Sports in America went broke by going woke
Daniel Greenfield's written about the collapse of the USA sports industries, all because they had to politicize their conduct at nearly every turn:
The media has frantically dug for apolitical reasons to explain these trainwreck numbers, but the simple reality is that sports used to be competitively divisive, but are now politically divisive. The truly woke viewers are exiting for the WNBA and women’s soccer, whose numbers are up, while conservative viewers are jettisoning current games for highlight reels of past glories.Naturally, it's a terrible shame it's come to all this over the years, and now you've got whole sports teams identifying with Black Lives Matter and Antifa, as though commoditizing the whole concept of sports weren't bad enough. It goes without saying those players who obsess themselves with politics and side with awful ideologues should be ashamed of themselves, and it has to stop. Sadly though, it's clear that even after the sport industry collapses, the leftists working there will never admit they have blame to shoulder. To them, only right-wing politicians are the problem.
Sports used to be a metaphor for America. Practice, play fair, and win. The rules might differ, but the meritocracy of talent and the ethics of sportsmanship were essential to American life. The metaphor is different now. Don’t bother playing, get woke, become a nuisance, score a $126 million contract with Nike, followed by a Netflix series about your life, and become an icon.
Sports is still a metaphor for America, but a very different kind of country in which talent doesn’t matter, but monetizing radical aggrieved victimhood is how the game is really played and won. And if that’s what it takes to become a sports icon, whatever your politics, why bother watching the game when you can tweet support for the BLM protests, or just get out there and riot?
Big Sports and the media are blaming the presidential election for their viewership drop. They’re not wholly wrong, but they were the ones who politicised the game. The message behind all the protests, the kneeling, the locker room boycotts, the emblems and the stunts, was that politics is more important than sports. Viewers took them at their word and changed the channel.
Labels: anti-americanism, Moonbattery, msm foulness, political corruption, United States
