Tuesday, March 8, 2011
AMERICA'S FAVORITE SPORT IS...
No, not baseball, and no... not NASCAR racing. Professional football has grown tremendously over the recent decades into an estimated 9 billion dollar industry. Yes, there's uncertainty with the current collective bargaining agreement, but NFL headlines like Brett Favre has "finally" retired, Tiki Barber has unretired (are you kidding me?), the NFL Draft, and even more mundane stories like Braylon Edwards going to court for a DUI and stating he wants to stay with the Jets goes further to show how fascinated America is with football. So many families gather grill and to watch football on Super Bowl Sunday it is practically a holiday/American ritual. I myself am football crazy, I honestly don't know what my life would be like without it.
I think what's most unique about football is the grittiness and violence that drives the players onto head on collisions and tackles. Normally, people don't look at a soccer player and say, "Wow, that guy's a bad ass." But man, if I see someone like Ray Lewis laying someone out and then stomping and screaming, I'm on the verge of pissing my pants. If you don't get what I'm talking about, watch the video up top. I'm sure most of you get some thrill from watching players get trucked and tackled right off of their feet. Even when people are being carried off the field, I can't help be still excited but think how brutal of it hit that was.
Now that we have talked so much about this innate human attraction to violence in class, I think it seems pretty obvious why football is beloved by so many people and is continuing to rapidly grow. I know I'm addressing supposedly well-mannered, intelligent, Ivy League students, whose sports interests allegedly lie somewhere in the area of polo or croquet, but come on, who doesn't love football?
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This post got me thinking about a short-lived (but awesomely violent) NFL spin-off: the XFL. Essentially a real life version of NFL Blitz, the XFL appealed to people attracted to the violence of football and the entertainment of professional wrestling. Though it sucked for the most part, the XFL did generate a lot of hype as a more violent NFL.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, the recent fines imposed by the NFL on James Harrison create a sort of paradox in the violent image of the sport. Though the best parts of football are the most violent parts, the NFL still has a responsibility to ensure the safety of its players. Where does the NFL draw the line, and where do WE draw the line, on what is an 'acceptable' amount of violence
America's infatuation with football is apart of our culture. We love to see freaks of nature beat the hell out of each other on any given Sunday. But behind all of these massive hits in football we still need to think about the long-term physical effects of a sport like this. When I graduated in high school we got to give 'senior speeches' to all the other football players and the one thing I stressed was protecting your body. I broke my leg during a football game my junior year and still haven't fully recovered. It's a very violent game with short-term and long-term physical and mental repercussions. But that's why we all love watching it.
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ReplyDeleteThe violence of football is something that I think gets in the way of how I view the sport. I don't know much about football so please forgive me when I say this but I think the violence holds the sport back. I don't like how their playoff system works. Playing one game and having your whole season thrown out the window because you lost ONCE to a wild card time is such bullshit to me. However, I do recognize that these players cannot afford to play best of 7 every time they play a team in the playoffs; their bodies most likely could not take all the wear and tear. The problem with being used to aestheticized violence is that we forget that it has real effects. These men who put their bodies on the line will forever remember the hits we celebrate albeit for a different reason;they were the ones on the receiving end of many vicious hits.
ReplyDeleteCmc,
ReplyDeleteI completely sympathize with you. I played football in high school and was even going to in college and decided not to for personal reasons. However, during my high school years, I tore both my rotator cuffs, dislocated my neck, and have had a variety of knee and ankle injuries. That was only high school, and I can already feel the toll its taken on my body. I can't imagine the horrific injuries in college or the NFL and how much worse they may be. As much as I love the violence of football, it definitely is a concern.
Football is the only team sport that I enjoy. It's raw physicality and sudden bursts of violence appeal to me in a way that other sports which don't have the same kind of physical contact like soccer or baseball don't. I like what Camille Paglia said about it, comparing it to baseball, in an interview.
ReplyDelete"Baseball is an intellectual game, but the center of the culture is football. A lot of Jewish men don't get it, but most men-not men of the cultural elite or the literati--love football. Why? Because it's about the masculine. We are in this industrial-capitalist period, very safe, at least, relatively safe. We think we can do without the masculine. But we respond to it. Even straight men who are looking at sports are responding. It's not sexual, but it is sensuous. I think there is a sensuous appreciation of beautiful bodies and sports. No one gives a fuck about women's group sports--it embarrasses me to see women's basketball. But men bonding on teams is the essence of human history."