Sports!

I enjoy watching sports, and sometimes playing them if I'm not too horrible at it.  Professional sports, however, very much get under my skin.  The main reason for this is the ridiculous amount of money that is being made, and how that is never enough for even the highest paid athletes.  It seems very frequent that I hear about one sport or another bitching about who's going to get the fucking billions of dollars being made.  Trillions, probably.

And I think that is selfish.

 Mario and Luigi would never pull that shit.

Maybe Wario.

Definitely Bowser.

Given, I've never had that much money, so I don't know how it could corrupt one's mind.  But I would like to think that any decent and reasonable person (both of which I assume I am), would not just be absurdly rich and whine for more money and that be that.  They would give the money away to those in need.  We all know that these days, many, rather, most are in need.  The vast majority, actually.

I was having this conversation the other day with some people that do know and enjoy watching sports.  Each one of them agreed that the pay system is ethically wrong, and it needs to be changed.  One person suggested that we change it so that everyone starts with about $100,000 for the year and if the team wins, they get a bonus, and if they lose, they get a pay decrease.  This was the "socialist solution."  Well, even though we know that this is just a different way of working within the rules of capitalism and he probably misspoke, the idea of a socialist solution is intriguing.

So here's what I was thinking:  Sports players and their posse do deserve to be payed for what they do, as entertainers.  The amount of money is far too high, but it is based on supply and demand, so theoretically, if they were paid less there would be a surplus, and that would have to go somewhere.  As sports teams are meant to represent a specific region of the country or world, why should that money not go back into those communities?  There is always a use for more public hospitals, homeless shelters, infrastructure repair, mental health support, support for our veterans, jobs programs and so on, that the government doesn't have the money for because that money is too preoccupied killing people and destroying cities over seas.  Oh, and bailing out companies that are too big to fail... And some other unethical thing that makes no sense.

I know we have to start small with the whole restructuring our society so it doesn't collapse on itself thing, but why not start with something that the best part of the country loves and respects and idolizes?  I mean, the majority of the inspirational films that have every come out in the United States are based on sports.

If sports are supposed to bring people together, where class and race lines are erased and we are all part of the American family, it needs to show the rest of the country how that is done.  If we are supposed to take this idea that "people who are good at football can achieve their dreams and so can you" seriously we need something other than a good soundtrack and a white woman saving a black man.

Because is that not the point of following a sport - feeling like you belong, like you are a part of the team, and that you have a community?  As far as I understand it, that is the most important reason people participate in spectating.

Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! knows what I'm talking about.

I really do feel that this would be an amazing step in the right direction.  And so symbolic, too.  If the behemoth that is the sport industry, that is something that people talk and think about probably more than any other kind of entertainment, made this change, it would lead the way in changing the way we think.  We need to start thinking in terms of "we" and "community" instead of "I" and "individual."

Go sports!