Wednesday, June 29, 2011
The Positive Side of not having an NFL season
Increased productivity in America's workforce and increase in GDP.
That's right. Every week, US Employers lose an average of $1.1 Billion dollars per week in worker productivity. And that's only assuming they spend 10 minutes a day on their team.
On another note did you guys see Steve Breston's poem "A League Deferred"? Took me a bit to get through his twang, but as you can see some players are not greedy bastards and understand that it really is the fans that are losing out. The best line for me "I tell the kids to Play 60 when I might not play a minute."
Here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1tPoZLDE_w
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The productivity is one thing. There is also an altogether different angle on the affect the NFL on Sunday's has had on American culture: Religion.
ReplyDeleteWhen the NFL took a real foothold on America in the '90's when capitalism took a firm grip on our throats for good viewership went WAY up for the NFL, passed MLB and Sunday's became Pigskin Day not a Day of Christ. Plus, football games start when church starts on the entire western seaboard, mountain time zones and parts of the midwest. Think guys want to go to church or watch their team play? (Sorry Father Stephen)
Let's talk about how 95% of my circle of friends are basically paralyzed for the weekends from August-February every year because of the NFL. People won't go do ANYTHING outside on a Sunday because "Football is on." This is a major reason I stopped attending Sunday football at No9's. I felt it was a giant waste of perfectly good sunshine when the entire NFL season fell over our incredible time of year in Arizona. It's 65 degrees and sunny and we'd spend 8 hours draining our bank accounts inside watching sports. Great when you are 20 but it drains on you after say...10 years. But it represents exactly what so many in America do every single Sunday. Fantasy sports or just loyalty to their team it still puts an enormous strain on the country where people just become lazy, fat know-it-all's for six months.
If anything the NFL is attributing to the downfall of America more than anything positive they are bringing. Yeah, the downfall due to football. Do we need more thug "role models." At least steroid users are not carrying guns to night clubs and driving around with bodies in their trunks.
If the NFL never returned...I would not miss it. Ok, I'd miss it a little and occasionally have withdrawal symptoms but still...it's taken over people's lives and it needs a trip back to Planet Earth.
WOW!
ReplyDeleteYou sound like you have lived in 'Toona for a while!
I am continually amazed here in Central PA, yunz.
With the NFL, College and High School we have Football on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Thursday! I bet they will push for Wed. soon.
Kids play hockey on Sunday morning and parents are so obsessed with being stupid about raising kids they just go along with it.
People are so out of touch with reality and that is a big part of football, staying out of touch with reality.
No one ever questions a coach or says heck no my kids aren't playing T-Ball on Sunday.
On the other hand.
After putting in a full day most Sunday's by 1 pm, I love coming home and eating lunch while watching the Steelers kick in someone's face with Polamolu blessing his teammates.
The NFL is king, it is religious for many.
And unlike my church, people are willing to spend a ton of money on it. (Idolatry)
Not even a depression will kill the NFL.
Even if they shorten the season, and all kinds of people loss tons of money, the fans will be back the first game.
4000 show up to watch the Steelers practice. Practice, we talkin' about practice? Yes, practice.
40,000 show up for the Blue and White exhibition game at PSU every Spring.
Plus, after October here in PA, most people are glad to be inside.
Gives you more room to run though.
Wow, great posts. Although this blog is supposed to avoid topics like religion I have to agree. One of the benefits of living on the east coast is 1pm games instead of 10am games. The downfall is 8pm games when there on at 5 in AZ. Growing up in Alaska football games started at 9am! I would wake up, watch the first quarter and then go to church. By the time we got home the second round of games were starting. I can remember sneaking out of church and going across the street to my friends house to check the scores and then sneaking back into church.
ReplyDeleteThe point is that the NFL is just an excuse for people to not go to church but it's one of a million excuses why Americans have stopped going. If you get rid of the NFL your not going to see a massive spike in church attendance. People will just sleep in. You said it yourself Jeremy that you don't go to J9's anymore because you'd rather be outside, not rather be in church.
The NFL has definitively changed America for the the worse but it will take a much bigger change in our culture to inflict an increase in church attendance. Changes like people caring about their well being will have to begin. The obsession with sports grosses me out, especially fantasy. I think all sports should stop, including baseball, for at least a year and let America refocus on what's really important.
I wasn't stating that if you end the NFL today that American's would return to church but more that the NFL lead to an increasing number of people NOT going to church on Sunday's BECAUSE football was on. Maybe that's true, maybe not. Just seems that way.
ReplyDeleteYou are right though, I do not go to church on Sundays when I don't watch football but also wasn't saying I would. I'd give you reasons but like you said, let's keep it off religion and on sports. I only brought up religion briefly to point out the affect the sporting nation of the NFL has had on it, for the negative.
Also, to point it out and be clear. No9 football was AMAZING for a number of years. I looked forward to it every week, we had so many great people there and the energy was incredible. I think more than anything I outgrew it as I stopped drinking as much, started doing more outdoors events and got more annoyed with certain people that would come over and outwardly root for a single player on the team that was playing on a team they should hate because of natural alligences (as in I would NEVER root for Romo if he was on my fantasy team. Unless it was rooting for a fractured tibula). Another very annoying trend in the NFL. Less team loyalty, more player loyalty.
The NFL has a lot of great qualities and has done a lot of positive things in the last several years. I just get really burnt with the bashing of MLB because someone is a NFL "diehard" which really just means they have been playing Fantasy Football for 5 years and know every draft pick coming up and don't mind that they are 23 years old and have a beer belly and zero ambitions beyond Sunday Fun Day. Plus, is it really necessary to talk about the NFL all year round on ESPN? Really? Should the NFL Draft really be as big a deal as it is? No. That was retorical. No. It absolutely should not be. But then, I don't like the NFL and 100 million men in America live for it. I'm overruled.
Ya, didn't mean to say anything negative about our religious choices, let's get off this topic. I agree Sunday football has definitely deferred a lot of people away from church.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree with you more with ignorant pukes who obsess about the NFL while also finding time to bash the other sports, especially baseball. I can't even argue why baseball is better with people because it ends up that football is physical aka more manly aka best sport ever.
Jeremy, I urge you to join me this fall and get more involved in college football. It's on Saturdays, it's more fun, and has more tradition. More American. Go Penn State!