Originally posted by Stealth Moose
The point was whether or not American football is boring. I'm not arguing it doesn't require tactics. Football can be incredibly boring for someone who isn't interested in the library of rules, plays, technicalities, etc. required to 'fully appreciate it'. This is in comparison with say, Tennis, Soccer, Golf, or even Hockey which is relatively simple by comparison.
I'd love the money, sure. But then if someone offered to pay me six million a year plus to shovel shit in Siberia, I'd love that too. Monetary compensation doesn't equate to being more interesting than games I'd rather play or watch.
Your tirade aside, I stand by my point. Volleyball's pacing is much better, and if you're homophobic (which you must not be, embracing all those sweaty guys sticking their hands between each other's legs, kudos to you!) there's always an all-female team for the insecure. Kinda like how lesbian porn is for insecure men. Now wait a minute...
For my part, American football ranks right up there with waiting for a George Foreman grill to preheat. [/B]
Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
I understand YOUR point but MY point is that I think you think it's boring because you bring it down to its most basic form. If you understood the game better, it's possible you wouldn't find it quite as boring.
I concede that this may be true, but not enough for me to consider it more interesting than soccer or tennis, which you agreed are pretty fun to watch.
I didn't say it did, but you definitely have a lower opinion of athletes than other people which is why I brought it up.
I think it's criminal to pay athletes all that money and pay for their schooling, when people in careers which greatly shape and help society are stuck with federal grants, paying out of pocket, or dropping out to get full time jobs to support themselves and family. Simply playing a sport and enjoying it isn't a moral issue for me; it's the fact that society has built it up into this worthy institution which showers money on its members (in most situations) when everyone else trying to get society to work gets the shaft.
You might say I'm bitter that a football player who C and D's his way through college gets a free lunch while others don't. I'd sure as hell love a paid for education, because that would open up a career choice I couldn't have any other way.
It was a tirade as much as yours was a tirade, that is not at all. And if I was homophobic, I wouldn't have watched WWE for 20 years. I'm pretty sure the comparison between women's volleyball and lesbian porn is valid. I suppose you could make the same between WWE and gay porn, but since I doubt you've ever watched the latter, I don't think you could do it.
That is pretty damn intense.
Actually, I -love- my George Foreman grill. But it's pretty damn boring.
I think it's criminal to pay athletes all that money and pay for their schooling, when people in careers which greatly shape and help society are stuck with federal grants, paying out of pocket, or dropping out to get full time jobs to support themselves and family. Simply playing a sport and enjoying it isn't a moral issue for me; it's the fact that society has built it up into this worthy institution which showers money on its members (in most situations) when everyone else trying to get society to work gets the shaft.
You might say I'm bitter that a football player who C and D's his way through college gets a free lunch while others don't. I'd sure as hell love a paid for education, because that would open up a career choice I couldn't have any other way.
Also:
Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
This is the equivalent of blaming MTV producers for continuously making outrageous shows and paying morons like the cast of Jersey Shore obscene amounts of money. This is where you and I disagree because while the groups you blame is apparently consistent with your philosophy, for me the blame falls to a different party. I don't blame athletes for banking, I blame the spectators who make the sports industry the biggest in the world. I don't blame MTV or the cast of guido miscreants, I blame the public for watching the shows. It's the public's fault for all of this. If we didn't follow sports in such a fanatic fashion, athletes wouldn't get paid so much because owners/tv stations/advertisers wouldn't be making much money. Actually, I just reread what you wrote after "society". I take my point back because it appears that you do give society some blame, but you're still looking down on athletes through no fault of their own.
No, I don't have to look down on athletes for taking advantage of society's idiocy necessarily. I look down on them for being content to slum through school, make big bucks to play a game for other people's amusement, and then have MTV Cribz style homes while people with majors in math, English and medicine make a fraction of the salary with tons more brains.
Again, you can call that bitter, and it's true. I have a right to be bitter that throwing a ball really good is worth more to society than say, working in a hospital.
Sure, I think it's annoying any time that happens, but I give props to the athlete who has skills that society apparently deems worthy enough for him to be a mediocre student and still excel.Also:
Right, give props to a guy who gets a free lunch because of physical capabilities.
That's like watering a plastic plant. It doesn't ****ing grow from exposure, why waste the water on it?
Giving props to a guy who has incredibly rare physical abilities that society covets? And we're going to blame him for getting the free lunch instead of those giving it to him? While we are at it, lets blame guns for murders instead of the people using them inappropriately. Or while we're at it, lets blame all the torrent sites and what not for piracy instead of the companies that want to charge outrageous prices. This world is a buyer's market whether you like it or not, so the sellers are either giving us what we want, or they're losing out.
While I certainly do not approve of "milking" the system, maybe you should refine the system rather than blaming the individuals who use it to their benefit. I blame the welfare system more than the people who use it.
I used to think that giving athletes millions of dollars was a waste of money since they're basically being paid for their physical gifts.
And then I got a job as a security guard making $16 an hour in a law firm where most of the lawyers are making about $800,000 a year, and at least half of those lawyers are too ****ing stupid to realize that two stanchions and a sign in front of a revolving door that says "door locked, please use other door" means you probably shouldn't walk through that one.
And now athletes making ridiculous amounts of money doesn't bother me anymore. If you think about all the "millionaire" jobs in the world, professional athletes have to work pretty damn hard to earn their keep by comparison.
I mean, how many astrophysicists and mathematicians risk becoming paraplegics 60-70 times a day (the average amount of plays in a football game range from 60-70 plays)?
Good points. Janus, I'm not sure you realize how hard athletes work. I agree in terms of societal benefits that no, athletes don't really compare in terms of their work. However, I would argue that a LOT, if not MOST athletes give millions of dollars in charity a year so while the immediate benefit isn't known, the eventual benefit is great.
Originally posted by RE: Blaxican
I mean, how many astrophysicists and mathematicians risk becoming paraplegics 60-70 times a day (the average amount of plays in a football game range from 60-70 plays)?
I give credit to football players and am fine with them pulling in massive amounts of cash. But baseball players? Hell no.
Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
Good points. Janus, I'm not sure you realize how hard athletes work.
Oh, I'm sure they work rather hard for their money. I never claimed it was easy. Of course, it's very difficult to work as a janitor of a large campus, a nurse working twelve plus hour shifts, or putting in an average of 50 hours a week as a teacher while making hopefully 35k or more with tons of schooling under your belt.
But when 'work' is basically 'play a game', it becomes a little less dire than 'perform open heart surgery' or 'try not to **** up a generation of students'. Even if shoveling shit in Siberia is -hard- work, it's still shoveling shit in Siberia.
I agree in terms of societal benefits that no, athletes don't really compare in terms of their work.
^ This is the entire point. I fully realize that professional athletes are paid based on their relative worth to team owners and revenue they generate. The public's mentally defective need to throw money at sports as the world tumbles down around their ears isn't absolved here. But I'm not inclined to respect athletes who make ridiculous sums of money and basically have an opportunity to live in luxury beyond an overwhelming majority of Americans because... people like to watch them play games.
Considering less than 3% of Americans make more than a quarter of a million a year, much less five, ten times that, high paid athletes ought to be building childrens' hospitals and supplementing army veteran's pay.
However, I would argue that a LOT, if not MOST athletes give millions of dollars in charity a year so while the immediate benefit isn't known, the eventual benefit is great.
The highest amount I've seen donated is about 3-5 million, from mega-huge names and almost always to one source (i.e. a hospital, or single community). I'm not discrediting the idea that some may donate, and some may donate in the millions; that's far more than I do. But then again if I earned a million dollars in my lifetime, I'd still be several lifetimes behind each and every one of them.
If you justify large salaries on the off-chance that the players donate adequately (since they really have no obligation to), why not just advocate enforced donations in contracts? If they ought to do good as people in a position of wealth, why not have them donate 30% of their earnings to needy children, or families who lose parents to cancer? Or at least tax the ever living daylights out of them to make up for the money spent on them that could otherwise rejuvenate other industries or supplement schools?
When the dust settles, yeah, they're enjoying the system, and yet public spending on the sport basically perpetuates the issue. But when the total salaries of NFL teams is completely outrageous (fun fact; Soccer professionals on that same list barely top 2.5 million per team) I find it going from 'successfully rich' to 'why the **** are we funneling so much money into so few people'. Hell, even 10% of that income distributed into scholarships for graduate schools, that's almost 340 million donated to education. Again, 10% of payroll, where the median is not any lower than half a million a year.
You tell me the world wouldn't be a better place, even marginally, if the NFL did something responsible with that money instead of throwing it at the players in proportion to their approximate worth. And while I'm on the subject, University football coaches sometimes get six digit salaries too. I imagine they work real hard on those sidelines, yelling at college kids to play hard, play fast, etc. Just another great reason why the football craze is America's insanity given form.
Mostly good points and I agree that the money could be spent more efficiently.. However, I don't know where you got the numbers for soccer professionals. The best players in Europe make more than the best NFL players here.
high paid athletes ought to be building childrens' hospitals and supplementing army veteran's pay.
Also we didn't mention this because we're talking about football players but Tennis players give obscene amounts of money to charity.
Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
Mostly good points and I agree that the money could be spent more efficiently.. However, I don't know where you got the numbers for soccer professionals. The best players in Europe make more than the best NFL players here.
Yeah, the rest of the world's football is ridiculous in revenue. They probably get gold plated Porches for signing up.
Tim Tebow did that🙂Also we didn't mention this because we're talking about football players but Tennis players give obscene amounts of money to charity.
Kudos to him then!
And yeah, tennis players like Andre Agassi donate heavily.
Under terms of a deal that became effective March 1, the fourth-year Nebraska head coach's annual base salary increased to $2.775 million, a raise of $425,000 from his 2010 contract. Under the new five-year deal, Pelini's base salary will escalate $100,000 annually, reaching $3.175 million in 2015.
This is after a 10-4 season last year, where we lost our bowl game and finished 18th (5th place among big 12 teams).
(wiki'd)