The American Sports Fan: Story of a Superiority Complex

Preface:
Each day I hear at least one person go off on a rant about a sports team, player or affiliate and I ask myself, why am I even listening to you? I wonder if the typical fan has any clue what they are talking about? I know the answer is no. But, I want to know if ‘they’ know they don’t know shit about what they obsess over. I wanted to get across the message that they rarely understand the athlete that they so blindly support in success and so maliciously attack in failure. I wanted to show the agenda of the teams they so deeply love and are so loyal to. Do they know that the team isn’t very loyal to them? Or anyone, for that matter? I am sick of these talking heads on TV or the radio who have almost zero experience in the subjects they so passionately comment on. This entire society has just turned into one big paparazzi van. We watch our athletes like we do our entertainers. In fact, I would argue there is little difference between them.

The Athlete:
I am just a man. I am mortal, though at times my physical strengths can make me appear anything but. I am human and I make the same mistakes as you. Actually, I have the propensity to make even more mistakes because the pressure cooker that I have called my life since the day I turned 14 is immensely more chaotic than anything you can imagine. I have been valued in dollars and cents since I got to high school and I can name how much people say I am worth, can you?

Since I was a child, I was always the best, the fastest, the strongest. I was the #1 pick at recess, the #1 pick after school, I was never “it” in tag and you all wanted to be my friend. In high school, I was Mr. Popular, even though I really didn’t know what that meant or why. I always dated the girls you liked and I didn’t even try to. I often was given a break on school work because of the effort I put in on the field. I know this had to bother you. I know if you got to start over me on the field when I know you didn’t do the work, I’d be pissed too. The thing is though, I didn’t choose any of this. I didn’t ask for any of this. I was just being me, doing what I do. Most of the time, I felt uncomfortable around you and for the longest time, I didn’t even know why.

When I went to college, I got to pick my school and I got into a school you couldn’t despite your academics being far stronger than my own. I was cheered when I arrived, while you bartered for friendships, you had to join a fraternity to find loyalty, I was given an entire student section just for showing up. The girls you chased and held in high regard, were the same girls that threw their morals and your regard onto my bedroom floor, and I didn’t even as much as ask them their names. I went to class in some cases, I didn’t in others, I often was out late and wasn’t asked what I was doing or why my essay looked so much like the kid behind me’s. I was given a tutor for tests and nobody ever asked me “How was class” or “What is your GPA”. I was granted these rights because of what I could eventually do on Sunday. Ironically, A day that typically doesn’t even hold classes. This is who I am, who I have become, and I never asked for it.

The time has come to actualize that value that was placed on my head at 14. It’s draft day, this is where a bunch of professional teams (whose profit gains are linked to where you decided to reside) will joust and position for a chance to select me to join their team (and marketing scheme). I am 21 years old and before I do a single thing, before I score a point or shoot a commercial I am going to be worth more money than you will make in a lifetime. You went to college and read 50 books and wrote a million papers, all in preparation, to give you a chance to earn a fair living. All I needed to learn was “sign on the line which is dotted”. I am a millionaire and my dream has come true, I am now forever known as a professional athlete. My team is going to put me on the billboard and in the program and you are going to buy all my jerseys. You are going to hang my jersey on your young son, without knowing anything about me. Fact of the matter is, I don’t even know that much about me.

They say failure tests character and if that is so, I am in for a real awakening. I have rarely failed, in fact, I have rarely even tried. I was the biggest and fastest since I could remember. People gave me everything without my even having to ask. Naturally, I have acquired a sense of entitlement, wouldn’t you?

Eventually, it just becomes a matter of “Pavlov’s dog”, I ring the bell and people answer. I never had to learn or develop the parts of my personality that you did. I didn’t have to develope realtionship skills or "people skills", because everyone I knew was doing everything I wanted. I didn’t have to learn how to treat a lady, because they bypassed chivalry for a chance to say they 'fucked a winner'. I never had to deal with a coach or someone that was going to scream at me like your employer might you, because despite the title, their jobs depended on me, not the other way around.

Contrarily, you never had to have the pressure of knowing millions of dollars were at stake every time you laced it up. You didn’t have tens-of-thousands of people pay top dollar to see you perform, you didn’t have to carry grown men's careers on your back. I had all of this before I turned 20, what did you do at 20? Beer bongs? Drive dad’s sports car?

As I develop my game and stand in the shadows on my new team, their marketing gurus are up in the high offices locked away in a think tank trying to figure out the best way to capitalize on their new investment, which is me. The people are thinking and evaluating my past and my personality to devise the best way to present me to the fans, to the media, to the league. They know what will sell and what won’t. They also know that I am not overly educated and that I am also a little bit in awe of my surroundings, I am impressionable and easily molded, which is why now is the time. They will saddle me up at camp with the guys they think I can best learn from, on and off the court. They will treat me in certain ways (often not any reflection of what they truly think of me) because they are trying to mold me into their marketing design. The design that will make the most money. A design the fans will love. I really wasn’t even told what that design was, I basically just lived my life as I would and occasionally obliged the powers that be with some social appearances. I would go to schools or hospitals and sign autographs because my GM or agent asked me to (or paid me to).

Let me ask you something, when you were 21, did you go visit hospitals? Did you go read to inner city kids? Or serve the homeless some soup? I am just wondering if it came natural to you at that age?

It’s a funny thing, because I recently read a blog about somebody in the NFL that no-showed a ball signing for kids and I thought ‘ya, that’s pretty unaccountable…but what was his reason?’ then I read further into the comments and saw people just gutting him. I mean ruthlessly accusing him of being a spoiled overpaid athlete with too much money and too much this and not enough that…and I thought to myself, I wonder if those people know how much money people have made off of me in my life? Just how many times I have gone through pain and not sleeping so my team could win and my coach would then be rewarded with a big pay raise? Or how many students applied to my University because they grew up watching me and my former teammates run up the score on conference rivals? Do I still not deserve my money? Am I still overpaid? Am I spoiled? Maybe. Maybe not, and you don’t even know me. The bottom line here is, I am a businessman in a multi-billion dollar business. The stakes for me are equal to the stakes of Harvard MBA types vying for Fortune 500 x/o jobs. It’s just big business and the people in the know, play. Those who aren’t, don’t and won’t ever understand the difference. I was a Communications major and I barely attended those classes (Yeah, I know my loss) and we are talking about million dollar decisions. So I hired the best agent I could and I listen to every word he tells me. He has an MBA from Stanford, a JD from Northwestern, and years of experience, so if anybody would know how to maximize my profitability its him.

My agent told me to keep my nose clean, to project myself as educated and articulate. He told me that the people in my new town are loyal but they are mostly upper class white folks and they really don’t take too well to ignorance or thugish behavior. He told me always wear a tie and when I go out to make sure I don’t mix up with thugs or people that would make me look like I’m low rent. Of course, I figured all of these things but I have never been part of the world I am trying to appeal to and the thing is, I don’t really understand all of the marketing terms or plans they keep throwing at me. They have me dressing in clothes I’ve never worn before and they have me in shoots for magazines I’ve never read and they keep telling me “I am gonna be a star”. Whatever that means? I just want to play ball. The thing about all of this you need to understand is; I get paid a lot for my skills and my physical attributes, I get paid $0.00 for my thoughts and $0.00 for my feelings. For my appearance and my “winning personality” I signed multiple endorsement deals for a millions of dollars (thanks to my agents long standing relationship with Nike and Coca Cola). But what you don’t understand is; even my sponsors didn’t know me when we signed on, they knew my agent. Furthermore, there is such a thing as bottom-line-profit and in order for Nike to pay me millions they had to see my investment as something worth perhaps tens-of-millions. Meaning, they have more at stake than I do in this little game. They send out teasers into the target market to determine what you people want to hear and then they sculpt me into that image. Yeah, sure, I get rich off of this deal, but to take words from Comedian Chris Rock, there is a difference between “Getting rich and being wealthy”. Nike got wealthy, I'm just rich. I am no bigger than a part of this giant machine. I am actually the lowest form in this deal. I am the muscle. I am the slave. I do the work. The team gets the rings, the owners get the profit sharing, the sponsors get the purchases, the agents get the interest, the Government gets the taxes and I get the rest.

I am just fortunate enough to understand the process, most of my peers don’t even realize that they are the tool in the game. They don’t comprehend what is going on. They get big headed and begin to spout off like they run the show, too bad they don’t know the show runs them. In Rome, the gladiators got the glory but slept in cages while the senators slept in castles. In the 1800’s the entertainers where the show but P.T. Barnum left with all the money. Now in modern entertainment – status quo - It's a zero sum game. Maybe you should think about this before you judge me or before you call me a hypocrite because you were dumb enough to buy my jersey. Maybe you should think about who I am before you anoint me the new hero to your son. I don’t owe you a public apology for anything I have done or will do. I don't owe you shit.


The Business:
We run a very organized company here. We hold assets of more than 1 billion dollars. We view ourselves as a global entity but we really our recognition is relatively centralized. We are Oz, the man behind the curtain if you will, and we like it that way. Our job is to manufacture profit, to maximize gains where ever possible.

We run a sports franchise and every few years we get a new crop of draft picks that we can label “Next.”. We will scout for talent and try to provide the best possible team to put on the field. Winning is important to us, because while some teams can lose and still clean house fiscally, we are in a market that only pays for winners. So, first we put together a contender, then we try to market and align things for profitability. We have made the playoffs the last 4 seasons and we felt we were just a young gun away from making it over the hump. This off-season we picked up a real blue chip prospect out of Texas. He is a physical specimen and he appears to have the charisma we like to see in our players. He is a work in progress both on and off the field but we feel he can be “game ready” by mid-season. Before we drafted him we did some background and found that he came from a single parent home and was not very financially stable, but we think that will only help us relate to our 3rd deck fans. He did attend most of his classes in college so we feel like he was committed and won’t be a problem in the locker room or from an attendance standpoint. We have a long standing relationship with Nike and Coca Cola so we will be running our plans for him by them to see what opportunities might be available to us.

As Nike we own a lot of subsidiary companies and are invested in a handful of complementary businesses to our own, so we see a young star in the making as a potential revenue stream over the coming years. After running a few test surveys we have determined our potential growth and are prepared to make an offer to this young man and of course continue our relationship with his sports franchise.

The first thing we need to do is design a campaign around this player, we need to discuss with the team when he will most likely begin to receive heavy playing time and if they foresee an extended playoff run. We need to make sure we market him at the right time. Obviously, there is no point in marketing him month-one if he is on the bench. So, we push him hard in the off season, then pull back the message, then when we hear he is about to start making an impact, we come out with a new side of him to lure the fans into the stadium and into our stores. We launch his website around this time with links to our own websites. Call his agents and tell them what we need his player to do. Also, tell him his cut of the profit so that we have him on board, sweeten the deal if you have to, because without his agent this guy will be no use to us.

As his agent, I accept the terms of the deal on the condition that…(all of these conditions will benefit me – and often before my player even sees a dime). I know that my client has the opportunity of a lifetime, after all, if he didn’t, why would I be here? I know that the more field time he sees, the more TV time he sees and as a result the more dollar bills he sees. I want to get the best for my client, partially because I like him and it is my job. But also, if I make him rich, I will get the chance to make many others like him rich and consequently get to make myself rich too! First thing's first, I need to get on the horn with the team owners, I can’t even begin to negotiate until I have a clue as to his projected playing time. They want him out on billboards early to sell season tickets, but without a winner they will not make their profit sharing cap. So, I need to know if he going to be paraded out all off-season then hidden on the sidelines until December? After a long talk with ownership we came to a consensus on when he will begin to get the bulk of reps, barring injury. Now, when I call the sponsors back I have a little inside info that I can sell at a premium. I can answer the question they desperately needed in order to get this campaign off and running (when?). As is customary, I negotiate my commission and percentages of sales earning, then I set the restrictions for my client.

Once the sponsorship contract is completed, I go back to the owners and tell them the deal in place, these are the incentives he must reach and this is the amount of TV/game time my client wishes to have. Naturally, I know that they too are in bed with our sponsors, so it behooves them to nod and smile and sign the agreement, otherwise they run the risk and misfortune of losing product placement in favor of other bigger shall we say “more cooperative products”. Again, as is customary, I negotiate my take first.

My player couldn’t be happier; he is signed on with major sponsors, he has a contract with plenty of achievable incentives and a guaranteed contract with his hometown team. Now all he has to do are pay me my representation rights, attorney fees, marketing fees, and a percentage of his guaranteed salary or bonuses.

Please understand, I am not a conman nor have I misrepresented my client. I negotiated my rates first (as is customary). This is what he paid for, I provided the opportunities and knowledge he didn’t have and that were necessary for him to maximize profitability. I had to tutor him, I had to comfort and befriend him. I took care of his family, I bought his mother a house during draft prep. I put my neck out on the line for him time and time again. I represented his name in a false accusation of a stripper he engaged in sexual congress with and I never so much as complained once. I did my job and I did it to absolute perfection. From my vantage point, and honestly, from his too, I was worth every Penney.


The Media:
We are in trouble people. Print is dying, radio is in slumber and we struggle to stay current online. Right now all we can do is cater to the manic fan and provide entertainment until we can find out how to lead the way in information. We need to find that curve, but until then, "Shock and awe". We will use TV personalities and people that the fans can relate to. Contrary to the way of the past, where we used to train reporters to be relatively innocuous and we wanted them to be able to relate to the player or the subject, that is no longer important. What wins now are people the viewer can relate to. If the viewer is pissed, hire a fiery guy that will touch them off. If our viewer likes to be jerked off, get a guy with a lotion bottle. Whatever it takes. ESPN came up as a nonstop sports news show. It was like Nightly News with Dan Rather and now it is just an entertainment show with little sideshow tricks, whistles and gimmicks. It hires anchors with flair and in some cases it broadcasts a reality show to hire it’s new hosts – who then fizzle and wind up on the Big Ten network (no offense to my hometown guy Mike Hall – Sorry, I hate Mizzou). You see, sports is more entertainment now than ever before. I recall stories from past generations where men were at war and still just wanted to find out who won the pennant or guys that have been season ticket holders at Notre Dame so long that they remember winning titles. Sports news now is really not a lot different than Hollywood news. The only difference in the two is; sports judges relevancy on rankings and scores while Hollywood goes by box office, or so you would think. Truthfully, we here at ESPN are more like those at TMZ than we would probably like to admit. It really isn’t the ranking or score that runs us, just as box office doesn’t mean dick to TMZ. What really moves the ticker is viewership and website hits. We will run just about anything involving; sex, guns, drugs, suspicious behavior, salacious gossip, or cheating. In fact, they will be headlines. Because they grab attention, and that Advertisers love!

We really are stuck in the middle here, you have to understand, we have fought tooth and nail for years to gain access to clubhouses and coaches during the game and players at halftime (despite that you may have noticed they all say exactly the same things), it still allows are viewer to feel more engaged. Why would a coach or player do these interviews, you might ask? Why would a team open it’s once tightly guarded doors? Because, relationship marketing is the king now. People want to see interaction, they want access, they want to feel empowered. After all the years of neglect they finally have what they've always wanted, and we provide that for them. The league needs a face if it wants to survive in this global economy. The team does too. The coaches and players have it in their contract that they are to speak and answer whatever the media asks them during games. That is why every player says the same thing after the games (Or why Kevin Garnett yelled "Nothing Is Impossible" after winning the NBA title, despite his sponsor Adidas having the slogan "Impossible is NOTHING"). Because you just took a person who is physically drained and emotionally exhausted and dragged their ass out of the shower and told them to answer repetitive questions for the fiscal benefit of everyone involved. The only problem here is that they already got their cut – so what is the motivation to seriously answer any questions, enter apathetic tones and repetitive answers. If only we could negotiate a CPQ (cost per question) we might all be able to get what we want out of this. We tried this method a few years back during the Super Bowl, it worked out fabulously, now every year you get to see a bunch of Hall Of Famers running around pitching anything from bowling shoes to dick medicine.

This is only half of the graph, we have to do all of these things; cater to the viewer, get access from the team, then represent them well in order to maintain that access, all the while not lose any Advertising time. We cannot afford to step on our toes, we can’t afford to lose 30 second slots after timeouts or spend too much time at halftime talking to illiterate ex-sports stars, however the viewers seem to like it so, what should we do? The best way to bridge any gap is play like a pragmatist and find the common factors. For example: Nike is my biggest advertiser. They also happen to be the jersey manufacturer for the teams playing tonight, and the teams biggest young star, happens to be the face of their campaign. Put a call into the Sponsor, team represenative, and agent and before you know it, we are getting paid for a 60 second spot that we didn’t even have to air because we interviewed our new young star in his Nike swingman pullover on the way to the locker room, Nike paid us, the team gave us our access, the viewer got to feel empowered and all the agent wanted was our cameras to pan on him every other time a client/player of his scored a point. I know this sounds like a shallow business, but in actuality it's just the barometer of the viewers intellect and desires.


The Sports fan:
I am from a middle income family, my parents divorced when I was a teenager, I had a pretty good relationship with my dad and most of our good times were spent cheering on his favorite teams. When my parents divorced the games were my sanctuary, I threw myself into sports and my favorite teams. I was never very good at playing any of them, though. I mean I held my own but I didn’t really have the size and coordination skills to make the High School teams. But I sure liked to coach from the stands. I was so interested that my Junior year I became a team manager. It was the best time of my life. I got the chance to work out with the guys and hear the coaches on the sidelines and even though I didn’t get my name called in the gym like they did, I got to stand right next to them in front of the whole school. It was awesome. I would go home and analyze why we would lose or why some of the guys weren’t playing well that night and then go to school to try to explain things to the guys, I never really saw much of a reaction from them, but maybe they just didn’t handle criticism well. Anyways, as the year went on I noticed a lot of people around school knew who I was because I was always with the guys and finally before Homecoming, I decided to ask this girl to the dance with me, figuring I was popular enough to get her. The week before, I went up and asked her in the hall and she didn’t exactly say yes, but didn’t say no either. So I waited and waited and finally the day before the dance I said, “So, what’s the plan?” and she told me last minute she decided to go with my team captain, a guy that already committed to play ball at UT (who had broken up with his girlfriend the night prior). I guess it sort of bothered me because I knew he didn’t care about her the way I did so the next day I said something to him. Before I knew it, I was sitting back in the stands and I never again had much of a relationship with the guys or coach. I got over it I think, but I still do feel it was sort of unfair to me. When I decided on a college, I got waitlisted to my favorite school Texas, but finally settled on my home state school, which in the long run was probably best because it would have been really expensive to go to Texas.

Once I got to college, I joined a frat because they had all the access, they were the sports nuts and the guys like me. We partied hard and we went to nearly every game. Sometimes the players would show up at our parties for a little while and drink with us and stuff. Until one of the guys on the team hooked up with my frat-mates girlfriend, then it was pretty much taboo for the players to come party at our house. Even after that incident, I’m telling you, I lived and died with our teams season, in some ways I still do, even though I really don’t know any of the guys playing for us anymore.

When I got out of college, I really worked hard to find a job but ultimately had to settle on a job that wasn’t nearly the pay I thought I deserved. I liked the job fine but it wasn’t even my major, in fact, it wasn’t even something I had EVER envisioned myself doing. But all was fine once Monday came around and I got to watch the ball games and forget about everything that was bothering me. When I had the money, I would try to get tickets and go to some of the games and just like I did in high school I would analyze the players and the game and I just couldn’t understand why these guys didn’t look like they were committed out there. I mean, if it were me, I would be playing my ass off to be out there. I would give anything for a chance to be out there. I just didn’t have the talent they had, that’s all I was missing. Because I certainly had the spirit and knowledge of the game!

As I got older, I eventually married my live-in-girlfriend and we started a family, living the dream as they say. While I had less time to devote to my teams because of household chores and work and everything, I still loved my Sunday on the sofa watching my team. It was my solace. The thing is though; life can get pretty boring, I mean, I wasn’t unhappy, but I wasn’t happy really, either. I didn’t have my dream job, my dream car or even a house that was that great. I love my wife, but she really isn’t that attentive to me anymore. Actually, come to think of it, she never really was. I try to teach my son the sports I love, I just bought him the jersey of our towns biggest star and I try to make him a better player than I was. Can you imagine if my son made it to the big time? That would be a dream come true!

The only real fun I get anymore is when I step out for some drinks at the local watering hole during the game. I love to see my favorite players out there and listen to their take on game. My buddies and I will argue for hours over what they did or didn’t do. I feel alive again, something I rarely feel anymore. Just like a little kid, I analyze the games and try to imagine what I would do if I were out there. I wonder if my son does the same thing?


Epilogue:
The American sports fan feels a sense of entitlement similar to the athlete. The athlete has been given everything and feels entitled to take anything he wants, similarly the fan gave everything and now feels entitled to judge. The middle man in all of this is the Corporation who feels entitled to collect, and keep collecting. The player gets all the blame and yet he has little to do with what was presented. Sure, he can be Ben Roethlisberger and be a complete scumbag, or he can be Tiger Woods and rail anything off the Perkins menu, but ultimately, Tiger was just being Tiger and Ben was just being ole' mullet Ben. The fool here was you, the fan. You bought, and re-bought what they were selling you. Tiger Woods just did what he and Nike thought would make him most marketable/profitable. If the viewership told Nike they wanted to see their golf star to punt a baby, he would and again, they would collect.

The player always had the privilege and the fan always gave it to him. Often the player didn’t ask but received it just the same. How is a 20 year old relatively uneducated person supposed to understand the social contract they have engaged in by sharing drinks at your frat house? How was he supposed to know this exchanged entitled you to judge and taunt him on the field? Or criticize him off of it.

What the fan wants is what they don’t have, what the player has. The power. The privilege that has always alluded them. The media knows this, they know it better than the player and the fan. They use it. They abuse it. They provide the fan with the limited access and the opportunity to build up and breakdown a player or celebrity by blogging, tweeting, or commenting on stories, and boasting the ratings by tuning in or tuning out. The fan moves the ratings and as go the ratings go the dollars.

In a completely metaphorical sense, the fan gets to create his own hero, his own player. The media empowers them with this, then allows (and profits from) the fan tearing their hero down. The fan then feels entitled to a public display of humility and apology so they can grant this player redemption (The last desperate grab for power in this social exchange). This is a way for Average Joe to finally attain this power that he has so long coveted. Meanwhile the player keeps on being who he was when this all began, just a guy trying to get paid.

The humor of all of this is; that in the end it becomes clear that it was all bullshit to begin with. The player’s persona was created to move product. The Fan’s access was created by the media in exchange for their own access. The sponsors drive the process and feed off of the fans interest. As long as the hot streak continues, so does the coverage of their player, once his production ceases or the fan decides they want to tear him down to satisfy their need for perceived power, the media responds with a form letter of an apology and public displays of humility and regret from the player or if the player has done something reprehensible, the sponsor simply cuts ties and moves onto "the next big thing".

In life, you have your work-horse and your show-pony, the key is to know when to bet on which.