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Sports Aren't Perfect?

Sometimes It Isn't Only A Game

By ADAM MARKS

As I was sitting in my room watching an opening week football game (in case you missed it, my Buffalo Bills destroyed the New England Patriots 31-0, most likely because I was donning my Eric Moulds’ number 80 jersey) with my roommate and girlfriend, a conversation commenced about the problems with sports. In my world, those two words, problem and sports, don’t belong in the same sentence unless it is “The only problem with the world is that there isn’t enough sports on TV.” Well, maybe my world isn’t quite that sheltered, but I’ve always accepted sports for what they are in my life, entertainment. I find few things more satisfying than sitting in bed on a Saturday afternoon watching college football, and one of those things is sitting in bed on a Sunday afternoon watching professional football. But alas, the bickering of my buddies jolted me enough that I chose to devote my precious space to the topic. There are many different glitches in sports, and in reality it would take this whole issue of The Watch to touch on most of them, so I chose to look at the two I find most pressing, finances and loyalty.

Money. That is the first thing that comes to mind when many people think of professional sports. The numbers are mind-boggling. Alex Rodriguez, possibly the top player in baseball, but a 10 year contract for $252 million dollars, does anyone really deserve that much money to “work” from April-October? Yes, $25 million a year is the exception, not the rule, but besides the fact the minimum salary in most sports is enough for the average four-person family to live off of happily ($287,500 in the NBA and $300,000 in MLB), the average payroll of athletes in the four major televised sports (basketball, baseball, hockey, football) is now over $1 million a year. I have no problem with athletes earning their keep; the problem is that there are professions who don’t earn a PAT percent (for the non-football fans, think about it as a free throw percent, or a solo home run percent, a hockey goal percent, or even 1%) of these athletes. Teachers, police officers, fire fighters, even sanitation workers provide more of a service to the community than do athletes, yet they are the one working extra jobs to support a family, while an athlete can play 47 games in the past three injury-plagued seasons and earn over $35 million (while Grant Hill did go to Duke – my favorite college basketball team, took part in the most fantastic finish of any college game ever, and was a remarkable professional player, his money should be going elsewhere). There is another part of sports today, which is controlled by money, but can be categorized separately.

Loyalty. There are many different types of loyalties in sports, teams to cities, players to teams, teams to players, and of course, fan to teams. Every football fan remembers the great fiasco when the Cleveland Browns (no, not the ones in Cleveland now, the ones currently being called the Baltimore Ravens) picked up and left a city which loved its team so much, half the stadium would be filled with overweight men wearing dog masks and orange construction hats during home games. Art Modell, the owner of the team, was being offered and new stadium and the potential for higher revenue if he moved his team to Baltimore, so after seconds of deliberation on his part, Cleveland lost their franchise. While there is a happy ending in this case (the NFL granted Cleveland an expansion team a few years later, the Cleveland Browns part deux) many teams pick and leave, leaving fans heartbroken (just as many of my friends from home, who still refer to the Caroline Hurricanes as the Hartford Whalers and considering them our home team). The loyalty of players to teams and also the inverse, teams to players, are relationships that are not too common these days. The advent of free agency has allowed players to ditch a team with less of a future for a team with a bright one (cough, cough, Karl Malone). While everyone applauded Malone for taking less money to sign with the Lakers than he commanded on the open market, how about signing with the Utah Jazz for the veteran minimum and allowing them to use all their money to rebuild? Or how about the case of Barry Larkin and the Cincinnati Reds; all Larkin wished was to finish his career with the only team he had every played for and the Reds low-balled him in negotiations (eventually the former MVP came to terms with his employers, after they realized their mistake). The most difficult relationship to understand is that between teams and their fans. Before I can go on, fans, please listen to my advice, no matter how poorly your team plays, NEVER BOO THEM AFTER A GAME. Back the real topic at hand here, fans loving their team. You pick “your team” at a young age; it my be your home team, may be the team with the prettiest uniforms, or the team your favorite player plays for, but this is your team for life. The perfect example of this is Mayor Michael Bloomberg, of New York, who favorite baseball team remains the…BOSTON RED SOX. Bloomberg, a Massachusetts native, has always remained true to his boyhood favorites, even though he is now arguably the most powerful man in the most powerful city in the world. Sports need more people like Mayor Bloomberg (don’t ask me about politics though; I’m just the sports guy).

There are many problems with sports, loyalty and money being just the tip of the iceberg, but people need to realize that we have problems too. We value sports too highly, get too involved, and forget what they really are, entertainment. Fans must have that epiphany for themselves, and as I just have, I’m going to go watch some football.

Adam Marks '06 is Sports Editor for The Watch