Zebra sniping

This blog rarely strays into the discussion of sports. Beyond the odd political analogy there is simply no reason to do so. Sports, especially the pros, are the distraction that keeps the plebeians bedazzled and divided. Entertainment in all its guises are the massive Bread and Circuses show soothing the rightfully angry masses. Only not a free spectacle put on by elites out of civic virtue and competition for popular affection, but a profit-manufacturing center that by now is a central support of the American economy.


Orwell wrote in 1984 that only the Thought Police need be efficient in Oceania, nothing else really mattered. Contemporary America has need not just for a brutally efficient state and private security apparatus to crush the odd uprising, but an equally efficient public relations and entertainment media sector to prevent uprisings in the first place. The increasingly brazen lies from the PR industry and their waning hold on the public will have to wait for another post. Entertainment has taken body blows as well, mostly self-inflicted, from digital downloading of music to utter lack of originality for Hollywood (really, a remake of Red Dawn?) and bad to worse reality TV series (Jersey Shore?). Cannot bring myself to shed a tear. Then there is pro sports... And the NFL...

Let's be clear, the National Football League has exactly one thing to sell: the ephemeral spectacle of their games. Thirty one assorted goofball billionaires or consortium's of plutocrats and one publicly-owned team competing for a truly zero-sum slice of pie. Each week, half the teams win and half lose. Even the Super Bowl is one game, exactly the same as all the others when you strip the outsized glamor and glitz surrounding it. Sure, there are concessions and merchandise, etc. but without the games there really is nothing. And all of it is driven by the willingness of fans to tune in or pay the enormous ticket costs. If the product suffers, as we shall see in a minute, the fans get upset and may start to see through the spectacle to see the man behind the curtain.

The moment may have arrived with the lockout of the professional officials by the NFL. Football can survive bad players, bad teams, even a bad rule change if it is applied evenly. But now it is clear what can ruin the fun, amateurs uniformly issuing bad calls across the league. These scab officials are an arbitrary mess, able to swoop in and distort games in ways I had not imagined possible just a year ago. Yelling at the refs and complaining about bad calls is an American pastime similar to rubbernecking traffic accidents. But that was before, now the officiating is so bad that NFL games are practically unwatchable.

The dispute has dragged on. Here is a good description from Jeff MacGregor in ESPN about a month ago:

Thus does the least-loved labor struggle in sports history proceed. What are they fighting over? What does the NFL want? What does the NFL Referees Association want? Who knows. It changes with every press release. And whatever you hear in public from either side of a labor negotiation about a specific demand or concession is spin, strategy, a lie.
Nutshell: Management wants to give the union less of something. The union wants more of it. The union wants less of something. Management wants more. That's it.
Just remember: This isn't a strike. It's a lockout. The owners are trying to teach the officials a lesson. For a league with revenues far north of $8 billion a year, the petty cash in dispute is laughable. Especially when you consider there are only 119 NFL officials. And that they're employed part time. (emphasis mine)
 

 Perhaps management and the bougeious owners have finally touched the third rail? Derek Thompson in today's Atlantic summed up just how laughable the NFL's attempt to "teach the officials a lesson" has become:

Last night on Monday Night Football, the Seattle Seahawks rookie quarterback Russell Wilson threw an interception in the endzone to lose the game to the Green Bay Packers. Then he gloriously threw up his hands, celebrated with ecstatic teammates, and watched his kicker put the extra point through the uprights, sealing a Seahawks victory.

Wait, what?

Yes, exactly. With the league's officials locked out due to a labor dispute with the NFL, the replacement referees called the interception a touchdown. Basically, the defender caught the pass, but the wide receiver put his hands around the ball to make it look like a shared catch, and under the tie-goes-to-the-runner principle, the refs called it a touchdown -- even after a video review. The TV announcers were apoplectic. Several appeared on the verge of tears. The Packers looked vaguely murderous. Even the prudish ESPN ran the indignant headline "Replacement refs decide game."

But, as Thompson points out, the NFL has no reason to negotiate whateveritis that caused them to toss this all-important cog under the bus as long as we keep watching. So, however hard it is, however much you need the escape, it is time to change the channel.