- Joined
- Sep 10, 2006
- Messages
- 16,824
- Reaction score
- 35,194
This is the way of the future for competitive sports leagues.
The public airing of dirty laundry in response to being humiliated for not knowing the rules. Sports media rushing to put even the most minor infraction under a microscope to build a story if the team guilty of the infraction has national notoriety.
There is no more 'good old boys club'. There is no more settling scores on the field. It's about high-profile coaches and teams who are humiliated by losing finding anything they can to undermine the victory by their opponent. There's too much money at stake, too much pride on the line. Coaches and GMs won't default to looking in the mirror at what they've done wrong or looking at their roster. Not at first, anyways. First, loaded up with sour grapes, they'll run to the NFL and the media to say it's the fact that the other team lined up wrong, or had footballs that had a tiny bit less air in them. That's why they lost.
This is the generation who grew up being told how special and gifted and talented they were by their babyboomer parents who were overcompensating for the lack of the same they received from their depression-era parents. And now those kids, who have had the 'You are just so special!' creedo pounded into their head find themselves in positions of power in the most lucrative and high profile sports league in the country. And, come to find out, they can't just succeed in a competitive league merely by being who they are. This thought, incomprehensible on some subconscious level, forces them to find the 'real' reason they lost. It's not that the other guy was better, it's that he cheated. Liking a football softer or harder isn't preference, it is a major competitive advantage and the only reason why they won! And the only thing to do is to tattle.
And so, because social media is so prevalent and serves to create national storylines out of a drunk guy's tattoo or a cat that looks grumpy, it becomes the perfect platform to take an issue which is, at worst, the football equivalent of driving 73 in a 65, and turn it into a career-tarnishing megacrisis.
Eventually the Patriots will stop being the most successful franchise in all of sports. Some other team will step into that void and, victims of their own success, will find every aspect of their operation under a microscope and any misdeed, intentional or not, significant or not, will become a national sensation. Media will interrupt programming to report on it, fans of teams who have suffered losses will, green with envy, cry for league sanctions and criminal charges. Minor issues or infractions that would have been scoffed at even just a decade or two ago are now viewed as capital offenses. It's already happening and it will continue to happen at a much higher pace as the public's thirst, born out of envy, for stories that involve anything that discredits a team they don't like is insatiable.
This is the new cry baby sports scene and it's not going to get better any time soon.
The public airing of dirty laundry in response to being humiliated for not knowing the rules. Sports media rushing to put even the most minor infraction under a microscope to build a story if the team guilty of the infraction has national notoriety.
There is no more 'good old boys club'. There is no more settling scores on the field. It's about high-profile coaches and teams who are humiliated by losing finding anything they can to undermine the victory by their opponent. There's too much money at stake, too much pride on the line. Coaches and GMs won't default to looking in the mirror at what they've done wrong or looking at their roster. Not at first, anyways. First, loaded up with sour grapes, they'll run to the NFL and the media to say it's the fact that the other team lined up wrong, or had footballs that had a tiny bit less air in them. That's why they lost.
This is the generation who grew up being told how special and gifted and talented they were by their babyboomer parents who were overcompensating for the lack of the same they received from their depression-era parents. And now those kids, who have had the 'You are just so special!' creedo pounded into their head find themselves in positions of power in the most lucrative and high profile sports league in the country. And, come to find out, they can't just succeed in a competitive league merely by being who they are. This thought, incomprehensible on some subconscious level, forces them to find the 'real' reason they lost. It's not that the other guy was better, it's that he cheated. Liking a football softer or harder isn't preference, it is a major competitive advantage and the only reason why they won! And the only thing to do is to tattle.
And so, because social media is so prevalent and serves to create national storylines out of a drunk guy's tattoo or a cat that looks grumpy, it becomes the perfect platform to take an issue which is, at worst, the football equivalent of driving 73 in a 65, and turn it into a career-tarnishing megacrisis.
Eventually the Patriots will stop being the most successful franchise in all of sports. Some other team will step into that void and, victims of their own success, will find every aspect of their operation under a microscope and any misdeed, intentional or not, significant or not, will become a national sensation. Media will interrupt programming to report on it, fans of teams who have suffered losses will, green with envy, cry for league sanctions and criminal charges. Minor issues or infractions that would have been scoffed at even just a decade or two ago are now viewed as capital offenses. It's already happening and it will continue to happen at a much higher pace as the public's thirst, born out of envy, for stories that involve anything that discredits a team they don't like is insatiable.
This is the new cry baby sports scene and it's not going to get better any time soon.
