I don't think the National Football League will ever fade out of the public eye for good, nor will it truly wane. But I think its years of growth are over. *Note: I'm not the first to take this stance, but I'm pulling some things from the last few days.
First of all, it's too expensive to go to a game. It's roughly $60-$80 for the cheapest seats available at Arrowhead Stadium for a Chiefs game, plus $20-$40 for parking, plus another $20-50 for food once you're there. That's not sustainable because it's not accessible. Granted, there are maybe 7-10 home games a year, but that's still not accessible. Further, it's not as non-stop action in person as you'd think. The first NFL game I went to was in Dallas as a kid, and I remember being struck by how much down time there was because of TV breaks. And with the development of HD televisions and not having to deal with rowdy, drunk fans, home is a better — and cheaper! — alternative on Sundays.
Second, it's starting to become uncomfortable to watch because of potential head injuries. The threat of chronic head trauma means that every time a player gets hit in the head or there's a particularly violent tackle, it means years of a life being shaved off. During the final Chiefs game of the season, Chris Conley took a vicious hit to the head. He looked dazed immediately. When it happened live, I said, "Oh, yay! Oh no!" because I was happy the Chiefs were getting closer to the end zone, but frightened for Conley. It didn't look good on the replay. TV went to a commercial, and when it came back, he was walking off with help. He was back on the field a play later. But the whole time, I felt uncomfortable about what I'd just seen. Am I watching a player who's going to need assistance by the time he's 50? One of the most dynamic athletes of all time, Bo Jackson, has said that he would never have played football if he'd known what it does to a player's brain. That's troubling about the long-term future of the sport.
Third, there are three clear examples that the NFL does not care about its fans all that much. Two teams have left their decades-long homes for the greener pastures of Los Angeles: the Rams and the Chargers. The Rams franchise has a long history of being back and forth, but they'd found a home in St. Louis. They'd also put the price tag for their stadium onto the backs of Missouri taxpayers. The Rams told the state that they'd leave for Los Angeles without a new billion-dollar stadium, and the state (and St. Louis) said no. Now that the Rams are in Los Angeles (which didn't really want them), the state is still on the hot seat: Missouri will be paying $12 million a year until 2022 for the Edward Jones Dome, built in 1995. The Chargers also made a similar blackmail threat, thinking that Los Angeles wanted them, too. The Chargers had been in San Diego since the 1970s. But voters (wisely) rejected paying hundreds of millions of dollars for the privilege of an NFL franchise. So Chargers owner Dean Spanos is now paying $650 million to move the team to L.A., which doesn't appear to want them. Why he couldn't have used that money to keep the team in San Diego is beyond the point. Finally, the Oakland Raiders will soon drop "Oakland" to become the "Las Vegas Raiders." The teams don't care about the cities they live in. We're just profits to them.
Finally, I think the NFL has overdone it a little in its zeal to control the game. You can't celebrate touchdowns anymore without either a fine or a flag. It's something out of a Key and Peele sketch made real. Further, there aren't a lot of surprises right now. Either Tom Brady, Peyton Manning or Ben Roethlisberger has represented the AFC for all but one of the last 14 years. Finally, some Pro Bowl changes were overdue, but changing the location from Hawaii to Orlando and putting it the week before the Super Bowl (and therefore losing the players in the Super Bowl).
Details Matter
When the intelligence community said that they think Russia interfered in our election, they mean two things: 1) Russian intelligence used propaganda elements to discourage Clinton voters and encourage Trump voters. 2) Russia's hacking and subsequent release of DNC emails possibly changed the outcome of the election. They do not mean that Russia hacked the election itself, but that they influenced the election.
I think this is important to note. When we say Russia hacked the election, it's that they influenced people, not votes. It's not the overt vote-rigging that I think some imagine when we say Russia hacked the election. So when people say that Donald Trump won the election, they're right. He still won the votes in the right places. But when people say that Russia didn't affect the election, they're wrong.
We don't know how much it affected the outcome. Did it convince enough people in enough swing states to make a difference? Who can say definitively?
But one thing else I want people to note: Donald Trump ended up nearly 3 million votes behind Hillary Clinton. Yet he won because he won all the swing states and had enough of an edge in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan to pull it out. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin hadn't gone Republican since before I was 10, yet they went Republican, because people change. There's nothing that says they won't change their minds again in four years.
Summary Judgments
According to this Jezebel piece and this Cracked piece, Trump is a prosperity gospel believer. Of course he is. In short, prosperity gospel believes that God blesses people financially, etc., as reward for their faith. It's also the opposite: People are rich because of their faith. It ignores things that Jesus said. I agree with the title of that piece that it's "Distorted Gospel." It explains a lot about Donald Trump, actually. • • • I went for my first run of the season on Wednesday. It was still dark outside, and it was foggy, and actually freezing fog, so the roads were a bit slick. That's all legitimate justification for tripping on some debris and biting it pretty hard. I had stigmata on my left hand for a few minutes, and my shoulder's been sore ever since. It wasn't that running was hard or that I was embarrassed. The feeling that came to mind immediately was that I was old. I hope to fix that feeling as I run more often. • • • I thought this was a good breakdown of the election by FiveThirtyEight genius Nate Silver. They were the least wrong about the election, and I think he's been far more middle-of-the-road about it than people give him credit for. • • • I don't have a great story about the kids this week. Sorry! Nothing stands out right now. I'm sure we'll make up for it soon.
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