05 February 2011

On Professional Sports

This weekend they came fast and thick: telephone calls, emails, text messages, each one inviting me to a private football soirée. And by football I mean the game of American football, derived from English sports traditions, whose finale, or what I believe is popularly known as 'The Superb Bowl', is scheduled for tomorrow evening.

Will I be attending? Most definitely not. You must be joking. I have tea to drink and six hours' worth of Downton Abbey DVDs to watch. My official excuse is that I am recovering from a particularly stubborn cold and need to rest, which happens to be true. I might go for a walk along the beach and watch the sunset.

In my line of work professional sports is a common topic of conversation, not only amongst colleagues but also clients. I fake it but can only go so far. I would much rather talk about the economy, books, politics, philosophy, music, and scientific topics. In other words, subjects fit for civilised adult human beings. But society on both sides of the Atlantic has been dumbed-down and infantalised. When St. Paul said put away childish things surely he was referring to the mindless consumer-drones of modern liberal democracies.

Professional sports is for mind-fucked proles of all socio-economic strata. It is an industry and its motives are purely economic, which in itself might not be wrong, but its effect on adult men and women is. It is a massive distraction, a time-waster, a money pit, a foolish spectacle preventing people from addressing the real issues festering in the next room.

Moreover, most of the participants on the pro-sports plantation bear no biological or cultural relation to me. They are badly-behaved nobodies, spoiled sub-hominids with too much money and too much freedom. There is no basis for connection or common identity. I am more likely to wear t-shirts bearing the slogan of my local grocery store or petrol station. As political entities such as the US and the UK continue to fracture and fall apart, succumbing to the multi-cult virus, perhaps the pro-sports industry will represent the only thing moronic mixed populations have in common and assume even greater importance as a result? A question to ponder, I think.

Indeed the demographic transformation of professional sports in the last few decades might help explain declining viewer numbers among certain groups in the US. In the UK professional football clubs such as Chelsea are increasingly composed of imported Africans and Arabs. In last year’s World Cup the French squad was heavily infested with non-French players, which probably contributed to its humiliating exit from the tournament. In sports as in politics and war: diversity is weakness, unity is strength.

Allow me to be candid for a moment. The occasionally intense nature of my articles is due not to wine and codeine, as is widely supposed, but to scarcely suppressed hot rage that I shape and compress into brief lines of prose as best as I can. In this regard I should tell you it angers me to no end to see grown men, whose ancestors conquered continents, trecked to the Poles, built machines, invented computers, and landed on the Moon, submit in this manner. And yet there they are, sitting in front of the television: hands held in prayer, voices raised in worship, assuming a posture of adoration, veneration, and total subjugation. Truly, we live in the era of the Last Man. It is for my benefit as well as theirs, you will understand, that I pretend tomorrow is just another preposterous illusion.

14 comments:

Ford said...

Cheers to the illusion.

Ford said...

I am reminded of a quote from an article by Jeff Gordinier. Hell, maybe you posted this and I forgot. Nevertheless:
"Years ago, a man who had matured beyond a certain age automatically knew how to do things. He knew how to mix a perfect Rob Roy, how to shine his brogues, how to woo a woman with no other weapon than his own wit, how to dress for a power breakfast with his boss; he knew, furthermore, how to spell, how to keep his pants from sagging, and how to shut the fuck up in a public space... Maybe if we all try just a little bit harder, the modern American man can be more than the chucklehead we see on countless sitcoms and commercials, crop-dusted with Doritos crumbs and stupefied in front of the flat-screen."

LLP said...

Can't say that I agree with the reasoning, but I concur with your sentiments about professional sports as a money making thing.

Anonymous said...

Bread and circus for the Proles (read Orwell's 1984). Neanderthals with too much male testosterone and cheap domestic beer.
Why would one want to watch goons and thugs fumble about for several hours?

Why does the "center" continually submit himself to be violated by their leader? Is this their way of paying respect to the only literate member of the group?

Anonymous said...

Mon Amiral,

Here's a link to the full Gordinier article mentioned by M. Ford:

http://www.details.com/culture-trends/critical-eye/200702/why-it-is-time-for-men-of-america-to-act-like-gentlemen?printable=true&currentPage=3

Old School said...

Any opportunity to distance oneself from louts and thugs should be welcomed.

Anonymous said...

My sentiments exactly. Which "brand" will win today?

initials CG said...

Well, f£$%ing A!!!

Better written, than I ever tried.

Play sports until you break several bones, then let's see you act like a total schmuck in front of the tv...

Old surfers don't watch, they cringe...

ADG said...

The current dynamics manifest in professional sports is exactly why I'm reading blogs at 6:22pm instead of glued to the television on Super Bowl Sunday.

A.E.F. said...

Admiral, Bring back pankration for the masses while the rest of us go fox hunting...

Derek Warren said...

I concur in full. Here's to the poor idiot wearing a team jersey bearing the name of another man. The world, I suppose, needs him, too.

Anonymous said...

You get an A+ for this post.

Robert Webber said...

Well said, Admiral.
To a non-sporting Brit it is a complete non-event!
Best
R

Anonymous said...

Right on!