Circuses

Bread's expensive, and so are sports

Here in America, saying “I don’t watch sports” is like a slap in the face to someone you are trying to talk to. You must be some kind of snob or weirdo to not love competition! Sorry, sports fans: you’re obsessed and it’s not our problem. Those of us who don’t need it are occupied otherwise; entertaining themselves with something else on TV, or reading, learning, making art, being a pain in the ass to the detriment of the system, perhaps listening to or making music. Or typing jeremiads that no one will read like this. But sports, like the weather, is something to bond over with anyone briefly when you are otherwise empty inside.

Fair to say that conversation can be daunting. And the easiest way to break the ice is blather about something completely meaningless. And you sports addicts can do it like you were programmed at birth to understand sports; you know all the players, the positions, the plays, all the teams. Some of you like stats (this I can respect a little). You have no clue who the Speaker of the House is, and I suppose you couldn’t care less. After all, what the fuck can you do about all that shit?

That is exactly how the ruling class likes you to think. Give up, watch some millionaire dribble and fade. Fixate on strange provincial things like where a team is from or why you hate another team’s owner or how a shit referee decision cost who you are rooting for the game. What the fuck is rooting, anyway? Hogs do this…let me consult a dictionary for how that term for hoping a team wins entered the lexicon.

Well. I wasn’t expecting all that.

As you might expect, the primary definition regards the various things that plants do. Kind of like how you are glued to that couch, this type of rooting, except you can yell at the TV and plants cannot. But the word “root” has a ton of usage; where you are from, for example, is your roots. This is often how you pick your favorite team, and often how you pick your religion. It is a term used in math, computers, music, even shipbuilding. You can use the word idiomatically for removing something, rather than planting. And yes, it is what hogs do when they turn up the ground for something to eat.

Rooting for a team to win is, unsurprisingly, an American contribution to the lexicon. It appeared at the close of the 19th century, and is believed to be derived from the word "rout”, which I guess you sports junkies are clamoring for as long it’s “your” team, however the fuck you make that decision.

There are costs to rampant sports addiction and proliferation; you have to have had one helluva day at the racetrack or hit it big on a scratch-off to afford many sports events live. Stadium prices from everything to tickets to concessions have exploded exponentially. Most of you will have to take the nosebleediest seats instead and stream ESPN or the myriad networks that have rights to your preferred sport that will also pick your pocket. Only the well- off get a box seat. As a music fan, I have had to watch the same gouging dynamics at the box office and the venues. In a good deal of mid- size to large venues, once you are inside, consider yourself fucked if you want a drink or a lousy pretzel. Thankfully, there are still small venues where you can see great bands, even legends for a relative pittance. For example, I just saw Jon Spencer play at Atlanta’s Wild Heaven Brewery (great beer, and the taqueria in there is out of this world) for under $35; those who know how important Jon’s work was to noise rock and pigfuck get what a bargain that was to be close enough to Jon that I might actually have been able to take a whiff of his pant leg, baby.

Community exploitation is key to filthy rich team owners. The Chiefs recently got billions in public money to build their new stadium, nearly two-thirds its cost. The Commanders also got a sweetheart deal in DC, where the city coughed up 1.1 billion to get its new stadium erected. And they will live rent- free there for 30 years. The transportation system is inadequate to convey the fans, and it needs 8,000 parking spaces.

The calculation of the politicians is that perhaps they can go into the black with sales taxes and create jobs, for example. But there is yet another hidden cost to stadiums; it sometimes disrupts and displaces lower income households, triggering gentrification. What indeed could some of these metros do for their citizen’s spaces with the billions they shovel out for monolithic fucking football stadiums? It’s lazy city planning.

Patronizing toxic enterprises is something we all do. I still haven’t quite figured out how to get out of the Amazon finger trap, for example. But make no mistake, sports is not an innocent enterprise. And the way it infiltrates itself into every fucking conversation you have should alarm you a little. The addiction to it may be real.