The NFL and the Wizard of Oz humbug

This was the NFL until last Sunday:

I got to thinking along these lines reading a comment on Glenn Reynold's site left by Thomas Wren in which he, having read my post on the suicide of the NFL, responded,

All Mr. Sensing writes is true but peripheral to the main problem. The NFL is in trouble because its product stinks. Its boring, predictable, violent, almost unwatchable.

To which I replied, "Yeah, you're right, and I kind of added that as an update."  Thomas is right - the games are just boring. In fact, pro football has always been boring - actual playing time barely reaches double-digit minutes, according to the Wall Street Journal.

There are 60 minutes of game clock, split into two section of 30 minutes with about 15 minutes in between. A typical football game lasts, however, about 180 minutes from kickoff to final whistle. And in all that time, we get a mere 11 minutes of actual play.

Buddy, that defines boring.

Even so, Americans in their millions have thought that the NFL was the Wizard of Oz, Great and Powerful! Why? How did the NFL come to be so dominant in both our devotion and our money for half of the year? Why did we think that watching a game in which significant moments last fewer than 10 seconds each, with an average of 16 minutes in between, was exciting?

They were exciting because we looked at them through blinkered eyes. They were exciting because we wanted them to be, and so they were.

It was the mythos. Our imagination was fostered and carefully nurtured by the league and the networks to believe with near-religious fervor that something serious was at stake, that the players were larger than life, different from the rest of us, admirable and good - and most importantly, that the team was actually representing us, the residents of the city the team called home (this was explicitly an appeal made by Tennessee's governor to bring the then-Oilers to Nashville, my hometown).

Now all of that has gone a-glimmering. We now know that the Great and Powerful Oz is a fake, a phony, and behind the curtain is only a curmudgeon kicking dirt onto what we hold dear while demanding that we like it.

The NFL (and most pro sports) have always made money by relying on our willing suspension of disbelief, essential to any fictional story. But we are not willing anymore because last Sunday, they themselves pulled back the curtain. Now you and I can't see them as Oz again because now we know there is no there there. The whole enterprise is just a humbug.


Fans are reconsidering facts they ignored before: they are paying enormous sums to be mocked and scorned - at least $40 for a cheap ticket plus costs of parking and time spent in traffic jams, plus $12 beers, $6 hamburgers and $4 or $5 for a scoop or two of ice cream. And for what? They never really asked that question before very seriously, but now they are.

Television viewers see the games now as played under giant shadow that wasn't there before. The games are now political, amplified by willing accomplices at ESPN and to a lesser but still significant degree, the other networks. That receiver who just made the amazing catch and ran through four defenders into the end zone? While he celebrates like he just found a cure for cancer viewers know that he refused even to take the field to pay respect to the police/military/VFW/first responders honor guard presenting the colors. And I am supposed to cheer him and be happy because hey, he runs fast?

A member of a current-events FB group I read posted this today:

This does it for me. I'm totally through with the NFL. An Army vet who served 3 tours in Afghanistan should not be apologizing for having honored his country, his flag, and the memories of his fallen comrades all to appease his idiotic coach and his teammates who have never sacrificed a thing. I can't take this crap any longer. I've loved my Bears since 1974 and they haven't taken a knee (yet, but it's only a matter of time) but I have to put my country above these ungrateful multimillionaire athletes and coaches, and now ungrateful billionaire owners who are spitting in the faces of their customers. So long, NFL. I wish I could say I'll miss you but I really won't.

So now the games are boring and repulsive. And for enormous numbers of us, that's all they'll ever be.

Endnote: This is an interesting perspective.