as to the ubiquity of all manner of non-textbook/un-"professional" behavior, look at the book Freakonomics...proves that it's commonplace, not just among atheletes (great early chapter on Sumo-wrestling), but teachers, real-estate agents etc. etc...all kinds of motivations/reasons/rationalizations/excuses why people, even (especially??) the rich (who we think need not resort to it) constantly bend the rules--while propogating the myth that the ethics of their profession mean they would NEVER do so...
sports used to be all about fair competion (you know...what the word "sport" means)...now it's increasingly marketed AND produced as part of the "entertainment" industry...
nowhere is this more apparent than in NBA where, as HBJ pointed out--teams can't be trying to win "tooth and nail" if they regularly turn off something they'd constantly be attending to...defence...if winning/competition REALLY was the highest priority. Instead, they spend most of there time in "razzle dazzle" mode. It's obvious that there is a collective responsibility of the league to "entertain" us, to keep us lapping up the full spectrum of their "product". So they actively cultivate "story arcs" and "good guy/bad guy" angles are constantly being doled out to/thru the media.
But NBA goes way beyond this in annoyance...and here it's joined with that other most-American of sports, NFL...to become increasingly "contentious/disputational/knit-picky", increasingly reliant on the video-review of the game in progress...sacrificing all natural "flow" that is still enjoyed in hockey/rugby/soccer...and replacing it with an annoying succession of play stoppages, ostensibly to "ensure we get the call right" ...AND of course, to just have television commercials that are sold out just as space in magazines...
oh yeah...the knit-picky/contentious/legalistic nature of it all is magnified constantly with "new rules" (always with some apparently-positive motivation such as to "protect the players", and my favorite "to speed the game up"
) that almost never accomplish the stated objective, but ALWAYS make it harder to officiate...and the games are hard enough to officiate already (the line between an "offensive foul"=charge/"defensive foul"/"no whistle" ON THE SAME PLAY in basketball is extremely fine...and, in "foot"ball, the continually evolving rules of what constitutes the crucial call of "pass interference" would overwhelm a law professor)...the officials' role in determining who ultimately is declared the winner in a contest is increasing greatly in importance and fans of the "sport" spend increasingly more time criticizing the officiating than the play itself
(hmmmm....you know how in WWEntertaiment, the referee never sees the folded chair or the concealed weapon...and how their apparent mistake leads to an "unfair result" that we want to see corrected in the next game/even...that we're willing to pay more for...)
Marillion, i remember you saying once how in soccer, "playing up to" the referees for cards/penalties is ruining the game (and i agree)...in American team sports the problem is the whole "sports entertainment industry"(including, of course, the media who present it to the public)...is relentlessly "playing down to" society's need to be entertained/willingness to pay for it...and taking the very sport out of sport in the process...entertaining us with sport skill, yes, but increasingly with contrived controversy...to keep backers/bettors bitching and bickering (while buying more tickets) while the entertainers and producers laugh all the way to the bank...nowhere do i see this whole process come into play more blatantly and annoyingly than in the final few minutes of an NBE (that's not a typo!) game
sports used to be all about fair competion (you know...what the word "sport" means)...now it's increasingly marketed AND produced as part of the "entertainment" industry...
nowhere is this more apparent than in NBA where, as HBJ pointed out--teams can't be trying to win "tooth and nail" if they regularly turn off something they'd constantly be attending to...defence...if winning/competition REALLY was the highest priority. Instead, they spend most of there time in "razzle dazzle" mode. It's obvious that there is a collective responsibility of the league to "entertain" us, to keep us lapping up the full spectrum of their "product". So they actively cultivate "story arcs" and "good guy/bad guy" angles are constantly being doled out to/thru the media.
But NBA goes way beyond this in annoyance...and here it's joined with that other most-American of sports, NFL...to become increasingly "contentious/disputational/knit-picky", increasingly reliant on the video-review of the game in progress...sacrificing all natural "flow" that is still enjoyed in hockey/rugby/soccer...and replacing it with an annoying succession of play stoppages, ostensibly to "ensure we get the call right" ...AND of course, to just have television commercials that are sold out just as space in magazines...
oh yeah...the knit-picky/contentious/legalistic nature of it all is magnified constantly with "new rules" (always with some apparently-positive motivation such as to "protect the players", and my favorite "to speed the game up"
) that almost never accomplish the stated objective, but ALWAYS make it harder to officiate...and the games are hard enough to officiate already (the line between an "offensive foul"=charge/"defensive foul"/"no whistle" ON THE SAME PLAY in basketball is extremely fine...and, in "foot"ball, the continually evolving rules of what constitutes the crucial call of "pass interference" would overwhelm a law professor)...the officials' role in determining who ultimately is declared the winner in a contest is increasing greatly in importance and fans of the "sport" spend increasingly more time criticizing the officiating than the play itself (hmmmm....you know how in WWEntertaiment, the referee never sees the folded chair or the concealed weapon...and how their apparent mistake leads to an "unfair result" that we want to see corrected in the next game/even...that we're willing to pay more for...)
Marillion, i remember you saying once how in soccer, "playing up to" the referees for cards/penalties is ruining the game (and i agree)...in American team sports the problem is the whole "sports entertainment industry"(including, of course, the media who present it to the public)...is relentlessly "playing down to" society's need to be entertained/willingness to pay for it...and taking the very sport out of sport in the process...entertaining us with sport skill, yes, but increasingly with contrived controversy...to keep backers/bettors bitching and bickering (while buying more tickets) while the entertainers and producers laugh all the way to the bank...nowhere do i see this whole process come into play more blatantly and annoyingly than in the final few minutes of an NBE (that's not a typo!) game
