Things Are Looking Up

Guest Post by The Zman

Like every other normal person in American, I watched the big game on Sunday. This year I was busy with some projects so I did not attend a party. Instead, I planned to get some work done and then settle in at game time. Some people boycott the Super Bowl, believing it makes them virtuous, but those people are idiots. The game is often fun and the ridiculous hype around it is a nice weird American tradition. Plus, having a pseudo holiday the next day means people can have a party on Sunday in the dead of winter.

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The thing about the Super Bowl is it is the one event that everyone watches. Even if you don’t follow sports, you watch the game because it is what you do. There are similar events like the Daytona 500 or the Kentucky Derby, but most Americans don’t plan a weekend around those. You watch them if you are home or down at the pub, even though you don’t follow these things closely. The Super Bowl is the one event that everyone talks about the next day, because you know everyone watched it, except for the weirdos.

That’s what makes it a good bellwether for the state of pop culture. For the second year in a row, TV ratings were down for the game, not by a lot, but still down. Now, when an event tends to get close to 100% viewership each year, there is nowhere to go but down, but decline is still decline. When looked at in context of the general decline in TV sports, it suggests we are in the midst of a great change in how people consume their entertainments. That’s the general consensus among the people in charge of television.

Cord cutting and streaming services are finally starting to cut into the tradition television programming. It’s not just TV feeling the pinch. Live events are also seeing a drop in attendance. It’s a little hard to get good data as there is an incentive to lie about the ticket sales by the organizers. College football attendance has been in decline, which is a good benchmark, as these events are not driven by hype or the momentary success of the teams involved. Attending college football games in a generational tradition that serves as a reunion for old college buddies and extended families.

How much of this is the availability of on-demand gaming and video services is hard to know. There’s no way to measure it. Part of it may also be changes in youth culture. Despite all the blather about sharing from Millennials, they are a self-absorbed and selfish generation, preferring not to share anything with anyone. A generation of sociopaths, who see human relations as transactional are not going to be inclined to big public gatherings or public spirited activities. It’s why colleges are in a panic. Their young alumni do not donate back to the school at rates anywhere near previous generations.

Now, people don’t change that much from one generation to the next, so it is not a good idea to blame parenting or biology for the culture change. It could also just be the pendulum swinging back toward normal. Attending big public events is a late-20th century thing. Well into the 70’s, attendance for sporting events was well below capacity and the tickets were cheap. In the 1980’s I went to Red Sox games because it was cheap. I paid five dollars for a ticket and sat among empty seats in the bleachers.

The same is true for television. Well into the 80’s, families looked at TV time as an evening activity after dinner. The obsession with television, movie rentals and gaming is a new phenomenon. The steady decline in viewership may not be be driven by cord cutting. Instead, people may simply be losing interest in these services and that is what is driving cord cutting. Put another way, we hit peak TV sometime ago and now the pendulum is swinging back. People are reassessing their expenditures on these items.

There’s also the fact that micro-publishing, for lack of a better word, is now financially viable. Anthony Cumia got fired off the sat-radio platform. Instead of groveling to get back on, he started his own show from his basement. He has teamed up with Gavin McInness and they are building out a network of shows. Mark Levin is doing the same with on-demand political chat shows. There are thousands of niche podcasters making a living as content providers. We are spoiled for choice outside the traditional platforms.

It has always been assumed that the mass media culture was a permanent feature of the post-industrial technocracy. Not only would human labor be replaced by automation, but individual thinking would be replaced by the collective mind of the media orthodoxy. It could be that what makes a mass media culture possible is always what ensures its demise. Anything that shows the potential to control the culture gets corrupted by the preachy and proselytizing. That, in turn, drives away the public into alternatives.

Regardless, the ground is shifting under the feet of our cultural masters. Cable monopolies are being forced to unbundle. DirecTV is now offering a cheaper service over the internet, hoping to appeal to cord cutters. The great unraveling will bring with it an unraveling of the business model. CNN will actually have to attract an audience to stay in business. TV shows will have to sell ads based on real viewership. Live performers will have to follow the lead of Lady Gaga and not go out of their way to piss on their audience.

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James A. Hood
James A. Hood

The Super Bowl is the one event that everyone talks about the next day, because you know everyone watched it, except for the weirdos.
At this point I decided that The ZMAN is a fool no better than the left because I am one of those weirdos that has better things to do than watch a bunch of grown men playing and being overpaid for it. Those that watched, I support their right to spend their time as they see fit without calling them names. The ZMAN I relegate to a different category.

travis
travis

I tuned in with 3min 54 seconds to. Go. Heluva game.

Westcoaster
Westcoaster

My DVR cut off the last 3 min 54 secs. What happened????

kokoda the deplorable
kokoda the deplorable

I certainly would like to meet and associate with James. I’m sure I could then learn to lift myself above the prole status and achieve enlightenment. I might even aspire to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

James A. Hood
James A. Hood

And that’s how easy it is to start trouble in todays world.

Ouirphuqd
Ouirphuqd

To me, there are two seasons, baseball season and off season. I watched part of the Super Bowl,while channel surfing. Football doesn’t interest me, the thug culture of the sport turns me off. Baseball is a thing of extremely fine honed skills. Golf is another favorite of mine, just finished 18 holes a half hour ago. Don’t put people down for their sports preferences, it’s all distractions from our daily dreary life’s. Life is a grand adventure, do what interests you personally, keep it within the law and pass on the good vibes!

javelin
javelin

Count me among the weirdos–we had a warm day so I cleaned out the chicken coops and finished re-hanging the bird netting over the berry bushes. The wife grilled some (locally-grown) steaks and then we watched “The Secret Life Of Pets” with the granddaughter.
I did cut the football on as I was sorting some laundry in the bedroom and saw New England tie the game up near the end–it seemed like the announcers were really hyped up about the goings on.

Anonymous
Anonymous

I guess that I’m a weirdo too, as I did not watch it either; and have no interest in NFL except for the politics in it. There’s more leftist politics in football than people realize. The Progs took over that and other sports long ago, like they did most other institutions in our society. A wholesale Prog cleansing is what is needed. I was really glad to hear the results of the game though.

Jack Lovett

I am one of the weirdos that did not the satanic inspired garbage. I have never been a fan of stupidity or sports. Rather watch paint dry. With all that is happening in the world these days,
one cannot really waste time sleeping even.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Jack
here here
I will go one better, anyone that uses any team logo on his vehicle or person or stationary, etc., must have an extremely low self image and should be watched closely.
To live vicariously through someone else is no life at all.

kokoda the deplorable
kokoda the deplorable

I should be watched closely, especially by anyone on the left.

Greg in NC
Greg in NC

I do not boycott the super bowl, I merely have no interest in watching the display of stupidity. I am surely not the idiot here, one of us was industrious working on the house while the other sat in front of a television for several hours in anticipation of the next “play” that lasts all of 10 seconds or so, and then sits in anticipation of the same after the players regroup. I have to believe anyone who enjoys such has an attention deficit issue.

As for “every other normal person in America”…
Normal,
Adjective,
1. conforming to the standard or the common type.

Conforming is the problem as stated..”The Super Bowl is the one event that everyone talks about the next day, because you know everyone watched it”.
In fear of being left out of the conversation perhaps? A conversation about what other people did and call an accomplishment. A false accomplishment at best I would say.

The bigger picture here is football is a not for profit tax exempt business which is also exempt from most all equal employment laws. I would say there are two reasons why the politicians let this happen… it is always useful to keep the masses distracted and to also “conform’ them into the belief that there are only two choices, just like voting. Think about it, it is always a choice between two teams. They are slowly eliminated through the brackets and once your “team” is eliminated you will select another. Sounds to me a lot like the debates/primaries/debates/general election.

DRUD
DRUD

The television industry is just another bubble in search of a needle. There is a channel and many shows devoted to every triviality imaginable. I see ads for some of these shows and I always wonder: who the fuck has time to watch this shit? Closely followed by: how is there enough viewers to support the (admittedly low) production costs? It seems to me this can only be another consequence of NIRP and QE.

Anonymous
Anonymous

I didn’t watch the super bowl.

Football is not my religion and the NFL is not my political party.

kokoda the deplorable
kokoda the deplorable

Being almost 75 years old; having worked since I was 14; having had a work ethic that most people on the planet couldn’t match – that is from having worked with thousands of people and knowing how they worked; knowing how some people like to elevate themselves by knocking other people down; etc.

I’m far above any of you in terms of morality, right vs wrong and don’t lie under any circumstance.

Yes, I do have a very HIGH self-image.

With age, my energy level has reduced; I also do not want to work outside anymore in zero degree weather changing head gaskets (done twice) – I doubt that any of you girly-boys have done anything similar. So, if I watch football games of one team as a diversion from daily life, please exuse the low-level mental pursuit.

javelin
javelin

Watch your game if that is an enjoyable distraction for you. I go fresh water fishing sometimes and mostly just toss the fish back in–I accomplish nothing except relaxation ( my freezer is usually full of fish pulled out of the Chesapeake anyhow).
I’ve just grown disinterested with football is all–I have no tribal bond with the local team or any player of any team. I can’t get invested enough to care who wins and I don’t like the thuggery, celebrations after every tackle, the pimping, posing and posturing. Sportsmanship is non-existant and if I were on the ground after being tackled and somebody stood over me with his dick in my face staring down at me like a punk, I’d knock his balls up into his throat…
To each their own.
Billionaire Kraft, an orthodox jew with his hands in all kinds of corporate/wall street filth vs
Billionaire Arthur Blank who also happens to be Director of Cox communications–a subsidiary of Comcast/NBC/MSNBC etc…. with dozen of millionaire athletes…commercials full of anti-deplorable, leftist ideology.
I choose not to support any of it…….for what it matters, the show will go on without me.

James A. Hood
James A. Hood

“knowing how some people like to elevate themselves by knocking other people down; etc.”
That i exactly what I thought when I was called a weirdo.
Jim

“I’m far above any of you in terms of morality, right vs wrong and don’t lie under any circumstance. ”
That is why you use your real name? 75 years in a vacuum, that’s a long time to hold your breath but you too are entitled to your opinion.
Jim

BB

Don’t watch sport that much anymore but I did watch the Superbowl because it was the Superbowl .I was also in a truck stop surrounded by other truckers . Mostly white guys in their 40s Thur mid 50s but I almost let those damn PC commercials ruin it for myself.That’s one of the reasons I watched hoping the advertisements would be funny but instead we got more polarizing Cultural Marxism propaganda bullshit.I started to walk out a couple times but I stayed for the whole game.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Call me a weirdo because I don’t care to waste my time watching a bunch of over paid thugs playing a game then I question anything you say from then on.

Anon
Anon

“Their young alumni do not donate back to the school at rates anywhere near previous generations.”.
Might this have something to do with the fact that most schools are so expensive, and their ROI is so awful, even for the advanced degrees, that the alumni is flat broke for the next 30 years of their life? Donations can only be made by people with excess money. VERY FEW of this generation have I seen with any excess money….

Rdawg
Rdawg

Not in my case. I paid my University for an education (well, a degree anyway), end of story.

Why continue to pay decades after the fact?

Last time I checked The University of Washington was doing just fine.

Gayle

It’s ok to watch the Super Bowl.
It’s ok to not watch the Super Bowl.
It’s that simple.

Dixie
Dixie

I don’t watch the big games and don’t watch the lead up games either. Couldn’t care less about organized sports.
Back in the 80’s, I believe, Hughey Lewis had a hit, “87 channels and nothing’s on.” Now it’s 287 channels and there’s STILL nothing on…
Frankly, I enjoy reading posts and comments on TBP more than about anything else but most of my info comes from one internet source or another.

Rdawg
Rdawg

57 channels; Bruce Springsteen.

fear & loathing
fear & loathing

i use to watch boxing in the 50’s, i thought the fights were fixed then. i began to wonder how easy it is to fix a game for tv, so i quit watching. golf is a different game all together.

musket
musket

The football industry is not what it used to be. I prefer the days where the owners were millionaires and the players semi-well paid….but loyal to the team. Additionally the hyped crap that now is considered play by play and color commentating is extremely off putting and ends up in the sound turned off…….

College is even getting beyond the pale with the high school philistines getting their own press conferences for signing. espn should be ashamed……

James the Wanderer

I’ve never been normal, except for maybe milliseconds at a time as I proceed between extremes …
NFL has lost me; I was working, but ignored 99% of the game even though it was on in the same room. Too scripted / predictable.
Real college sports is OK. I especially like the lesser-known and lesser-followed sports, like women’s volleyball and gymnastics; some baseball is OK. But when my most recent alma mater joined the Pac-12, the price of college football games went even higher (to pay for the expanded demands of Pac-12 participation), and it was already too high to begin with. I went to a few junior high games with the band, more in high school with the band, one that I can remember in my first college (selling concessions for the Engineering Joint Council), none in second college, none in third. Just not worth what they were charging, in general.
Sports are OK with me, as long as I don’t have to pay to watch them.

EL Coyote
EL Coyote

I’m disgusted by all this diversity. This is America, we should have one language, English, and one football team, Cowboys. I don’t give a hoot for the cheeseheads or the queers by the bay.

Until the Magic Johnson gets the Lakers up to speed, we should all keep an eye on the Galaxy soccer team.

IndenturedServant

Glad I’m not normal.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Remember, sports is the opiate of the people.

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