No Fun League(s)

In honor of the midterm elections, I am going to proclaim my frustration to officials about how the voice of the people is being ignored. No one is actually thinking about the public when decisions are made for the "best interest" of the country. It is time to take a stand once and for all. \nThe integrity of sports is being lost in commercialism and bureaucratic nonsense.\nThis epiphany came to me while watching the matchup between the Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins Sunday. Amidst my roommate's cries for Mark Brunell's head on a stake, I noticed the NFL's new celebration rule taking form. Following a Terrell Owens touchdown, the loud-mouthed receiver applied his creative talents to his post-score celebration by "sleeping" in the endzone, using the pigskin as a pillow. Cute, but Owens was flagged for excessive celebration for leaving his feet. \nNo Fun League indeed.\nSuch a rule is garbage. When they made the change, Paul Tagliabue and his cohorts forgot the most important law in creating a safe and fun environment in sports: It's all about the fans. The fans want to see these celebrations, and it's certainly not immoral or immature to celebrate creatively. \nSomething else caught my attention while watching football Sunday. That stupid John Mellencamp commercial was literally played four times in five minutes. I was close to starting a riot outside Mellencamp Pavilion. Like we don't already know Mellencamp made bank from his song and Chevy's outlandish advertising efforts.\nThis commercialism, coupled with restrictions to the game, attacks the integrity of the sport. The fan is getting bludgeoned by new rules, new commercials and new television tricks. The game itself is being presented as the add-on, not the focal point.\nTake technology in today's media, for example. They can show various angles on the football field while following a play. Or they can manifest a conventionally inconsistent strike zone with FOX Track, where morons like Tim McCarver play the senile card and still ineffectively color the game. I am impressed with all the toys these channels can throw at me, but I just want to watch the game as it is. \nLook, we know the NFL is the stallion of sports leagues, putting to shame the traditionalist MLB, the misguided NBA and the forgotten NHL. But things are being taken to another level. My gripes are with the very core of each league, which makes rules and markets its game without appreciating those who invest in every aspect of the game: the fans.\nThe NFL is a commercialized brand, flaunting the world's most affluent athletes while beating fans over the head with new sponsors each week. Even worse, the league restricts the spontaneity of the players while they risk their livelihoods playing the dangerous sport. If football is the new American pastime, our standards have hit the crapper.\nThe MLB has years to make up following the steroid debacle. Baseball keeps losing ratings. This year's World Series was at an all-time low in ratings for a national broadcast. Simply put, between labor strikes and scandals, fans have lost touch with their original pastime.\nThe NBA, too, has lost its way. Commissioner David Stern has traded in the traditional ball in favor of a more marketable synthetic one and has imposed a dress code. Maybe he should embrace the culture of the league through its players and fans instead of imposing harsh rules that prevent players from being themselves.\nThe poor NHL is just the little band geek trying to find its way into the popular crowd. Though it has good intentions, the lack of physicality in the new game deviates from the very essence of the sport. More people should go out and see an NHL game, but it's kind of hard to follow a team when home games do not even broadcast within the home city (cough, Blackhawks, cough). \nIt just seems like each league tries too hard. They don't take care of their priorities, which are their players and their fans. They make their rules assuming the best interest of the fans when they don't know crap about the fans' best interests. They should just tone down the commercialism and let the splendor of the game take over. But that's just a wish.