FogBlueInSanFran
Well-Known Member
1. Americans don’t give a shit about All-Star games in American sports.
2. Skills competition are at least more interesting and fun to watch. The dunk contest in the NBA; the home run derby in baseball — there’s some appeal. That said, no one really cares about them either.
3. This isn’t so much a stupid idea as it is stupid that this douche would even raise it as an idea publicly in the first place, as if he has some ingenious way to improve something the English are too dumb to see. “Hubris” and “idiot” are two words that sometime rhyme.
4. Americans sports owners think of themselves and the league’s finances collectively because they are all part owners of effective monopolies. They as a rule are anti-athlete and anti-fan. They want to play the most games, pay the least and charge the most and have monopoly power to do so, or would if pro athletes in every major sport weren’t unionized. Some individual owners of English clubs think like this, but many don’t, because they understand the importance of the connection to the community and therefore the fans. American sports franchises were mostly concocted out of thin air (“markets”); English clubs were working class athletic organizations with deep roots in their hyper-local areas. The fact that otherwise smart billionaires can’t figure this out is and should be annoying if not infuriating culturally. It is to me, and I’m not even English.
I don’t blame any of you for beating him with a stick. He deserves it.
2. Skills competition are at least more interesting and fun to watch. The dunk contest in the NBA; the home run derby in baseball — there’s some appeal. That said, no one really cares about them either.
3. This isn’t so much a stupid idea as it is stupid that this douche would even raise it as an idea publicly in the first place, as if he has some ingenious way to improve something the English are too dumb to see. “Hubris” and “idiot” are two words that sometime rhyme.
4. Americans sports owners think of themselves and the league’s finances collectively because they are all part owners of effective monopolies. They as a rule are anti-athlete and anti-fan. They want to play the most games, pay the least and charge the most and have monopoly power to do so, or would if pro athletes in every major sport weren’t unionized. Some individual owners of English clubs think like this, but many don’t, because they understand the importance of the connection to the community and therefore the fans. American sports franchises were mostly concocted out of thin air (“markets”); English clubs were working class athletic organizations with deep roots in their hyper-local areas. The fact that otherwise smart billionaires can’t figure this out is and should be annoying if not infuriating culturally. It is to me, and I’m not even English.
I don’t blame any of you for beating him with a stick. He deserves it.