Reluctant sports fan
07/07/14 05:30
Regular readers of this blog know that I’m not much of a sports fan. The games I like best are the ones played by people that I know. I find high school football to be the most interesting level of play in that particular game. I pay attention to the Super Bowl primarily because it is what the people I serve are doing on that particular day. It isn’t at all uncommon for me to watch only the closing minutes of a big game or to check out the scores in the Internet after the game is over so that I will at least be able to engage in conversation with others. Our home isn’t the site of Super Bowl parties or other sport events.
I have a group of friends with whom I meet weekly for bible study. We have been meeting together for many years and over the years we have learned a lot about each other and provided important support fro one another as we journey through life’s many different experiences. But I’m not much at the regular conversations about the Minnesota Twins. Other member of the group are really big fans of the team, know the names of all of the players and watch the drama of the season. I barely know enough to look up the team on the Internet, which I have just done because I will be meeting with the group this week and i need to know at least the minimum of information. The Twins haven’t been having a good season. They are 5th in the American League Central Division with a record of 39 wins and 48 losses at this point in the season. That’s pretty close to the Chicago Cubs’ 38-48 record, which also lands them in 5th place in their division in the National League.
Of course the cubs haven’t even been to the World Series in my lifetime. The last time they won the series was 1908, when they became the first team to play in the series three consecutive times and the first to win back-to-back victories. The Twins have won the series twice in my life, but their most recent victory was a long time ago. There are young adults who are old enough to legally drink in bars who haven’t seen a Twins victory in their lifetime.
I’ve paid more attention to sports in the past few weeks than I have for a long time, inspired by the amazing run of good fortune of the Costa Rica team in World Cup competition. Costa Rica went much farther than the pundits predicted, making it to the quarter finals, where they narrowly lost to the Dutch team on penalties after the Dutch made a risky and surprising decision to pull off a goalie substitution at the very end of the game. The move was either a lucky risk or coaching brilliance, depending on who you talk to. The celebrations in downtown Costa Rica were almost as grand as when Costa Rica was winning matches. Everyone in the tiny country is proud of their team and pleased with a showing that identifies them as winners on the world stage.
Paying attention to the games has given me a theory about why Soccer isn’t as popular in the United States as it is elsewhere in the world. The very thing I enjoy about the game makes it hard for it to become hostage to the really big money of the advertisers. A soccer match is 90 minutes long unless it goes into added time. Even the match that the US team lost to Belgium, which had 30 minutes of extra play was over in 2 1/2 hours. Once a soccer game gets started, it is nearly nonstop action. There are very few stoppages of play. Compare that with college basketball in the US, where there is an advertisement break for every foul called and every timeout. In football we watch an advertisement for every first down. And baseball is more about fidgeting pitchers and dawdling batters who extend the length of the game to a pace of unbearable boredom when watching on television.
All of those breaks in the play means that the games are often more about the advertisements than they are about the competition. I suspect that part of what people like about watching the matches on television is the lack of advertisement interruptions. Once you start watching the game, you have to keep watching - there are no breaks.
That non-stop action also produces an intensity of play that is exciting to watch. Because we have a sense that the competitors are giving the game their all, we get caught up in the tireless that we know they are experiencing. Compare penalty kicks in soccer to a field goal attempt in football. In football you have to endure tons of commercials before the well-rested kicker in a clean uniform trots out onto the field and puts out a few seconds of effort and then goes back to the bench as either a hero or a failure. In soccer, you hold your breath with the penalty kicker as he tries to calm himself, focus on the goal, outwit the goalie and make his kick. It is a real man-to-man competition between players who have been working hard for more than an hour and are nearing the limits of human endurance.
OK it wasn’t quite that way in the Dutch victory over Costa Rica, but I was so caught up with the Costa Rica team that I wasn’t paying much attention to the fresh goalie in his clean green uniform. My mistake.
And since I watched matches on the Internet, I don’t even know the names of the sponsors. There isn’t a web site devoted to World Cup commercials such as exists for Superbowl advertisements. There is an advertisement that was shown in the 1999 Superbowl that I still use as an illustration in lectures. After all of these years I still have to watch the ad to remember the company advertised. And I don’t know if I’ve ever done business with EDS.
I’m still no big sports fan, but watching the world cup this year has given me a deeper understanding of those to whom the games are so important.
I have a group of friends with whom I meet weekly for bible study. We have been meeting together for many years and over the years we have learned a lot about each other and provided important support fro one another as we journey through life’s many different experiences. But I’m not much at the regular conversations about the Minnesota Twins. Other member of the group are really big fans of the team, know the names of all of the players and watch the drama of the season. I barely know enough to look up the team on the Internet, which I have just done because I will be meeting with the group this week and i need to know at least the minimum of information. The Twins haven’t been having a good season. They are 5th in the American League Central Division with a record of 39 wins and 48 losses at this point in the season. That’s pretty close to the Chicago Cubs’ 38-48 record, which also lands them in 5th place in their division in the National League.
Of course the cubs haven’t even been to the World Series in my lifetime. The last time they won the series was 1908, when they became the first team to play in the series three consecutive times and the first to win back-to-back victories. The Twins have won the series twice in my life, but their most recent victory was a long time ago. There are young adults who are old enough to legally drink in bars who haven’t seen a Twins victory in their lifetime.
I’ve paid more attention to sports in the past few weeks than I have for a long time, inspired by the amazing run of good fortune of the Costa Rica team in World Cup competition. Costa Rica went much farther than the pundits predicted, making it to the quarter finals, where they narrowly lost to the Dutch team on penalties after the Dutch made a risky and surprising decision to pull off a goalie substitution at the very end of the game. The move was either a lucky risk or coaching brilliance, depending on who you talk to. The celebrations in downtown Costa Rica were almost as grand as when Costa Rica was winning matches. Everyone in the tiny country is proud of their team and pleased with a showing that identifies them as winners on the world stage.
Paying attention to the games has given me a theory about why Soccer isn’t as popular in the United States as it is elsewhere in the world. The very thing I enjoy about the game makes it hard for it to become hostage to the really big money of the advertisers. A soccer match is 90 minutes long unless it goes into added time. Even the match that the US team lost to Belgium, which had 30 minutes of extra play was over in 2 1/2 hours. Once a soccer game gets started, it is nearly nonstop action. There are very few stoppages of play. Compare that with college basketball in the US, where there is an advertisement break for every foul called and every timeout. In football we watch an advertisement for every first down. And baseball is more about fidgeting pitchers and dawdling batters who extend the length of the game to a pace of unbearable boredom when watching on television.
All of those breaks in the play means that the games are often more about the advertisements than they are about the competition. I suspect that part of what people like about watching the matches on television is the lack of advertisement interruptions. Once you start watching the game, you have to keep watching - there are no breaks.
That non-stop action also produces an intensity of play that is exciting to watch. Because we have a sense that the competitors are giving the game their all, we get caught up in the tireless that we know they are experiencing. Compare penalty kicks in soccer to a field goal attempt in football. In football you have to endure tons of commercials before the well-rested kicker in a clean uniform trots out onto the field and puts out a few seconds of effort and then goes back to the bench as either a hero or a failure. In soccer, you hold your breath with the penalty kicker as he tries to calm himself, focus on the goal, outwit the goalie and make his kick. It is a real man-to-man competition between players who have been working hard for more than an hour and are nearing the limits of human endurance.
OK it wasn’t quite that way in the Dutch victory over Costa Rica, but I was so caught up with the Costa Rica team that I wasn’t paying much attention to the fresh goalie in his clean green uniform. My mistake.
And since I watched matches on the Internet, I don’t even know the names of the sponsors. There isn’t a web site devoted to World Cup commercials such as exists for Superbowl advertisements. There is an advertisement that was shown in the 1999 Superbowl that I still use as an illustration in lectures. After all of these years I still have to watch the ad to remember the company advertised. And I don’t know if I’ve ever done business with EDS.
I’m still no big sports fan, but watching the world cup this year has given me a deeper understanding of those to whom the games are so important.