Re: Football vs Baseball
- From: "Fred Burton" <fburton@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 10:07:04 -0400
Lee Harris wrote in message ...
>http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=4387
>
>couple of my thoughts...
>
>1) as an Englishman, brought up on BBC Sport (and even Sky now) it's very
>very hard for me to watch US coverage of sports a lot of the time - just an
>unfathomable amount of breaks in the action and commercials. Not to mention
>a never ending stream of dummy "reporters", way too much babbling before,
>during and after the game by people talking hot air, it really is a clash
of
>cultures that's hard to explain properly. Even stuff like golf I just
cannot
>stand to watch it anymore on US networks compared to the BBC where there
are
>no commercials - at all - no breaks in the action, no long buildups to the
>action, and understated commentary, no shouting, "low key" humour that's
>very personal and warm and plenty of quiet space where you just see the
>action and get a terse summary of what just happened. Marvellous. I guess
>it's just what you know!
It is just what you know, Lee. ;)
That said, you have to remember that American TV networks are for-profit
businesses that make their money
by broadcasting commercials. Commercials are the price you pay for
otherwise "free" TV.
>
>2) I really don't care for how the NFL has changed, watered down parity,
>it's all a bit false and engineered for me, and seems actually a bit
>contrary to the American ideals of free commerce. I suppose everyone thinks
>the "good old days" were better, so I suppose my fondness for the 1980s is
>based on that, and because that's when I started watching the NFL, but I
>think the combination of free agency and caps just means you care less
about
>your teams/players because they change jerseys every other year. To me,
>that's really not good. Plus, I must be getting old before my time because
>the "in your face", "punk" culture, the "bling" and "MTV" style posing,
>talking and acting just makes me switch right off. Hey - that's coming into
>our sports over here too, so I'm not taking a pop at the US in particular.
>
>
Actually, I think that the NFL is better now than in the past. parity means
that every team has a chance
and is not determined by which cities have the largest fan bases and can pay
the most money, as in MLB.
If not for the current setup of the NFL, I think that a team like the Green
Bay packers would have been long gone
since there's no way that it would have been able to compete with NYC teams
or those from other big NFL markets.
That said, there are things about the current NFL culture that I don't like
on which we agree. The "in your face" crap, to be specific.
.
- References:
- Football vs Baseball
- From: Lee Harris
- Football vs Baseball
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