Cleveland 41 Kansas City 34

The joy of watching two bad teams play each other.

We Might Need to Stop Using the Term Dog Pile

Malcolm Gladwell wrote a great piece in the New Yorker comparing professional football with dog fighting. Gladwell's point is that dogfighting and football are like because both are predicated on fact that the participants court severe injury to please others. Football players are particularly susceptible to severe long term brian damage. Eventually society deemed dog fighting illegal and abhorrent because the culture at large could no longer stomach getting its entertainment at the price of suffering dogs. Gladwell wants society to look at the immense suffering professional football players go through and wants to consider if our entertainment is worth the suffering of other people.

I find myself torn. I played and continue to like football. However, I have long been aware of the brutal damage the game inflicts on its participants. As the article points out there are few good solutions to stop the brain damage football players endure. The NFL tries to modify its equipment and change its rules to keep its players safe. I applaud this effort and the intent to keep the players safe.

The problem, though, seems to be one of physics. NFL players are bigger and faster then were just a few years ago. When the collide they collide with great force. I once had the opportunity to watch an NFL game from the field, and the speed and violence of the game was frightening to behold. The only way to counter the inherent violence, and the damage it causes, is to shrink and slow down the game. Only by limiting the size and speed of the players can the basic physics of the game be changed.

Losing Our Team

The Jaguars earned their first victory of the season today but the big story in the Times Union dealt with the possibility of the Jaguars one day leaving Jacksonville for another city. The reasons for a possible move are the usual ones of low attendance, tight economy, and TV blackouts.

Jacksonville is not the only city having trouble selling out their games. The Vikings signed Brett Favre in part because they needed a way to drum up sales. Play-off contender San Diego has also experienced problems selling all their tickets. In the past couple of years I have had no trouble buying tickets to games in such such stalwart NFL cities as San Francisco and Kansas City.

I have attended pro football games throughout the South and if the team is anywhere from mediocre to bad it is no problem to get seats for any game. When Tampa was horrible they rarely if ever sold out and unless the Dolphins are really good then there are often plenty of seats available in Miami. In New Orleans I once bought seats on the 40 from a scalper for face value. When I was in seminary the Falcons had a buy 1 get 1 free sale for a game against an NFC champion Rams team that was called "the greatest show on turf." This was normal in Atlanta where fan loyalty runs first to the Georgia Bulldogs and then to everyone else. In Jacksonville, loyalty goes from Florida and FSU and then down to the Jags. The reason people assume the Jags are about to move is because many NFL people believe that Jacksonville does not deserve a team.

The people who run the NFL tend to view its component parts as things to be exploited. They exploit players through use of non-guaranteed contracts and they exploit fan bases and cities by threatening to move in an effort to wring concessions to get more money. The NFL has shown no problems leaving cities with long football traditions like Cleveland, Baltimore, and Los Angeles. The only way to fight this is to exploit the league right back. Every city that I mentioned above would be fine if they no longer had a team. I don't doubt the feelings of grief would immense but the cities would survive.

That is because the cities have been able to deliver diverse offerings of activities to people with different interest. These cities could develop these diverse offerings because an NFL team gave them the aura of being "major league." Since Atlanta got the Falcons they have become a major international city. The Falcons could close up shop tomorrow and Atlanta would be fine.

What Jacksonville should do is quit worrying about the Jags leaving. Right now use the existence of the Jags as leverage to develop diverse attractions. Miami can ignore the Dolphins and be fine because of what South Beach offers. New Orleans often ignored the Saints and didn't care because they have the French Quarter.

The years of the Jacksonville Jaguars parallels the years I have been gone. When I return it is easy to see that Jacksonville has changed and it is no longer a provincial backwater. I am sure that having the Jaguars is a major impetus behind the development. I hope the city leaders of Jacksonville seek not to grow with the Jags but grow beyond needing the Jags.

I guess what I am saying is use the NFL because they sure will use you.

Blackouts

The depressed economy is also affecting sports.  The NFL believes that up to twelve teams could face blackouts.  A blackout occurs when the home team does not sell all of the tickets for the game and the game is therefore not shown on TV in the home team's city.  Bad and mediocre teams in economically troubled areas (like the Detroit Lions) are having trouble.  More surprising is that teams expected to be contenders like the Miami Dolphins, the Minnesota Vikings, and the San Diego Chargers are also facing the likelihood of having games blacked out.

This news hits a little close to home to me because my hometown team, the Jacksonville Jaguars, face the very real possibility of having all eight games blacked out.  Jacksonville is facing blackouts because the team is not expected to do well, they play in the second smallest market, and the stadium is large due to the demand of the college games played there.

I think the idea of blacking out games, especially during economically troubled times, to be ridiculous.  Since I just bought tickets to an NFL game, I know how expensive even the cheapest tickets are.  To deny people a chance to see their favorite team just because they can't afford tickets in tough economic times seems a sure fire way to guarantee a gradual loss of support.

I also believe that the blackout itself is a bad policy.  It was put in place in the 1970's and it was not until the recent decade that just about every game was a sellout.  Often that sellout came because local TV stations and corporate sponsors bought enough tickets to avoid a sellout.  However, I have been to many games that did not come close to selling out and the threat of blackouts did not bring out a rush of people to see the game.  

Between the ever growing expense of game tickets, and the fact the game is structured to be enjoyed on TV, the experience of watching a game at home often surpasses the experience of watching in person.  At home there is no traffic, or expensive parking, or concessions the overcharge, or the possibility of bad weather.  Given that the at home experience compares nicely with the at the game experience, the best idea is to not punish those who stay at home but to find a way to include them in the league's marketing strategy.  

However, since the NFL is run by the type of greedy bastards who sell directly to ticket scalpers and think that people who can't afford to keep their season ticket contracts in bad economic time need to be sued it is unlikely that NFL will go the route I suggested.

All that being said, for a lot of people who root for bad teams not having to watch their team lose on TV might be a blessing in disguise.

Playoffs

I am sympathetic to the idea of a college football playoff and I would support a 8 team playoff that included the bowls.  After watching the NFL  playoffs, I wonder if a playoff system would be any better at determining the best team. 

In the NFC the Philadelphia Eagles will play the Arizona Cardinals.  The Eagles were 9-6-1(the tie coming against the 4-11-1 Cincinnati Bengals) and the Cardinals were 9-7.  A team that wins 9 games in a 16 game season is not a good team.  It is a team that has reached the upper levels of mediocrity.

There are a lot of problems with how college football decides its champions but following pro sports and allowing a team that is slightly better then mediocre a shot at the championship is not the way to go.