How To Remake Professional Sports

 I am not the target market for professional sports.

I have not been for years really, at least since the early 2000's when we moved away from the nearby National Hockey League and I realized that three hours to sit and watch a game on television was a bit of an investment in time that I was not willing to make.  Thus, most of the storm which has erupted in professional sports in the U.S. (and we seem to be the one with the problem) has passed over my head except as a point of discussion on the various sites that I follow.

That said, I know and have known many people for whom professional sports is a major form of entertainment.  I am also more than cognizant of the fact that professional sports is an economic driver for many people - bar owners, ticket takers, local restaurants and hotels - that are in no wise privy to the exceptionally ridiculous salaries that professional athletes command.  

Therefore, in the spirit of preserving an economic engine (which I derive no value from, by the way) I submit the following suggestions in the hopes that Professional Sports can heal itself:

1)  Eliminate All Mascots And Team Mascot Names - This is beyond the current sense of cancel culture that some mascots need to be "removed".  In point of fact, mascots add nothing to the execution of the sport.  They are, inevitably, cartoonish sort of characters, created really to generate identification with a team (and thus, sales of merchandise).

So eliminate them.  Move to what other parts of the world do.  Call them by the city name - The Georgetown Football Team, The Germanville Baseball Team, The Mesa Verde United Hockey Team. 

No need to cancel anything.  No need to spend money on expensive printing of jerseys with characters.  And no distractions from the actual sport. If people can no longer dress up as the sports mascot of their choice, well, that is a cost I am willing to bear.

2)  Eliminate Names on Jerseys  - Hurling, the Irish National Sport which goes back at least 2500 years and is still played today, has a practice that I recently learned about:  there are no names on jerseys and the player numbers are issued by the position the play.  It has been referred to as the humblest of sports.

Think of this:  An entire playing field of your sport of choice, where every player is un-named and you know the positions by the numbers.  Again, the focus comes on the sport, not on the individuals (which is really the point of the team, is it not?).

Mind you, no player's union will ever willing go for this. After all, this (they will argue) will remove the attention from the accomplishments of the individuals (and thus, the high salaries of some, by the way).  

But - and this is always my question - why are you playing?  If it is for love the game, it should not matter. If, on the other hand, it for the love of money and attention to self, just declare it.

3)  Eliminate All Things Not Pertaining To The Game - As you may have heard (and as you may know, we do not discuss here) - professional sports of late has taken to a certain set of support and actions.  To be clear, this is not the first time that professional sports has done so - they have also supported such things as Breast Cancer Awareness, The Military, and other organizations.

My proposal:  Eliminate everything.  Eliminate singing of all national anthems (which, by the way, have nothing to do with the game, much as I love our national anthem).  Eliminate any and all support of anything which does not directly impact the sport on the field of play - no support of any cause no matter what the nature of it.  Players enter the field, warm up, and play.  

I know.  This will create all sorts of angst.  "Freedom of Speech" is what some will say, "Nonsupportive Nationals" others will say.  

But let us be clear.  The point of professional athletes are to provide a service - entertainment - much as my job is to make sure projects move forward.  My company does not care or require that I stand at the national anthem every morning or plaster a sticker supporting something on my shirt.  They care that I do my job - and that my personal beliefs do not get in the way of that. The same is no less true of athletes.

And besides, they will then be - like the rest of us - free to do all of that in their free time.

4) Continue To Ban Fans - Having traveled to The Ranch lately and watched some professional sports with my father, the single biggest inanity of this current Plague is not the empty stadiums with their cardboard cutouts (which, to be fair, is silly but a clever fundraiser for good causes) but the fact that they are piping audience noises into the stadiums.  The spectacle of an empty stadium with fan sounds in it is both ridiculous and, at the same time, a lovely visual of image of the state of fantasy we seem to live so much of our life in.  It has also removed fan fights, fan candid shots, and fans showing bad, lewd, or just rude behavior.

So let us keep the fans out.  Generate revenue via viewing.

Yes, I understand this undermines my concern about the folks that are relying on sports to support them at the stadium - but my response would be (given The Plague) this appears to be a fait accompli in any case.  But this accomplishes two things.  

The first is, like everything else I have suggested, is that it focus the attention on the sport itself instead everything going on around it (and frankly, how many shots of fans dancing do I really want to see).

The second  - and this is part of the less generous side of me - is it points to professional sports being what it really is:  entertainment, nothing more. It displays professional sports as it really is:  passive watching of something no different than a movie or a television show or a martial arts demonstration.

Do you want to be involved in a sport?  Then go do the sport.  Get out there.  Engage.  Be active.  There are activities for (literally) every level of fitness and ability.  But participate, do not pretend that sitting and watching is the same as doing the sport itself.

Personally, I have no dog in this fight: professional sports are as much a foreign country to me as Nepal and am as likely to go there as I am to become a fan again.  But if professional sports wants to survive in the long run (and I firmly believe there will be a financial reckoning soon), they might be advised to reconsider their model.