Suffering sports fan

In Seattle, we have the distinction of having a long history of unsuccessful pro sports teams. Check out this site for a Seattle fan's point of view.

To me, what is happening and what will continue to happen to Seattle sports is either the greatest outrage in all of sports, or... it is the most natural thing in the world. For years, even before the millions that got poured into players' pockets, the Sonics, Mariners, and Seahawks all sucked. Sometimes equally so at the same time. The great feeling of mediocrity, resignation, and low expectations have always been a part of this city. It's all a great tradition of non-winning. If they're not playing doormat in the regular season, our teams are blowing up in the playoffs, breaking the hearts of its fans. The Sonics had the best record in basketball in 1993-1994. And they lost in the first round of the playoffs. The Mariners had the greatest season of all time, but lost the AL pennant to a team that has a tradition of winning. The Seahawks did not win in the 1990s. And all those franchises are losing now. You can blame the owners for not playing the game -- paying the athletes as much as it takes to get them here. It won't matter. They won't come. And the athletes we get want to leave.

However, my distaste of professional sports extends outside of Seattle. The question of why Seattle teams continue to do poorly is irrelevant. None of this really matters because I'm really not a fan anymore.

Pro sports as I knew it growing up is gone and dead. There is more money in pro sports today than ever before, and since great gobs of it go to the players, there is no real incentive for them to excel. What you have now are mostly mediocre players getting paid millions to suck our wallets and our hearts dry. Ever since Nolan Ryan got paid a million, "athletes" like Jim McIlvane and Football linemen getting multi-million dollar contracts became an inevitability. The athletes are supposedly better, but so what? They're not playing like it. Even the "winners" are only playing just above mediocre.

Just to bring it back into local perspective, I can take the losing. It's what our teams do. But what I can't take is athletes demanding more money even if they are crap. I don't care if we had Michael Jordan in his prime. I would never pay him as much as he made. I also can't take team owners fleecing the fans to pay for arenas, ticket hikes, TV revenues, and merchandise, especially since the owners are the ones who agree to pay the big salaries. I can't take it when fans are outraged about being robbed when they continue to pay for all of it and go to games by the millions each year. Most frustrating of all is when fans care so much and are so passionate about their teams when the athletes could give a living shit about the fans. For all the loyalty of fans, you will find it reciprocated in only one teeny, tiny fraction of professional athletes. The wage gap between professional athletes and the fans continues to grow, and it is laughable that fans continue to idolize these people, and continue to rationalize the outrageous and undeserved salaries ("They help bring in millions to the organization...", blah blah blah). I mean, how can you identify with these people, much less hero worship them? I used to be one of those people, who lived and died with every shot and play, with every off season deal. I used to have posters, and I used glue myself to the TV to watch games. I used to know big and minute details of players and teams. I used to be convinced the athletes deserved their money.

Not so anymore. I still watch pro sports because I still love the action, even if it is tepid. But I won't linger, and I won't attend games unless someone else pays for the tickets. Or if I do pay to attend a game, I'll be sitting in the cheapest seats possible. But I won't talk passionately about sports (about sports these days anyways; I can always talk about sports when I was younger) or even pretend to follow what's going on. Because I really don't care anymore. The soul of sports is gone, stomped on by greed and mediocrity. According to Charles Barkley, "I am not a role model". Athletes aren't role models or heroes, at least not anymore.