The New "American Pastime"

Ladies and gentlemen, it's that time of the year.  FOOTBALL is back!!!! High School, College, and Pro football games(that count) will begin this week.  America's Obsession with the NFL is at a an all time high.  Fantasy football leagues are popping up on computer screens more than zits on a 13 year olds face.  There are billion dollar football stadiums rising from the earth in Dallas (Cowboy Stadium), and San Francisco (Levi's Stadium).  The profits for NFL merchandising are astronomical. According to The Licensing Letter, a New York based trade publication, The NFL exceeded 3 billion dollars is merchandise sales last year.  That figure will most certainly grow in 2013.  NFL games air; Mondays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays, on 4 different networks throughout the season.  ESPN devotes more of their resources towards the NFL than any other sport. The NFL fans viewing experience is enhanced by the NFL Network and NFL Redzone.  The spectacle that is the Superbowl leads to epic parties, filled with more wings and dip that can possibly be consumed by mere mortals.  But I digress.  How and when did the NFL become "America's new Pastime?"  Some may point the the ugly Major League Baseball strike of 1994; which allowed the NFL to be the the center of the sports world.  Was it the diminishing interest in the original gladiator sport, Pro Boxing? I dint think you can't pinpoint the moment when the NFL became "America's new Pastime."  I liken it to falling in love with a beautiful woman.  You can't pinpoint the moment when you fell in love, you just know.  America is way past the lust phase when it comes to the NFL.  America didn't just get the NFL pregnant, we married it too.  So;

as we draw closer to opening weekend in the NFL, I just would like to say.  Go 9ers!!!!!

The cash cow; better known as college football

Collegiate athletics consist of two types of sports;  Revenue and non-revenue.  The Revenue Sports are football and Men's basketball. These two sports generally fund the entire athletic departments at major universities. College basketball while popular, doesn't produce monetarily like college football does.  The Cash Cow; known as College Football,  rules the land.  College football is religion in certain parts of America.  In Alabama where there are no professional sports teams, college football is king.  Between The University of Alabama and Auburn University; the state of Alabama has the last 3 national championships in football.  The University of Nebraska has a rich tradition in college football as well. The Cornhuskers have national championship pedigree and rich tradition on the gridiron. These are just two examples of places in America where college football is king.  Excessive demand and rabid fan bases of major universities; have allowed The 5 major conferences to cash in with extremely lucrative TV deals. The 5 major conferences are: The SEC,(South Eastern Conference) The ACC, (Atlantic Coast Conference) The PAC 12, (Pacific 12) The Big 12, and the Big 10.  These five conferences have signed TV rights deals in excess of 15 Billion dollars.  The insane popularity of college football is the catalyst for these huge tv contracts.  Olympic sports such as swimming/diving, and soccer are funded by universities with the revenue from the cash cow; college football.  Lucrative TV contract allow conferences to evenly distribute wealth among their member schools.  The cash cow; college football keeps athletic departments afloat.  Revenue from college football makes it possible for universities to have bowling teams, and to my surprise bass fishing teams.   College football is the de facto minor league of the Most popular professional Sport; The NFL.  The NFL is a cash WHALE, but being a cash cow is such a bad thing either.  

Performance Enhancing Drugs in Baseball. Does anyone still care?

The latest performance enhancing drug scandal to hit Major League Baseball has me wondering, does anyone still care?  Baseball is a game of numbers and statistics.  Batting average, home runs, RBI's, steals. These are all stats that baseball purest hold near and dear to their hearts. The names: Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Hammering Hank Aaron, Ted Williams, and Willie Mays.  All mythical in baseball lore.  Those names are just a few of the all time greats to ever play baseball.  All of these players compiled hall of fame numbers; presumably free of any performance enhancing substances.

Baseball purist would argue; the players of today could never be of the same stature as the players of baseball's golden years. Purest would argue; PED's have tarnished the record books of "America's Pastime." Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens were two of the greatest players of their generation. Neither player ever failed a drug test, but everyone presumes that they "juiced." Both players have hall of fame statistics, but the cloud of PED's hover over their career's.  Clemens has 354 career wins as a pitcher.  Bonds has a major league record 762 career home runs.  That record was previously held by the aforementioned Hank Aaron.  These numbers are etched into baseball's record books.  Both Clemensand Bonds statistics were most likely obtained with the aid of PED's. My question is; does anyone really care?  MLB refuses to change any statistic held by any alleged; or proven PED user.  Baseball fans are knumb to the issue of PED's at this point.  I've been a Baltimore Oriole fan my entire life. Two of my favorite Orioles players growing up were Brady Anderson and Rapheal Palmeiro. Both players "juiced" in their primes.  Ask me if I care.  Not in the least!  All I remember are the home runs they (Anderson & Palmeiro) hit to deep center in Camden Yards.  I'm not a purist.  I wasn't heartbroken to find out Alex Rodriguez used PED's for most if his career. A-Rod's has over 600 career home runs.  Who knows how many of those homers were aided by his PED use.  News flash MLB.  Most Americans are to busy thinking about fantasy football to even pay attention to this latest PED revelation.  Baseball is #3 in the hearts and minds of Americans.  In the famous words of Ricky Bobby.  "If you ain't first, then you're last." So again I ask; PED's and baseball, does anyone still care?

How sports changed the world, yet it remains the same.

The world we live in can, and has been divisive since the beginning of time.  Race, class, sex, religion, etc.  All these things separate us.  We all belong to one race, the human race.  The human race can be cold and callus, yet loving and caring.  Hateful and hopeless, yet strong and resilient.  This is the conundrum of life.  The things I listed previously that should bring us together, often times tear us apart.  So, what does bring people together in a way that race or religion can't?  SPORTS!  Some artifacts and structure suggest that the Chinese engaged in sporting events as early as 2000 BC.  From the Ancient Olympic Games to our modern games, different people have come together to participate on SPORTS.  Sports has always been ahead of main stream society in terms of integration and exclusiveness.  Jack Johnson was heavyweight boxing champion of the world, during a post civil war America.  Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball while blacks in America were lynched and segregated against.  Former female tennis star Martina Navratilova came out publicly as as a lesbian in 1981 during the height of anti-gay sentiment.   All of these amazing athletes were pioneers of change not only in sports, but the world.  Society can be slow to make change.  I've always thought that sports and those who play them understood the need for change and progression.  We've  come a long way as a society because sports has shown us how to live and play TOGETHER.  As I type this, I'm looking at a YouTube video of the first Black President of the United States(Barack Obama).  50 years ago no one could even image a black president of our good ole USA.  Don't get me wrong, inequalities still remain.  So much of the world has chaged since the times of Earl Lloyd, the first black NBA player for the Washington Capitals in 1950.  So much has changed, yet so much remains the same.  

Daimeon S. Banks