Da Big Game

[filkertom]

Thirty years ago, the idea of Michigan playing Ohio State for the number one spot in the nation would've sent me into the same screaming fit it's already sent a lot of people.

Twenty-five years ago was already too late. I'd discovered gaming. And, as Brother Rob sez, "He wargames through weekend, leads armies and legions / He doesn't care how well you putted."

Still, the modern gladiatorial arenas are damned popular. It may be said best by Garrison Keillor in today's installment of his Writer's Almanac:

It was on this day in 1968 that NBC executives made one of the worst broadcasting decisions in the history of network television, interrupting their coverage of a football game between the Oakland Raiders and the New York Jets in order to show the scheduled movie, Heidi, about an orphaned girl who goes to live with her grandfather in the Swiss Alps.

There was one minute left in the game and the Jets were leading by 32 to 29, when NBC went to a commercial. No televised football game had ever gone longer than three hours before, and executives weren't sure what to do. Timex had paid a lot of money to advertise during Heidi, and network executives figured the Jets would win the game anyway, so after the commercial break, the movie began.

Football fans were enraged. So many people called to complain that the NBC telephone switchboard in New York City blew 26 fuses. People were right to complain. What they missed was the Raiders coming back to score two touchdowns in the final minute, winning the game 43 to 32.

It was that game, and the storm of protest by fans, that forced TV executives to realize how passionate the audience for football really was. Two years later, networks began showing football on Monday nights as well. And because of that game, the NFL now has a contract with the networks that all football games will be shown until their completion.

On the other hand, I think the networks were completely clueless about their audience from the git-go. They were dreaming dreams of the great love a certain segment of the population has for The Sound of Music. I mean, going from a testosterone-laden war in miniature... to Heidi?

So... all that's on TV tonight is football and Heidi. The internet doesn't exist yet. What do you do for fun? No, wait, the real question: Do you really much care about your local sports team(s)?

Comments

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, but I have to chime in with a personal story about the Heidi game (as it became known)...No, it's not personal about me, I was nowhere near born.

But my father was, as was his father; and my grandfather was an NBC News executive producer. So, the night of the Raiders/Jets game, my grandmother was hosting a dinner party for a few friends, and my father--fourteen years old--was upstairs, escaping the drudgery of dinner with adults for the comfort and football.

And when NBC cut away, he raced downstairs yelling at his father, "what did you people do?"

[the_rck]

I'm afraid that I keep forgetting that there *are* local sports teams.

Is this one a home game? Delia and I usually go to the public library on Saturdays, and I'd want take the game into consideration in planning if it is a home game. Fortunately, game traffic doesn't have too big an impact on the buses on our side of town. (I can't say honestly that it has none, but it's not impossible out here the way it is in some other parts of town.)

[dadandgirl.livejournal.com]

It's in Columbus. Not knowing which city you live in, I'll leave the rest for you to figure out. :)

[the_rck]

I'm in the other one. Thanks.

I'll just aim to be home before the game finishes, then. No point being downtown with a three year old and no car when people are either celebrating or commiserating.

[vid848.livejournal.com]

Even years: Columbus
Odd years: Ann Arbor

And if The Game couldn't get any more emotional, former UM coach Bo Schembechler(sp) collapsed during his TV show and has died, the day before The Game.

If UM didn't have enough inspiration, now there is this....

Perhaps Bo and Woody will be watching this game together and fighting over calls.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Good gravy. I had no idea until just now. Fare thee fair, Bo.

[bald-ruminant.livejournal.com]

My local teams? No. The local hockey team is a minor league farm team for the Anaheim Ducks (boo, hiss). My team's in L.A., and was even before I moved there.

[sdelmonte]

I am a New York Mets fanatic, and follow most of the NYC teams in all sports (excpet soccer) closely. But when the Mets lost in the playoffs, I wasn't heartbroken. It's just a game. Albeit a game I love.

Not unless...

[hearth-spirit.livejournal.com]

Me or someone I know is playing in them. I find the general idea of artificially-constructed brotherhood (aka - teams as commercial entities having a fanbase just because they're based in your city) to be rather odd.

And, since in general the outcome of a sports game will matter very little to me in the course of day-to-day life (will it feed anyone hungry? produce a new idea? make art?), I tend to completely ignore it.

The only exception is that if I'm playing in the game, or friends of mine are playing, I'll be interested - because I'm either honing skills and keeping fit, or my friends are strongly involved.

Re: Not unless...

[hearth-spirit.livejournal.com]

I suppose that should have been "I or someone I know". :)

Grammar Nazi, ATTACK!

[ruisseau.livejournal.com]

I hate football and Heidi isn't much better. So, I'd break out Trivial Pursuit or Scrabble. Barring someone to play with, I'd snuggle up with a cat and a book while listening to music -- the radio can't be ALL football.

[joecoustic.livejournal.com]

I don't follow most sports regularly, and definitely not college, but what blows me away is hearing about the extreme levels of the rivalries.

They were talking in the news the other day (even here in Cincinnati this is the big news) about needing to guard the players and the fans from the Columbus fans and from violence.... Now I'm not really sure how bad it really is. The University spokesmen were trying to play it down but I have remembered stories from the past when things get torn up in other rivalries. I sort of wish that part could stay vicarious.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Oh, the U-M/OSU isn't nearly as vicious and genuinely hate-filled as it used to be. Although with so much on the line this year, it might get a bit... feisty.

[wildcard9.livejournal.com]

I live near Boston, so the local sports teams come with a passion. Especially in recent years (Red Sox break an 86 year streak of no World Series wins, the Patriots win 3 Super-bowls in 4 years and are still playing entertaining games most weeks). I don't follow sports that much, beyond my one Sunday game of the local team. I watch poker on TV more often (when I am having lunch).

So, no TV and no internet, what do I do for fun? I read. Currently I am reading Dune and have the 2nd and 3rd books in the trilogy on stand-by for when I finish the first one. I tried to read the book years ago and failed, but now I am really getting into it. Maybe after this I will finally be able to read Lord of the Rings without it putting me to sleep (the writing, not the story itself).

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

I played my first D&D in 1976, before it was "advanced." I developed a taste for football shortly thereafter in marching band in high school and college.

It bothers me that Los Angeles, the second largest metropolitan area in the US, has every kind of sports team except for outdoor pro football. It still puzzles me that the corporations that own TV networks have allowed this situation to go on this long, irrespective of local referenda on the subject. If you can buy a pro sports team, you can buy an election after all. :-/

[blackpaladin.livejournal.com]

Bill Plaschke (a writer for the LA Times, if you're not familiar with him) has made several comments on "Around the Horn" that with the popularity and success of USC's football team, the football fanbase would be negatively divided if a pro football team were to come back to the LA market at this point.

Nevertheless, there is still a rumor floating around that the NFL is thinking about moving a team to LA... and if they did, the current front-runner looks to be the Colts.

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

[rolling eyes] Sounds like they are too jealous of their monopoly... which isn't quite a monopoly really and there are a lot of UCLA fans who might agree with me on that one. Even if it were, no college ball can replace the revenue potential of a NFL team for a TV network.

Colts might be acceptable. Raiders, never. We have been wooed and won and betrayed by them before. [Hand lain swooningly upon forehead]

[blackpaladin.livejournal.com]

<shrug> Being on the opposite side of the country, I can only go by what I hear/read in the sports news and discussion shows. ^_^ Personally, we over here do just fine with the Panthers (U.Pitt) and the Steelers... but then again, Pitt isn't exactly a perennial title contender the way USC is. ^^;;

[blackpaladin.livejournal.com]

As one of, apparently, the minority of people around here who actually enjoy watching football -- and Tom, you know me, you know I'm not a big, athletic, thinking-with-my-muscles kind of guy -- allow me to pipe in with why I'd take football over Heidi any day of the week.

First of all, it's a sentimental thing. Growing up in the DC area in the early 80s, watching Redskins games was was one of the few things that my father and I could do together. And I don't mean just sitting on the same couch watching the same TV, I mean he'd explain to me how the game was played, why players did the things they did, why penalties were called and the impact they had on "fair play," etc.

Second, honestly, it's a strategy thing. I'm a huge fan of strategy games, and so I look at it as much from the viewpoint of football as an athletic competition as I do of football as play-calling strategy. In the time before the next play starts, I'm going through in my head and asking "OK, what offensive play would I call?" or "With the offense doing <X> all game long, and with <team they played last week> having tried <Y> to stop them and failed, what do you try next?" (Playing football video games is great for this, because you really do have to think about play-calling from a strategic, bluff-your-opponent point of view.)

Third, it's a performance thing. Just like you go to see a play or a movie, or watch something fictional on TV, watching sports is watching and appreciating people performing at the skill to which they've dedicated their lives. And in that same vein: I played flag football when I was a kid, but just don't have the build for it, and I don't think I could have even if I had worked at it. Therefore, watching football is kind of living vicariously through the athletes I'm watching.

As far as local teams: yes, I am a fan of my local teams, both "currently" local (Pittsburgh) and "hometown" local (DC). Why? Because Pittsburgh has an immense amount of team spirit, especially for our beloved Steelers. As hearth_spirit alluded to: at least in my opinion, it's not a matter of "brotherhood" so much as "community:" it gives what is normally a relatively diverse and sometimes disparate city (Pittsburgh has often been described as "not a city, but a collection of neighborhoods that share a common 'downtown'") a common connection.

I sure do!

[poltr1]

I grew up in Buffalo, where it's the norm to root for the local sports teams -- the Bills (football), the Sabres (hockey), and the Bisons (AAA baseball). There used to be a pro basketball team called the Braves, but the owner uprooted them in the late '70s. I haven't followed pro basketball since then.

Even though I moved to Dayton years ago, I still root for my Buffalo teams. But I also follow the local teams, both professional and college-level, along with the teams from my alma mater, SUNY/Buffalo. Although this year, the Bulls are doing horribly -- 2-8 and two games to go.

My counter-question is: Why are the sets of SF fans and sports fans nearly mutually exclusive?

[poltr1]

Oh yeah -- I forgot to mention that some people watch the games for the bands. (I was in my high school's marching band. And I gamed too.) Unfortunately, on TV, the bands often get pre-empted by the network's halftime show with scores and best plays from other games. Grr.

[knitmeapony.livejournal.com]

Gaming, for sure, of all sorts. Looney Labs stuff and Cheapass come out in droves; also more traditional boardgames.

If I wasn't in a new city, I'd say I'd call my gaming group and run my occasional Firefly game, but sadly that seems to be over now that I'm in Chicago.

[ladystarblade.livejournal.com]

To the first question: read a book or run around in my backyard. To the real question: I was a die-hard Chicago Cubs fan for nigh on 15 years until they made some really dumb decisions (kicking Mark Grace out the door?? WTF?) and I haven't really watched baseball since. I stick with my two hometown teams, the NBA's Indiana Pacers (who have me wincing a bit these days) and the NFL's Indianapolis Colts. Now, I suffered through the Colts's 1-15 season and their "doormat" years, so I'm really, really enjoying these days. My father played semi-pro football, so I was indoctrinated in football from the get go...it's my favorite sport right now. And I'm a born and bred Indiana girl, so basketball's natural, LOL.

But as for my "local" teams? That would consist of the University of Louisville Cardinals and the University of Kentucky's Wildcats. And I've just never been into college sports at all, not even when I was in college.

[chaosdancer.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. OSU vs. Michigan for the top spot? Good thing I'm getting the heck out of town that day. Even ordinary home games are a PITA.

I would take football....

[pickledcritter.livejournal.com]

While Pickles would take a brick to my head ;)

[sdelmonte]

Looks like the hype for Da Big Game just got bigger as Bo Schembechler has passed on. I suspect that all the local stations in your neck of the woods broke into programming and are covering this like it's D-Day.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I know. I'm so glad that it's not in Ann Arbor this year -- they normally trample the hell out of the golf course and Pioneer High School lawn anyway, not to mention all the parking within a mile.

[ladypoetess.livejournal.com]

There are 2 reasons I am aware of football at all:

1. I transcribe weekly betting lines for rmjwell for both college and professional games - though I still require a "cheat sheet" of which towns equal which team nicknames.

2. I live in the Pittsburgh area, and every weekend you cannot go anywhere out of your own home without seeing hordes of people in black & gold Steelers gear. And if you turn on the radio, you cannot help but hear some rendition of "Here We Go Steelers."

Other sports I may opt to follow a bit more closely - but really the only one that is a team sport is hockey - and I don't even follow that very closely any more. I did when I was younger, as my father was an announcer for various professional hockey teams at various points in his career.

[rmeidaking.livejournal.com]

Aren't you glad tomorrow's game is in Columbus, and not The Big House? I know I am....

[rmeidaking.livejournal.com]

PS I'm probably the only person in the country who was more interested in "Heidi" than the football game. I was glad that we didn't have to miss the beginning for the end of some football game. :-)