The NFL Sux

[Dirty Socialist]

The subsidies. The tax exemptions. The seating licenses. The greedy owners. The endless hype. The drunk fans. The violence. The thugs who play. Sorry, not interested.

[upaloopa]

1. I always wonder what the people are like that

have NFL stickers on their cars and a couple of team flags on either side. And for laughs I tune into sports talk radio. The callers take it so fucking serious I have to laugh.
We go to the beach instead of sitting on the couch watching the big game. My wife and I make a joke out of the fact that "we are missing the big game." Shopping during the Super Bowl is nice too.

[Dirty Socialist]

2. Hmm...

Opiate of The Masses, perhaps?

[upaloopa]

3. Add beer and a greasy steak on the grill and

it could be the poison of the masses.
I never could get into tail gate parties either.

[delta17]

12. In other words,

"Entertainment for people who are beneath me."

How dare those nasty plebes watch sports and drink domestic beer.

[upaloopa]

39. Your words not mine I just don't like sports

On edit:
The people I know who spend a lot of time watching and talking about sports also like shows like storage wars or pawn shop gladiators.

[JonLP24]

31. I'm a huge NFL fan but detest NFL talk radio

They overreact to the short-term, hosted by idiots like Colin Cowherd. I like to talk about strength, weaknesses, strategies but you won't find much insightful stuff.

[longship]

4. I despise US football.

It is a worthless and unnecessarily violent sport. Plus, it takes forever to play a game. They stop every 30 seconds or so. All hat, no cattle. The only other totally useless sport on the planet is basketball, where the entire game can basically be compressed into the last two minutes.

If you want football, it should be played the way the Australians play it. No padding. Continuous action. No violence. End-to-end action on a huge playing field, a cricket pitch.

A nearly perfect sport.

[onethatcares]

7. yes, but they stop every

30 seconds or so to present a commercial for some shit we just can't live without.

[longship]

18. I have never seen that in the AFL.

And one does not see it in baseball either. The commercials happen twice per inning, or unless a relief pitcher has to warm up. (Baseball is zen.) No big deal.

But US Football is all about violence and advertising -- mostly Budweiser, a horrible beverage (Hey! It goes with that so-called sport.) And don't get me started about basketball, a game where the last two minutes almost take longer than the rest of the game, crammed full of commercials, of course.

Aussie rules football only stops when the ball goes out of bounds, and I have never seen it thrown back into play beyond a few seconds. No time for a commercial.

The commercials happen between quarters, and at half-time.

[onethatcares]

27. they actually have

teevee time outs here. No better way to interrupt the flow of the game than to stop it to show some

damn horses tromping through the snow in the name of patriotism and beer.

It's almost like AmBev really cares about the scam.


My cable provider does not offer Australian rules football. My cable provider sucks.

[JonLP24]

33. I disagree about basketball

The entire game matters. If it wasn't the case, then coaches would only show up w/ 2-minutes remaining.

Managing your lineup, countering offensive attacks, pace, every single possession matters and need to be taken care of limiting turnovers and bad shots. Last few minutes usually see the starters, reserves when they get 6-7 minutes are making the most and not thinking, "It doesn't really matter". If they did, teams would see large deficits routinely and w/ the standard deviation lower than other North American major leagues, the possessions matter so much more against the best teams. Conference championships featured the same teams last 2 seasons, 3 of 4 last 3.

I'd argue football is worthless but it is all unnecessary. Attract consumers & viewers to turn a massive profit, no major sports league is any different.

[Travis_0004]

5. Football is my favorite sport

I dont really care if you like it or not, it wont affect me.

[nomorenomore08]

21. Same here. Everyone's entitled to their opinions and tastes.

But I'll still be watching the 49ers this Sunday evening. Possibly with beer in hand.

[fizzgig]

26. yarp

i'm ready to see denver smear kc on sunday.

now that i've said it, it's going to come back and bite us in the ass.

[GummyBearz]

40. yay denver

*Mile-high-five*

It may be a stupid distraction, but everyone is entitled to their own stupid distractions in life. Making a post degrading another persons stupid distraction may be considered its own stupid distraction I suppose... to each their own

[Calista241]

6. College Football FTW!

[Dirty Socialist]

11. Better than pro football

[ProfessorGAC]

30. aka Minor League Football

To each his/her own.

[JonLP24]

34. Lose credibility w/ your economic concerns

While you won't see much subsidies (imagine Oklahoma or Michigan threatening to relocate if they don't get new stadiums) they are a monopsonistic cartel. '

<snip>The most common type of cartel is an agreement among competitors not to sell their product below a fixed price that will generate monopoly profits for the parties to the agreement. But another type of cartel, termed monopsonistic (from the Greek words for “one” and “purchasing of food”) rather than monopolistic (one seller, versus one buyer in a monopsonized market), is an agreement among competitors not to pay more than a fixed price for a key input, such as labor. By agreeing to pay less, the cartel purchases less of the input (and perhaps of lower quality), because less is supplied at the lower price (and suppliers may lower quality to compensate, by reducing their costs, for the lower price they receive).

The National Collegiate Athletic Association behaves monopsonistically in forbidding its member colleges and universities to pay its athletes. Although cartels, including monopsonistic ones, are generally deemed to be illegal per se under American antitrust law, the NCAA’s monopsonistic behavior has thus far not been successfully challenged. The justification that the NCAA offers—that collegiate athletes are students and would be corrupted by being salaried—coupled with the fact that the members of the NCAA, and the NCAA itself, are formally not-for-profit institutions, have had sufficient appeal to enable the association to continue to impose and enforce its rule against paying student athletes, and a number of subsidiary rules designed to prevent the cheating by cartel members that plagues most cartels.

As Becker points out, were it not for the monopsonistic rule against paying student athletes, these athletes would be paid; the monopsony transfers wealth from them to their “employers,” the colleges. A further consequence is that college teams are smaller and, more important, of lower quality than they would be if the student athletes were paid.
- See more at: http://smartfootball.com/grab-bag/is-the-ncaa-a-coercive-cartel#sthash.jLzWbCwB.dpuf

Universities, coaches, television networks make big money off the backs of the ones that are the ones we pay to see. NFL & city shakedowns is a disgusting practice but the NCAA is far more disgusting. At-least NFL players can market their services but NCAA are locked into teams, paid the same as everyone else, and don't even get workman's comp if injured.

[Dirty Socialist]

42. I Agree College Athletes Should Be Paid

[KinMd]

22. Yeah college football has guys to look up to like Jameis Winston

[Calista241]

25. There are bad people in all kinds of occupations.

I'll bet there's an evil basket weaver out there. Maybe a super bad ballet dancer, or pianist.

One dude or one chick doesn't debase a whole sport. Or movement. Or whatever the fuck. If you're looking for that kind of purity, you are probably a dark, lonely person.

[JonLP24]

35. The fact that he is making millions for Florida State

and the NCAA in general bothers me more than him shoplifting.

[nomorenomore08]

23. I can see the appeal, for some, over the pro game.

The games are higher-scoring, the players are young and enthusiastic, and they're not being paid millions of dollars for a fairly inconsequential job.

[LittleBlue]

8. Did someone personally ask you to be interested?

No need to apologize. The NFL doesn't care whether you're interested.

[Dirty Socialist]

10. Fortunately

I am not being taxed to fund the building of a football stadium.

[trumad]

9. I see the last to picked crowd is in full glory.

Go Phins!

[delta17]

13. Miami or Buffalo this weekend?

They are both young teams with lots of talent, but a little raw. I hope I get the game.

[trumad]

14. Me too

[GummyBearz]

41. $1

I have $1 on buffalo!

[nomorenomore08]

24. Hell, I never had much in the way of athletic talent, and I still enjoy watching sports. n/t

[ProfessorGAC]

32. Thus Validating The Attraction

Right? Don't have to have done it to enjoy it.

[hunter]

15. It's a very strange state sanctioned religious cult.

There's really no other way to explain it.

[LittleBlue]

16. Go to any other country

And find the local soccer club. You'll see the same, or even greater, level of intensity. South America and Europe in particular.

[hunter]

17. And?

[LittleBlue]

20. Obsession with sports is universal

Football is one of many cults, and not particularly odd.

[Comrade Grumpy]

19. That's nice. n/t

[RandiFan1290]

28. Panem et Circensus!

For the picked first crowd!

[JonLP24]

29. The first 4 turn me off

Tax exemption seems like an easy fix, the other 3 -- w/ fixed entry & demand for cities to host NFL teams it will continue and no way to stop it. A city says no and the team will go somewhere else -- strengthening future relocation threats.

I understand the hype as it is my favorite sport by far, don't spend much time around drunk fans during a season. I'm fascinating by skill, strategy, and gameplan. I've known real thugs, vast majority of NFL players don't end up on police blotter and the ones that do resemble the same type & rate of arrests as when I was in the military. Occasionally there are serious crimes but mostly DUI, drug use & possession, and unfortunately -- domestic violence is common.

[exboyfil]

37. The problem is that when taxpayers say

no through the democratic process, the politicians still find a way to reach into their pocket (for example the Vikings).

[Inkfreak]

36. Oh well. I love it. Sorry. (nt)

[morningfog]

38. The players have brain damage from the hits.

The brain damage leads to increased violence and weakened impulse control.

[ileus]

44. Go skins!

Mountaineers

and my Sons team The Bears (5th and 6th grade)



I don't care for all the things you mention in your post, but I sure do LOVE the game.