alt Hacker NewsI vote with my wallet—zero spending on sports, zero time watching sports, zero betting on sports, zero reading about sports. I don’t feel like I miss out on anything. If I had any interest in sports I could go play them for free, but I tend to opt for unorganized outdoor activities.
It boggles the mind how much time and money people spend on this industry.
That said, this is an area where antitrust enforcement would be applicable, if we ever get an admin who’s willing to engage in active trust-busting.
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We also spend so many resources for producing books, movies etc. People are like that spending on useless things.
People can support non-nation-wide leagues and minor league sports. There are many fly under the radar seasonal leagues. Most don’t make much money. A few do. One doesn’t have to support the huge multi-billion dollar teams.
Ironically, anyone who lives in a state with major league sports is pouring beaucoup tax dollars into supporting them. The enormous tax breaks and bonds sold and deals made to establish and build stadiums, attract franchises, and keep them happy enough not to move on. It's staggering.
There are two annual baseball events that I have usually attended in past years. I think Imma skip both of them this year. I have not enjoyed live baseball games in my adulthood. They are a circus of peak capitalist greed, centered around selling merch, cheap booze, terrible food, cheap liquor, gambling, and awful beer. Everyone who stays for at least 7 innings is staggering out, drunk as a skunk. Whether I ride the train home or I get on the roads, I'm positively surrounded by drunk zombie people. Woe betide us if the home team didn't win.
I cannot seem to enjoy myself in the stands. Most other people are appallingly rude and don't care if I'm bothered by them. I went to a Spring Training game one time and I swear that I was somehow targeted by frat boys, who were so obnoxious that the family next to me just moved to another section entirely.
My dad loves baseball. His Baseball Superfan spend is $0 or near it. He hasn't attended a live game since the 1980s, but he watches it all on TV. He simply isn't interested in merch or memorabilia or any of that marketing around it. He simply loves the game in its purity.
Baseball has been a game of moral fiber, respectable players, and good clean fun. But it seems that activists and jerks set out to ruin the experience for people like me. I'm not having it. I'd have way more fun at a punk rock women's roller derby bout.
As someone who has gone back and forth over sports over the years and generally is of the anti-establishmentarian strain of thinking and inherently against sports as a general boring vanilla time sink, I do see the value of having something that folks can synchronize their time and interest to that gives joy to the masses in a shared way that is at least purely entertainment as opposed to something more heated like war.