The Other Professional Football League

Today marks the start of the NCAA college football playoffs. NCAA football or, if we're honest about it, the other professional football league. 

It's true, you know, at least at the higher levels. With literally billions of dollars at, ahem, play, and athletes themselves getting NIL, Name, Image, and Likeness, money, we are far beyond amateurs playing for school bragging rights or poor kids getting an education through sports which they wouldn't otherwise get. It's all about the money. Again, at least at the highest levels anyway.

It's not about getting an education. Most of these players are in sports management or some such nonsense. It's not about the school or school pride, it's about the personal brand. You can now leave for a better deal. Hell, it's not even about selfless sportsmanship. When you treat the other guy like an enemy when all you're doing is playing a game, if you have to 'fire up' to participate, you've gone a step too far. Several, in fact, but that may be for another day.

The intellectually honest thing to do would be to disassociate the games from the schools. Cut them off and let them go their own way. It's not like the money isn't there. Yet intellectual honesty is something college sports, like politics, can't, or won't, see. 

Hey, enjoy it, if that's your entertainment. But say what it is. And it's professional football.

Bread and Circuses

I normally don't swim in these waters anymore. But at times the atmosphere gets to me just the same.

I don't like playoffs. They're one of the reasons, and perhaps the main reason, which turn me off from sports. If you'll excuse the admittedly vague pun of a dad joke, I don't like being played by playoffs. And that's what playoffs do. They try to manufacture excitement solely for the sake of cash and prestige. And that, I will argue, diminishes sports and wastes time.

Take Indiana's win over Ohio State yesterday. A great win? Not in this day and age. Sure, they beat OSU for the first time in 31 games. It's Indiana's first Big Ten Championship since 1967, when even I was but a child. And what's their reward for it? Basically, a pat on the head followed by, 'win two more games to prove yourself'.

If they don't win a national championship the conference title is no more than a footnote. If they should meet Ohio State again and lose, it will be thought of as a fluke. Indiana will have effectively won the wrong game.

Yes, it may not happen that way. Maybe the Hoosiers will win a Natty. That still accomplishes the same purpose: a meaningless and forgotten win over the Buckeyes on a cold December Saturday. Win it all or you're in the dustbin. Losers rarely get more than apologetic afterthoughts.

The championship is all that matters. And that has to be made even more difficult by adding more hoops to leap through, all so that more money can be made. There's talk of expanding college football playoffs to 16 for no other purpose than that. Don't try to argue integrity. All adding four more teams to a playoff field means are four more teams without a realistic chance to win. 

Now, if watching and rooting are your hobby, by all means enjoy. We aren't talking about any evil. At least, I don't think so anyway. But I am open to the question, quite frankly. Bread and circuses don't strike me as the best expressions of humanity or human effort.

Hail to the Victors

The University of Michigan has won the NCAA football National Championship. Hail to the Victors. I barely watched the game. Oh, I caught a few minutes at the curling club after our league game last night, but that was about it.

On the way home I went through Wendy's for something eat, and watched a couple of Hogan's Heroes reruns as I downed the bacon cheeseburger. Then I went to sleep. I found out the result when I woke up at three this morning to, well, what do you think a 63 year old man would wake up at 3 AM to do?  On my return I saw by  channel surfing the still on TV that the Wolverines had won. 

I like such results. I was happy they won and not merely relieved that it was over as I would have been had I invested in the game. I feel better about the result without the emotional investment. And I knew they would win anyway.

I likely won't watch the Detroit Lions playoff game this Sunday night for much the same reason. You know how a lot of guys feel that their watching a game affects the outcome? If they miss it their team will lose? I might be the anti whatever that guy is. You're welcome.