"Gambling is terrible. Wait, we can make how much money off of sports betting?"
- Professional Sports Leagues and politicians
They're setting the stage for the next addiction epidemic.
Gambling and pro sports certainly makes for strange bedfellows. Even catching the tail end of a sportsball event on TV or radio, the gambling ads in those short few minutes seem almost non-stop and the
If you have a gambling problem disclaimers at the end seem insincere - especially for those gambling platforms that won't pay winnings or refunds in cash but insist they be used for more gambling as non-refundable site credits.
Worse is how the gambling sites have to cancel bets when a
start star player gets injured and it would prevent anyone from winning same-day parlays involving the injured players. It's gotten so ridiculous I'm waiting for the day people can bet on the most absurd and irrelevant aspects of a game.
I remember when the Super Bowl was an event, the commercials were great, and the NFL was fun to watch. We used to have a Super Bowl party every year and now I can't remember the last time we even had chips and dip during the game. Now it's boring and I can't put my finger on why exactly, other than possibly gambling influencing the games and this:
In the past, multiple friends would host Super Bowl parties and I'd have to pick one over the rest. Now, none of those same people host any more for whatever reason. Maybe it's the lack of competitive/interesting match ups, the awful halftime entertainment, or the commercials whose quality declines for the increasing costs to air them. When the game and everything around it isn't as entertaining, fewer people want to watch it - whether alone or with friends.
Anyone else getting really apathetic with the NFL?
I think three main points have fueled the increased apathy we're seeing when it comes to the NFL or even pro sports as a whole:
- It costs too much to watch games at the venue (tickets, parking, etc.) and watching on TV now requires paid cable or streaming services for most if not all events.
- The perceived overall quality of play seems to be gradually decreasing each season as players demand increasingly lucrative salaries.
- The forced expectation or inclusion of political or social justice stuff. Just the other day, it was announced that NFL teams will continue to include social justice messages in the end zones. (AP Article / Ghost Archive). People want to be entertained by sports, not preached to nor politisperged at.
Morice norris from the lions knocked out and convulsed on the field earlier.
I know this happened a week ago, but I came here to say the sportsmanship shown by both teams that night impressed me and deserves to be recognized since acts of good sportsmanship seem to be few and far between in pro sports these days.
At the time Norris' injury happened, I can't imagine how horrifying it looked to everyone else on the field. Older Lions fans may even remember Mike Utley's career-ending injury. Today's players are more aware of the potential for serious injuries with the greater awareness of CTE, concussions, and the like. Seeing a player such as Norris being driven off in an on-field ambulance is difficult to witness because of the gravity of the situation where an injured athlete can't do anythng for themselves under their own strength.
Given this was a pre-season game with little value apart from evaluating the reserves to see who makes the cut for the regular season, I like the fact both teams - from the coaching staffs to the players - decided they had enough at that point and they wanted to call it a night. Even though play resumed with both teams informing the head official they'd simply run out the clock within the rules once play resumed, the league office thankfully did the right thing to ultimately halt the game officially once the ball was snapped for the last time with all 22 players on the field forming a circle to pray and offer positive thoughts for Norris without regard to the time left or the score.
Hopefully he's just trying to be an edgelord yuck it up type.
