out the vicious institutional racism of the league and the sport is absolutely fair play.
posted by KathrynT at 4:37 PM on January 31, 2015 [4 favorites]

This was the year I gave up on the NFL ... The Ray Rice thing was the straw that broke the camel's back

Did you give up on music after the Ike Turner thing? Or did you wait until the James Brown thing? Or the Chris Brown/Rihanna thing? Or the Axl Rose, Vince Neal, Don Cornelius, Scott Weiland, Lou Rawls, Vanilla Ice, Slash, Ozzy Osbourne, Tommy Lee, Rick Allen (the one-armed drummer), Flavor Flav and friggn' YANNI things?
posted by msalt at 4:41 PM on January 31, 2015 [5 favorites]

FIFA truly is terrible. One of the great things about the Asian Cup final last night apart from it being an absolute cracker of a game (injury time goal forcing extra time with less than 90 seconds to go!) that Australia ended up winning (wooooooooooooo! \o/) was listening to the ~70,000 or so Australian spectators boo Sepp Blatter every time his name was mentioned during the award ceremony. Might have something to do with that 2022 bidding process hey Seppy, you corrupt fucking bastard.


Football (yes, increasingly its accepted name in Australia) is in a somewhat strange position in Australia. In 2005 Melbourne's new A-League team, literally mere years old, was regularly pulling 45k+ crowds. Of course they were absolutely killing it, and numbers have dropped back since, but they and some of the other more popular clubs in the league are competitive in attracting supporters with some of the storied but smaller AFL and rugby league teams. Then there's the Western Sydney Wanderers, who's home games look like something out of Europe from back in the day.

A lot of those fans are fair-weather ones, and a lot depends on how the national team is travelling. But there is a significant core of supporters from post-war immigrant communities and other people such as myself that grew up as 'Australian' as could be but always loved football since playing it as a kid). Over the last decade the sport has leaped up the ladder of the national consciousness as more people started to understand what was going on on the field, and frankly its not that hard to enjoy more than one sport.

Now if only the Women's National Team could get more mainstream coverage.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 4:43 PM on January 31, 2015

I actually kind of envy sports fans. They get so much satisfaction and interest from sportsfanship. It's communal and dramatic and emotional, and there's also lots of interesting knowledge to master. Baseball, for example, can be pretty dull unless you get into understanding the details of pitching, how they work hitters, etc. There's always something going on in sports. I used to play in a band with some guys who would make a whole day of the NFL draft, cooking food and partying.
posted by thelonius at 4:57 PM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

As for where boxing is...It's morphed into an even more violent gladiator sport, MMA, Pride Fighting, and all those other versions of bullshit human cockfighting.

It's clear that you have not bothered to learn what those phrases mean. Maybe you heard John McCain's catch phrase, and thought it'd be fun to spout it, like a radio show caller talking about "Sharia law."

To clarify: Boxing is still boxing, and MMA is MMA. No one was done any morphing. There's little crossover between the two sports.

MMA is not "more violent" than boxing. In fact, allowing grappling techniques means that there's more non-knockout ways to end the fight. Close to half of MMA fights end when one fighter puts their opponent in a position that they know that they cannot escape from, causing the opponent to submit with a gesture or word.

Yes, there are certainly problems in MMA, but here is why it is not "human cockfighting":

- Techniques that are gratuitously damaging are not allowed in the unified rules. Eye gouging, fishhooking, biting, scratching, head stomps, knees to a downed opponent, soccer kicks to the head, and small joint manipulation are not allowed. (You can't do most of these without first controlling your opponent's body, so if this was some bloodsport, these would be allowed, and submitting verbally or gesturally would not be allowed.)

- Unlike football and boxing, regular sustained shocks to the brain are not as common because there are so many aspects to the game besides striking. Still, CTE is a real risk, and this is why there is agitation in the community to force the retire fighters that have had too much, e.g. Chuck Liddell. The athletic commissions and promotions could really fuck this up by not acknowledging CTE risks and addressing them, but it's early yet.

- All of the humans participating have lived lives of their own outside of MMA and have decided they enjoy competing and do so of their own choice.

- In every sport in which injury is possible, there are people that watch the sport to see injuries. However, most MMA fans do not want to see just pure ferocity. They appreciate the slickness of an Anderson Silva or the unconventional delightfulness of a Kazushi Sakuraba. Or the pure heart and determination of a Forrest Griffin. (Or a special characteristic of a non-dated MMA fighter - sorry, I ran out of time for sports-watching a year ago.) They're not there to see one animal be more savage than another.
posted by ignignokt at 5:00 PM on January 31, 2015 [4 favorites]

This was the year I gave up on the NFL ... The Ray Rice thing was the straw that broke the camel's back

Did you give up on music after the Ike Turner thing? Or did you wait until the James Brown thing? Or the Chris Brown/Rihanna thing? Or the Axl Rose, Vince Neal, Don Cornelius, Scott Weiland, Lou Rawls, Vanilla Ice, Slash, Ozzy Osbourne, Tommy Lee, Rick Allen (the one-armed drummer), Flavor Flav and friggn' YANNI things?

It might be time to give up metafilter because of the absolutely dingdonged liberals on this thread thing. As someone generally surrounded by liberals and count myself as one of them, I've never seen anything like this.
posted by uraniumwilly at 5:06 PM on January 31, 2015 [4 favorites]

I was appalled to learn that Russell Wilson is only the second black quarterback to win a Super Bowl. And DOUBLY appalled to learn that this is because, historically, the NFL does not hire black men to play quarterback. Pointing out the vicious institutional racism of the league and the sport is absolutely fair play.

Absolutely agreed. I will add though, that a few more great black QBs were really, really close to winning one. Cunningham and McNabb come to mind for me. Cunningham never made it because of a kicker and McNabb because he just ran out of gas against a great team. McNair was literally an inch away from overtime in a Super Bowl. It's just so really, really hard to win a Super Bowl even if you are a great QB. A couple twists of fate and McNabb could have had the type of career Brady had, but it wasn't to be. Wilson might be that guy, I think he gets #2 for himself tomorrow.
posted by Drinky Die at 5:15 PM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

I pretty much gave up on professional music when I found out how many of them are on drugs while the record company executives look the other way. If the RIAA wants me to start buying records and tapes again, they'll start drug testing the musicians.

For now, it's strictly high school orchestras and grade school recorder recitals for me.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 5:17 PM on January 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

(One reason to be proud as an Eagles fan is during the decades I've been watching the organization has not been at all reluctant to give black QBs a shot. I think they probably built up some goodwill over the years there and it was part of why Riley Cooper didn't destroy the team. The fanbase though...eh a major portion of them can be awful on race stuff.)
posted by Drinky Die at 5:19 PM on January 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

Eh, personally I refuse to read books written by alcoholics. I ran out of stuff to read in 1997.
posted by Justinian at 5:20 PM on January 31, 2015 [6 favorites]

I understand where the "dingdonged liberals" are coming from; I myself had a bit of an anti-sports phase when I was younger. But having sports-erudite friends who appreciate Football (and Baseball, Basketball) on a deep level and who can point out all the intricacies and complexities changed my mind. Lots of strategy. Human Chess, if you will. Ultimate Human Chess.
posted by MattMangels at 5:21 PM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

If you look at the NFL more closely, you see that it's a league of mostly white men giving orders to mostly black men.

MattMangels: Is this a serious comment? I truly cannot tell. It honestly sounds like something I'd write if I was trying to create a parody of MetaFilter comments.

Yes, it's a serious comment. I enjoy football. I played all through high school, and I still watch the occasional game. (The Canadian version, mostly, which, like most things Canadian, looks to outsiders exactly like the American version but has fine points of difference which are fiercely defended by us Canucks as a) completely different and b) definitely better. But I digress.)

But what I find really fascinating about football, more than the athleticism or tactics, is the way that football culture acts as a magnifying glass for certain aspects of American culture. One of those aspects - in addition to things like the sport's Taylorism, extreme specialization, and conscious aping of military culture - is American football's informal racism. "I'm not racist, but..." shows up in the dominance by white men of the decision-making and "thinking" roles - coach and quarterback - even though 70% of the players in the league are black.

Like the rest of American culture, this is also changing. Slowly. And in fascinating ways.
posted by clawsoon at 5:22 PM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

I see what you mean. However, I think that a workforce of highly (and we're talking highly) paid skilled professionals being 70% African-American is very un-American, no? A lot of other jobs with a high risk of injury (for example, someone I know has a $40-$60/hr union job working in various oil refineries) don't pay as well and certainly aren't comprised of that many people of color.
posted by MattMangels at 5:39 PM on January 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

You can definitely be very highly paid in America if you're helping really rich people get even richer. And may the odds be ever in your favor.
posted by uosuaq at 5:55 PM on January 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

MattMangels: However, I think that a workforce of highly (and we're talking highly) paid skilled professionals being 70% African-American is very un-American, no?

That's a fair point. It might be more accurate to call football culture a cartoon version of American culture; not everything is represented, and what is represented has exaggerated proportions.

But... is it odd that one of the few highly skilled jobs which is mostly done by blacks is also one of the few highly-skilled jobs where successfully completing full college training gives you less than a 1% chance of finding work in your field?
posted by clawsoon at 6:01 PM on January 31, 2015

The highest-prestige positions are most likely to be played by white players; NFL quarterbacks are 82% white, and average nearly a $4 million dollar annual salary. The highest INJURY positions, on the other hand, are much more likely to be played by black players, for much less money; running backs are injured almost three times as often as quarterbacks are, are 86% black, and make on average $1.5M per year. The correlation isn't airtight, but it's definitely there.
posted by KathrynT at 6:20 PM on January 31, 2015 [7 favorites]

I found this infographic of "Is Your State's Highest-Paid Employee A Coach? (Probably)" eye opening when it was posted here a little while ago.
posted by phoque at 6:23 PM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

I'd have preferred to learn about the specific strategies and tactics that will be in the upcoming game, but if it's meta, then is this racist? (Warning: grue.)

"Marshawn Lynch and Rob Gronkowski Play 'Mortal Kombat X' With Conan O'Brien"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNpkSyryQz4
posted by thoughtslut at 6:36 PM on January 31, 2015

Cunningham never made it because of a kicker

When Andersen missed that field goal, the Vikings were still up 7 with barely more than two minutes to play. If Cunningham missing the Super Bowl can be blamed on anything, it's that the Viking defense couldn't keep Atlanta out of the end zone. And then Green decides to kneel and settle for OT. And they had the ball a couple of times in OT and couldn't even move it enough to get their kicker a chance at redemption.

In conclusion, football narratives are a land of contrasts.
posted by Earthtopus at 8:41 PM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

Some of us dingdongs are lifelong nfl fans who gave up watching after the Ray Rice situation not because we are racist but because: a. The video was awful. b. But also the video is further evidence of how football damages players brains and makes them more likely to be violent. c. And watching the video you realize that the commissioner watched the same video and went "Whoo glad this didn't come out. Ok 2 game suspension then back to the brain injury fields!" It was just such a stark example of what a sick system football is, and exists within, I can't watch it any more. I mean sometimes I still watch but I feel sick about it often.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:46 PM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

However, also... "What's the future of sports in America?" (Everyone ignores NBA and talks about Euro kicking). Come on y'all.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:48 PM on January 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

b. But also the video is further evidence of how football damages players brains and makes them more likely to be violent

I don't think you can say that. Abusing your girlfriend is unfortunately far more common than traumatic brain injury.
posted by Justinian at 8:55 PM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

Yeah, and at least the NBA doesn't replace one serious concussion risk as an essential part of the game with another if it becomes the top sport. And basketball does already have worldwide appeal.

I just...don't feel as awed as a fan in an arena watching basketball as I do when sitting in a 70,000 person stadium watching football, or I expect I would feel if I ever attended a top tier soccer match. Some of the increase in scale and grandeur is why these sports are at the top.
posted by Drinky Die at 8:58 PM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

what if basketball was played by 20 foot tall robots on a court the size of a football field
posted by poffin boffin at 9:03 PM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

Meh, the humans have better fundamentals. The robots are all about the dunking and nuclear explosions.
posted by Drinky Die at 9:04 PM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

What kills me is the what, 6 hours + of pregame "coverage", most likely on multiple networks. Every time I come across it, it just seems to be a bunch of guys who have trouble speaking laughing almost constantly and then falling into a "serious knowledge being delivered now" moment before a return to laughter on a scale that not even the most stoned man on the planet could keep pace with.
posted by juiceCake at 9:16 PM on January 31, 2015

The pregame stuff is basically the equivalent of CNN on in airports, just passing time with the subject of the day. It's not really meant to be watch watched.
posted by Drinky Die at 10:05 PM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

I just hope naked female breasts make a return.

Well, one of the Superbowl ads features Aubrey Plaza milking a cow.
posted by Tenuki at 10:06 PM on January 31, 2015

I'm just watching to see if Katy Perry burns Taylor Swift in effigy at half time.
posted by Justinian at 10:15 PM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

Cunningham never made it because of a kicker

When Andersen missed that field goal, the Vikings were still up 7 with barely more than two minutes to play. If Cunningham missing the Super Bowl can be blamed on anything, it's that the Viking defense couldn't keep Atlanta out of the end zone. And then Green decides to kneel and settle for OT. And they had the ball a couple of times in OT and couldn't even move it enough to get their kicker a chance at redemption.


Out of all the Vikings blown chances this one hurts the most. Denny Green was a deer in the headlights the entire game. Mention the words "take the knee" in this part of the US and it still means only one thing - Denny Green. One of the most devastating offences of that decade and he played to not lose. And lost.

Cunningham was a wide-eyed deer as well. At halftime I was screaming at the TV to put in Brad Johnson but Denny was not one for any kind of halftime adjustment, let alone replacing his buddy at QB. And obviously he didn't hear me screaming through the television screen. Still, it's no wonder Denny was the most hated figure on sports or talk radio in Minnesota and the Dakotas for the next few years.
posted by Ber at 10:15 PM on January 31, 2015

I'm just watching to see if Katy Perry burns Taylor Swift in effigy at half time.

I will of course be watching the Puppy Bowl safe and secure in the knowledge that even if the kitten halftime show involves piddling it will be better than the alternative
posted by poffin boffin at 10:37 PM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

The Puppy Bowl Halftime Special ft. Kitty Purry?
posted by Justinian at 11:02 PM on January 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

As long as it has Frisbee dogs. Every halftime show should have Frisbee dogs.
posted by Drinky Die at 11:24 PM on January 31, 2015

this country is pretty fucked:

I am a nerd of nerds, I grew up as a most indoor of indoor kids. (NB: semi-LIES)

and yet somehow...

I know every rule of football.
I throw an amazing spiral and catch just about anything.

I know every rule of baseball.
I can slide with cleats pointed appropriately, catch just about anything, hit ok, pitch dangerously.

I know every rule of basketball.
I can sink free-throws and 3s all day long.

I know every rule of soccer aka football.
these days I'm slow, but my feet still recall a devious nature of kicks you would never expect.

I know every rule of bowling.
sometimes I even make Richard Nixon jealous.

and then it starts to go sideways...

I don't know every rule of hockey.
my ankles never understood skates, but damn if I can't put a puck through a ribcage.

I don't know every rule of tennis.
but I will serve unpleasantly into your body if you won't stand behind the fucking line.

I don't know all the rules of swimming.
but my body was well-trained that there is swimming and then there is swimming.

I don't know all the rules of bike-racing.
but please feel free to tell me what it feels like when you do a 60-mile hill-climb road race. I can tell you - there was puking! every. single. time.

I don't know all the rules of golf.
can't putt worth a damn, but I will drive it on the green. every. single. time.

I don't know all the rules of cricket. (honestly this one was the hardest/least-natural)
but I will bowl the absolute shit out of you, and hit for 6 on every try.

so...


TF, society? what is it about us primates that even an indoor-nerd-kid gets encoded with "sports" at inherent levels?
posted by dorian at 1:00 AM on February 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

I might give Ms. Perry a chance to hold my attention, but chances are I will, naturally, and as usual, be watching the 2007 halftime show. Again.
posted by ob1quixote at 1:03 AM on February 1, 2015

dorian: I can mostly walk to the refrigerator without tripping on my own feet. Mostly.
posted by Justinian at 1:24 AM on February 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

my family, tribe, school, county, college, city, state, division and/or team will kick the shit out of your family, tribe, school, county, college, city, state, division and/or team. And, if not, wait until next year!
posted by breadbox at 1:29 AM on February 1, 2015

Sounds like Springfield's got a discipline problem. Maybe that's why we beat them at football nearly half the time.
posted by Drinky Die at 1:34 AM on February 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

I don't watch the NBA or college basketball so I don't really talk about it but fair point.
posted by josher71 at 6:00 AM on February 1, 2015

Kendrak - the cathartic nature of telling everyone you don't like the SuperBowl, I don't quite see that, but I do see the point of the anger, especially for something so all-consuming and yet relatively unimportant - it must be something like soccer coverage in the UK... on which I've particularly liked this reference: http://www.tickld.com/x/how-football-sounds-to-people-that-just-dont-care-T - as an explanation.

KathrynT / fshgrl - are there any statistics available on NFL player/coach positions and race? From what you've said it sounds like you've found some, I'd be interested in a reference before I start Googling.

And out of interest, ignoring any ethical or moral considerations, doesn't it behove an NFL team to be actively non-racist, and then in traditionally white positions they'll get the talent all the other teams looked over?
posted by DancingYear at 7:03 AM on February 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

Yes. The institutional racism the encourages minority athletes away from playing qb begins in youth football. And its generally seen as a position that requires a tremendous amount of repetition to succeed at.

The real problem is that nacent talent isn't developed from a young age.
posted by JPD at 7:34 AM on February 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

Yeah, it requires a lifetime of training. And then you have the thing where they are only encouraged if they are out of this world athletes like Mike Vick so you have the perception that black QBs are all running QBs and running QBs are often viewed (for somewhat good reasons) as being inferior to Peyton or Brady style "stand in the pocket" QBs.

Just how many potential great pocket passing black QBs have never made it to the NFL because nobody in youth or high school leagues gave them a shot? It has to be off the charts.
posted by Drinky Die at 9:46 AM on February 1, 2015

Right I'm guessing there are several half a step slow d-1 safeties and wide receivers who would have been great qb's.
posted by JPD at 9:55 AM on February 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

> If we want to diminish the roles that football plays in American culture, we also need to promote access to other careers.

Football DOES NOT promote access to careers. At any time, there are perhaps 5000 professional football players in the United States. Most of them are not making much money - perhaps 2000 of them are making enough to save for retirement. 95% of them won't be doing that job in ten years - and this isn't a job that prepares you for any other profession unless you're famous, which again 95% of them aren't.

But there are 10 million people of color in the US who are unemployed. These 5000 high-profile temporary jobs do not provide "access" to any sort of career - quite the reverse, the existence of these jobs allow you to believe you are doing something to provide yourself with a future by concentrating on sports - when in fact you are buying a lottery ticket where not one a thousand score even the slightest win.

I remember from years ago an article about a police officer in New York City who ran classes to prepare young African-American boys "at risk" (i.e. with minor criminal records but no more) for life - one of those stories where you want to shake the guy's hand at the end of it.

He went through the first class asking the kids what they wanted to do when they got out of school - the first dozen kids said, "I'm going to be a basketball player!" He gets to one kid, short and stocky, and says, "Tell me you aren't going to play basketball," and the kid replied, "No, sir! [I remember the "sir" particularly.] I'm going to be a football player!"

Sports players are poor role models for young people - particularly physically destructive sports like football where your career is usually ended suddenly by an injury and that don't leave you in tip-top physical shape when you leave. (Something like that is true of entertainment professionals, particularly in pop music, where people can get bored with you and you're gone overnight, but don't know it until all your cash is gone...)

We need more role models for the working class and people of color looking like doctors, lawyers, TEACHERS ffs, engineers, pilots, bus drivers, steel workers. Which is really more important - moving a ball around on a field, or teaching children to be better humans?

Every Super Bowl is a billion-dollar advertisement for a system that destroys not just the best and worst but so many of the average of every generation of young men of color, despite the tiny number of black millionaires you see gallantly trying to move a ball around on your television that day. We'd be better off replacing it with nothing and letting kids invent their own roles, than showing them this unrealistic eye candy that gives them dreams that they waste their life on.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 10:20 AM on February 1, 2015 [7 favorites]

are there any statistics available on NFL player/coach positions and race? From what you've said it sounds like you've found some, I'd be interested in a reference before I start Googling.

This has been something that I've known about for a while; to get the most recent statistics, I did in fact just Google and grab the top hits. I've closed the tabs but if you really want me to I can try to dig them back up when I'm not on my phone.
posted by KathrynT at 11:42 AM on February 1, 2015

DancingYear, your link with archaeologists as superstars sounds kind of awesome, actually.

The Wikipedia page Black players in American professional football has a smattering of the stats you're interested in, though it doesn't talk about coaches. Both whites and blacks get steered into "racially suitable" positions; here is an ESPN article that doesn't shy away from the topic, though it's somewhat problematic in its own way.
posted by clawsoon at 12:01 PM on February 1, 2015

Notorious B.I.G.: Because the streets is a short stop / Either you're slingin' crack rock or you got a wicked jump shot.
posted by thoughtslut at 12:16 PM on February 1, 2015

In the NFL, white tailbacks are even scarcer. Not one white player starts at tailback on any of the NFL's 32 teams.

Jebus.
posted by Drinky Die at 12:27 PM on February 1, 2015

Domestic violence was just mentioned at least once pregame, by Bob Costas saying Goodell declined to talk to him about it. (Along with deflate gate and something else.)
posted by Drinky Die at 12:35 PM on February 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

My early front-runner for best Super Bowl commercial.
posted by tonycpsu at 1:13 PM on February 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

It's not just the player/coach issue, it's also racial (and gender) equality in the front office.

Pro basketball is the only sport I really follow at all. I know the NBA is a little better on those counts than the NFL but I don't know if that's simply will or if it's also easier as a player to make the transition from the court than the field for some reason.

Off-topic a little, on this week’s Comedy Bang! Bang! tv show, Scott and Reggie had to do a sports-themed show, while the jock hosts of Sports Circumference had to do a comedy-themed show. Here’s Reggie Watts' new country sport opening theme song for CBB..

(If you have access to the episode, definitely check it out. Eddie George is funny as himself, but "new" NFL Commissioner Wendell Gazall is great.)
posted by Room 641-A at 4:50 PM on February 1, 2015

Is... is Katy Perry riding a literal golden calf?
posted by Justinian at 5:12 PM on February 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

You know, even if everyone agreed football is a good and interesting activity (I wouldn't completely disagree), nobody is obliged to give a damn about any particular pastime interest and implying that anyone who doesn't like being bombarded with pro-football imagery and rhetoric all the time is somehow "messed up," "playing the victim" (a crazy non sequiter I actually got from a liberal friend once), racist, or elitist for not sharing an interest in one of an infinite number of good and interesting things to care about is a really unbelievably shitty example of peer pressure being used to enforce group conformity. Some of us feel it's important to speak up about falling out of love with football every once and a while so that others like us know they aren't alone and don't have to be ashamed about not liking what is at the end of the day nothing more than an elaborate and expensive diversion. It's reached the point where football probably is the closest thing we've got to a common cultural institution anymore--it's almost a shibboleth at this point for a certain hypermasculine strain in American culture. I think we're poorer for that, personally, because we need more and richer variety to our common culture than that. But it really is just a game, and why should it be surprising or offensive that not everyone likes a parrticular game for whatever personal reasons they might have?
posted by saulgoodman at 5:22 PM on February 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

Lioness

Too late, I already started to worship it.
posted by Justinian at 5:27 PM on February 1, 2015 [4 favorites]

Why sportswriters are questioning football
posted by the man of twists and turns at 5:30 PM on February 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE

SEAHAWKS, YOU MADE ME CARE ABOUT SPORTSBALL -- Y U BREAK MY HEART?!?!?!
posted by Jacqueline at 7:16 PM on February 1, 2015 [6 favorites]

SEAHAWKS, YOU MADE ME CARE ABOUT SPORTSBALL -- Y U BREAK MY HEART?!?!?!

Only then can you learn the true lesson of sportsball.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:18 PM on February 1, 2015 [9 favorites]

it's really frustrating because i know nothing about sportsball yet even i know that when you're that close to the line, you hand the ball off to the player know as "beast mode" because he can make it across the line even with half the opposing team hanging off him -- YOU DON'T FUCKING THROW THE BALL
posted by Jacqueline at 7:29 PM on February 1, 2015 [7 favorites]

Between this and figuring out after investing 130+ hours into Dragon Age: Origins that my race and class (elven mage) would prevent me from marrying the love of my life (Alistair), I've now had my heart broken two times in as many days. D:
posted by Jacqueline at 7:30 PM on February 1, 2015 [7 favorites]

That was a great game. Goddamn.
posted by Ryvar at 7:33 PM on February 1, 2015 [3 favorites]

Carroll's sounding like Baghdad Bob trying to explain that 4th down play.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:34 PM on February 1, 2015

If you ever wanted to know how dumb you have to be to believe 9/11 was an inside job....
posted by JPD at 7:39 PM on February 1, 2015 [5 favorites]

Somebody's mad, bro.
posted by uraniumwilly at 7:42 PM on February 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

I'm pretty sure he doesn't call the plays. It's a "The buck stops here," situation and he is standing by his guy for now, but the chances his OC Darrell Bevell is fired for this are pretty high. Playcalling in football is sometimes too conservative, but it's conservative for a damn good reason. You take chances, and you can get bit. The Pats WERE DONE if they hand it to Lynch. It was completely unjustifiable to run that play when they had several downs to get it in.
posted by Drinky Die at 7:42 PM on February 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

Yes, doing the obvious thing is always the best bet. Everyone knows that.
posted by Etrigan at 7:43 PM on February 1, 2015

Fuck you, Pete Carroll, for calling that play the way you did. I hope that the reason you perpetually look constipated is because you actually are constipated, and that every time you take a shit you're inflicted with an agonizing butthurt from your hard dry poops that give you anal fissures no matter how many soothing moist flushable wipes you use nor how much neosporin you apply to your ravaged butthole.
posted by Jacqueline at 7:43 PM on February 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

Fuck you, Pete Carroll, for calling that play the way you did.

Best running back in the league... BETTER PASS!
posted by uraniumwilly at 7:46 PM on February 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

Two reasons I've seen for the pass. The Patriots may have looked like they were going all in on the run. Carroll was worried Lynch would do his "gesture" and bring the Pats 15 yards closer to field goal range.
posted by drezdn at 7:47 PM on February 1, 2015

Etrigan: Yes, doing the obvious thing is always the best bet. Everyone knows that.

In this case, doing the obvious thing was the best bet. In other cases, perhaps not.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:47 PM on February 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

Since immediate post-game commentary is only tangentially related to the topic of this FPP, please feel free to join us in the MetaFilter chat room (login instructions) to either commiserate or gloat: chat.metafilter.com
posted by Jacqueline at 7:47 PM on February 1, 2015

I'm not remotely mad. I just like mocking Carroll for being a 9/11 truther.

Yes the OC makes the play calls although in a situation like that the HC is involved for sure. At the end of the day he's responsible.
posted by JPD at 7:47 PM on February 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

A defense of the pass play call
posted by dfan at 8:04 PM on February 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

From my FB feed, it's amazing how so many people who were super sanctimonious about abandoning the NFL this year... are suddenly reposting their odes to Tom Brady/photos of their Pats jerseys/general celebratory taunting. That line in the sand ends with the Lombardi Trophy, I guess.
posted by TwoStride at 8:09 PM on February 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

A defense of the pass play call

That is a completely nonsense defense because it doesn't take into account one thing that might happen if you pass earlier than you have to.

I'll let Advanced Football Analytics figure out what that might possibly be on their own.
posted by Drinky Die at 8:11 PM on February 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

A defense of the pass play call

1 yard line. Marshawn Lynch.
posted by uraniumwilly at 8:14 PM on February 1, 2015 [4 favorites]

Yeah, I don't care if there are eleven Refrigerator Perrys out there for the goal line package, you run the ball there.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:15 PM on February 1, 2015 [3 favorites]

(And this backlash is not hindsight folks, it was an insane call I didn't see coming. One of my fondest football memories is being at the Vet when Duce Staley was an Eagle. We cheered for him with a booming "Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuce." chant. There were times when we were at the goal line and the chant started even before the play because everybody knew what the call was, and everybody knew he was almost certain to get in the end zone even though the crowd was shouting the playcall at the defense. And he did get in. This was one of those moments and Lynch is at least three times the back Duce was. This should not have happened.)
posted by Drinky Die at 8:15 PM on February 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

I do love how this anti-football FPP is now being hijacked by football fans for post-game chatter :D
posted by Jacqueline at 8:16 PM on February 1, 2015 [7 favorites]

Huh, I thought they were saying "Doooo-urns."
posted by tonycpsu at 8:16 PM on February 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

The number of times commentators had to point out they weren't boos since it was Philly and you never know...haha.
posted by Drinky Die at 8:19 PM on February 1, 2015

Also, AFA talks about the time on the clock at the snap, but they ran a lot more time off the clock than they needed to before the snap. They had the time to give it to Lynch and then do a last ditch desperation pass if they wanted. They clearly ran down the clock thinking they would win with the surprise pass.
posted by Drinky Die at 8:25 PM on February 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

One other thing. Circling this back around to why people like the NFL or sports in general. The drama. To my tastes, better than any play I've seen. I've never witnessed even the best actors portray pain the way Sherman's face is pained here. Sports creates real drama even if it's centered around a game that is ultimately meaningless in most ways. As a fan, it's a bit exploitative to take amusement from the genuine emotion of others, but we compensate for that with the emotional investment we put in the teams. I looked just like Sherman there after quite a few McNabb interceptions. It's not purely voyeurism.

I feel bad for Sherman, because I'm a big fan, but even so his pain is going to be the enduring memory for me from this great Super Bowl and I'm going to look back on it as a classic.
posted by Drinky Die at 8:37 PM on February 1, 2015 [5 favorites]

I feel bad for Sherman, because I'm a big fan, but even so his pain is going to be the enduring memory for me from this great Super Bowl and I'm going to look back on it as a classic.

OMG THIS.

I'm still relatively new to following sportsball, but Sherman's emoting over the past two seasons has made me fall a little bit in love with him. What a guy.
posted by Jacqueline at 8:44 PM on February 1, 2015 [4 favorites]

And now we see the violence inherent in the system why the predictions of the NFL going the way of the dodo in a generation are crazypants. Because the NFL can be pure excitement. Now if only it can become pure excitement which doesn't cause traumatic brain injury.
posted by Justinian at 8:47 PM on February 1, 2015 [7 favorites]

Epictetus says that you shouldn't have emotional attachment when divining the future.

But I was already complaining about the play before he passed the ball. But it's easy to second guess the coach. Maybe he was trying to keep them honest. It's rigged. The fault is in our stars.

Can't blame the high emotions at the end. The catch was so crazy, then the reversal.
posted by thoughtslut at 8:48 PM on February 1, 2015

NFL players can't believe Seattle's final play-call
posted by Drinky Die at 8:49 PM on February 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

When you press X instead of Y...
posted by Drinky Die at 9:31 PM on February 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

A dramatic end to both the World Series and the Super Bowl this year. I'm satisfied.

Disclaimer: Giants/49ers Fan
posted by MattMangels at 9:35 PM on February 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

Well, I can say that my last Super Bowl was at least entertaining. The more I look at that last play of the Seattle drive the more I think that if Butler had not stepped up, it would have looked like the stuff of genius. Defense is all prepared for stopping the inevitable run and instead Russell lobs a pass in for a TD. Who's gonna stop it, that rookie? That rookie is going to get free drinks and meals in New England for the rest of his life.

Bye bye football, it's been frustrating, it's been exciting. I just wish you could have cleaned up your act but I know damn well you won't until it's too late.
posted by Ber at 9:37 PM on February 1, 2015

Fun fact: That was the 1st time in Super Bowl history that a team down by 10 or more points in the 4th came back to win.

Anyone know if a superbowl has ever ended with the losing team starting a brawl with the winning team? I've seen lots of superbowls, but never any of them with such a nasty and lousy ending.
posted by uraniumwilly at 10:23 PM on February 1, 2015

The Last Days of Football
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:56 PM on February 1, 2015

Agreed uraniumwilly. What a sour end to one of the best Super Bowls I've ever seen. At least we won't have to be reminded of it ever again; dollars to donuts sports media says almost nothing about that, focusing instead on the comeback by New England and the almost-counter comeback by Seattle, thwarted only by incomprehensible play calling.

Still despite that black-eye ending, a hell of a game.
posted by holybagel at 3:39 AM on February 2, 2015

It was ugly, but I do feel like Seattle was gracious in defeat after that point to the degree we can chalk it up to just emotion getting out of hand. If it was a regular season game, it would be nothing. For the Super Bowl, it shouldn't ever happen, but it did.
posted by Drinky Die at 3:55 AM on February 2, 2015

KathrynT: thanks for the offier, but if the references are that easy to find I'll search them out, I presumed this would be a taboo subject that required some very deep digging.

Drinky Die: Thanks for the poiner to "Advanced Football Analytics", much appreciated.

As for when the Seahawks "lost" the game, considering the effect the pass rush appeared to be having on Brady arguably it's when Cliff Avril left....
posted by DancingYear at 5:51 AM on February 2, 2015

DancingYear, if you're also interested in the narrative that goes with the stats, Warren Moon and other black quarterbacks who went to the CFL provide a great example of how black quarterbacks were pushed into any-role-except-quarterback when they reached the NFL.
posted by clawsoon at 8:50 AM on February 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

Did Edelman play with a concussion? (He refused to answer whether or not he was examined for a concussion.)
posted by bukvich at 9:32 AM on February 2, 2015

Biggest ratings ever. Most exciting SB maybe ever. Widespread demographic reach. Yeah. NFL is just withering away....
posted by umberto at 10:28 AM on February 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

And for all the fightiness at the end, mouthy Richard Sherman congratulated Tom Brady as he knelt to defeat his team. Wish MeFi on Android would allow me to paste the link to that pic. It's almost touching.
posted by umberto at 10:49 AM on February 2, 2015

Sherman congratulates Brady.
posted by Etrigan at 11:12 AM on February 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

Mod note: A few comments deleted; tldr there's a fake Twitter account for Marshawn Lynch that's full of racist stuff.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 11:32 AM on February 2, 2015

The Patriots may have looked like they were going all in on the run.

That's what Pete Carroll said, that the Patriots had put in their big beefy run stuffers. The problem with that excuse is that the Seahawks are masters of the read-option, where Russell Wilson can pull the ball from Marshawn and run it himself in the other direction, based on how the Patriots stack their defense.

They could also have run Lynch outside the tackle, or designed a pitch option play, or combined these. Since the Patriots had bigger, slower players jammed in the middle of the field, these would have worked even better than usual.

Instead they threw it to the middle of the field, which the Patriots were filling with unusually big defenders. It worked just as well as you might have guessed.
posted by msalt at 12:07 PM on February 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

Please let me register my displeasure with "sportsball" It is up there with "libtard" in terms of edginess.
posted by josher71 at 2:32 PM on February 2, 2015 [8 favorites]

Indeed. Any game played with a ball will nearly by definition be a sport. Scoreball, please.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 2:43 PM on February 2, 2015