David Michael Miller
It’s World Cup time! And, like most Americans, I just don’t care.
For about 40 years soccer enthusiasts have been saying that their sport will catch on in the United States very, very soon. But it never does.
It seemed like it might actually happen four years ago, when the U.S. team got deep into the tournament. That run included an early loss to Germany in what even I have to admit was the most exciting soccer match I have ever watched. (Never mind that it was the only soccer match I have ever watched.) It didn’t help that our team lost in the end and that the end happened so suddenly. A referee just decided it was over, leaving Americans accustomed to the breathless final seconds, time outs and spiked balls of American football to ask, what the huh?!
And this time there is no American team to be disappointed by. Our guys lost in a preliminary round to lowly Trinidad & Tobago. Next time they should try playing just one country at a time.
But it’s not just the World Cup that we’ll have to contend with. Last month, it was announced that Madison would get its very own minor league professional team. They’ll start playing next year at Breese Stevens Field and, in true Madison fashion, the owners have left it up to the community to decide on the team name and colors. My suggestion is the Madison Committees, who will wear shades of grey; but you can put in your own two cents.
But here’s the thing. Given all that’s wrong with American football, I may have to stop mocking what billions of people all over the world like to call “the beautiful game.”
Last season I didn’t watch football. With the Packers suffering through a season without Aaron Rodgers, that was little sacrifice. But the Badgers flirted with competing for a national title, and yet I barely watched a few downs of their bowl game.
Of course, I know how the teams did because I read the sports pages, but it’s watching the games on television that really contributes to the money-printing machines that are the NFL and the NCAA. And so by not watching I don’t contribute to their bottom line, which for me is the point.
My main reason for tuning out is player brain injuries. The evidence is overwhelming that repeated head trauma, which could be happening to at least one player on virtually every down, is contributing to mental health issues and early death among players. Whether or not the players understand and accept the risks doesn’t matter to me. I just don’t want to watch men scramble their brains for my entertainment and somebody else’s enormous profit.
A second issue is player compensation. It’s just wrong that players for the major college football powerhouses (often referred to as the “power five” football conferences) can’t be paid for their services. Everybody else involved — the TV networks, the companies that sell food and beverages, the athletic apparel companies, the coaches, the athletic department administrators — is making a fortune, while the guys risking their health down on the field can be punished for taking so much as a free pair of shoes. Never mind that the football programs themselves take millions of dollars from shoe and clothing manufacturers. And, please, when the average Big Ten head football coach’s salary was $3.5 million in 2016, don’t try to tell me that a scholarship that might be worth $30,000 is adequate compensation.
Even professional players are undercompensated for the risks they take and the revenues they produce, especially given the brief length of an average career in the NFL. Over a recent five-year period when the value of teams went up 40 percent, player compensation increased by only 1 percent. And, probably due in part to the increased severity and rate of injuries, the average NFL career length has plummeted since 2008, down 2.5 years to only 3.3 years.
And now the NFL has given us one more reason to enjoy a nice bike ride on crisp fall Sunday afternoons. The owners’ recent decree that players must stand during the national anthem is sure to do nothing more than pour fuel on the controversy. Then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick started the troubles a couple seasons ago when he began sitting and then kneeling during the anthem to protest police mistreatment of African Americans.
In my view that was fair game. The anthem, and much of the games themselves, had already been hijacked by the U.S. military, which uses them as a recruiting tool, and by right-wing politicians, who long ago co-opted national symbols to represent conservative politics. While I respect soldiers, my country isn’t defined by its armed forces. It’s what they defend that matters; not the defense itself. I don’t mind standing for the national anthem, but I also don’t want it to feel as if I’m making some kind of “love it or leave it” political statement or that I’m ceding my country to its military. The armed forces serve us, not the other way around.
Anyway, in response to Kaepernick’s using the anthem to make a political point different from the political point the NFL was pushing, it’s pretty clear that the teams conspired to keep Kaepernick off the field. And there was no greater conspirator than the Green Bay Packers. After Rodgers’ injury, the Packers stumbled through the rest of the season with backup quarterback Brett Hundley, who proved early on that he wasn’t up for it. Hundley finished the season ranked last among starting quarterbacks. Worse than last, even — he was ranked 33rd out of 32 teams. There’s just no question that if Kaepernick’s politics had been different, the Packers would have given him a shot to lead the team.
The NFL could have just left it alone. Those players who wanted to stand for the anthem could and those who didn’t could choose not to. Instead, the owners took one side of the political divide — the Donald Trump side.
Fine, it’s their league. But we can refuse to watch. It’s our time. And if enough of us refuse to watch it’ll be their money at stake. And that’s the only thing that will get their attention.
Soccer could replace American football, but it’s not like soccer doesn’t have its own problems. There is also a concussion issue in that game. In fact, playing soccer is the leading cause of concussions among female athletes in Canada, and headers account for only about 10 percent of the problem. Most of it is just contact between players. And FIFA, the organization that runs international soccer, is every bit as money-grubbing as the NFL or the NCAA. In fact, it’s probably worse. And, of course, soccer is so nationalistic that it inspires riots.
Come to think of it, forget it. I’ll just stick with baseball, a game so gentle that players go on the disabled list with maladies like “lower calf tightness” and, every single game, the fans get up and sing that if their team loses it’d be “a shame,” but not the end of the world. If football and soccer are war by other means, baseball is a bridge tournament by other means.
As of this writing, the Brewers have a one-and-a-half game lead on the Cubs and the Mallards have won 12 in a row. This is right and just. Forget the World Cup. Forget the gridiron. Play ball.
