I Just Quit Watching the NFL

Sports and politics don’t mix. (image via wikimedia)

I decided to quit watching the NFL for a while.  I like watching football, so this was a tough decision to make.  A few years ago, I wrote a blog post titled  6 Reasons Why Football Is The Best Sport Ever, so by quitting football, I’ll be depriving myself of the best sport ever.  I don’t want to deprive myself, but the NFL has ticked me off.

Me quitting the NFL might be like my wife quitting Facebook.  My wife could last only a few weeks.  That’s why I hesitate making a grand announcement.  I’ve quit smoking, drinking, and reading comic books, but giving up on the NFL might be the toughest addiction to overcome.

One thing I love about football is that it was the great unifier at work.  The office environment is a diverse place, but everybody has a good-natured opinion about our local football team.  It’s better than talking about the weather.  Whenever the office has been rocked by a divisive political disagreement, I (and a couple coworkers) have always been able to use football to bring everybody back together.

But a while ago I noticed too many sports shows were talking politics instead of football.  There have been several issues going on recently that I don’t want to get into because I’m not that kind of blogger, but a bunch of sports broadcasters have been expressing their political opinions on their sports shows.  That was no big deal.  I just stopped watching those sports shows.

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t like it when political shows talk about football either.  Everything has its proper time and place.  But now the politics has seeped into the football games themselves and the game broadcasts.  I don’t care about players’ political opinions (they don’t care about mine, so we’re even), and I don’t care what the broadcasters think about politics either.  I just wanted to watch football, and too much of the time they’re not talking about football.

This isn’t just sports.  I don’t watch entertainment or awards shows either because half the time they get political.  Celebrities sometimes believe that since they have access to more people that they have a responsibility to use their voice to promote their political causes.  I disagree.  I believe celebrities have a responsibility to NOT use their voices for their political purposes.

I see it as an abuse of goodwill.  Since we normal people pay money to see/watch them perform, they should be gracious enough to keep their mouths shut about political stuff while they’re doing their jobs.  If anything, they should be forced to listen to our political views since we pay them money (but that might be logistically difficult).  Even if I agree with the cause (which I sometimes do), I don’t want to hear about it during a sports or entertainment show.

I try to be consistent about this.  I’m not going to tell you what I think about political issues because you probably don’t care what I really think.  And if you care what I think and disagree with me, then you might get mad and stop reading my blog.

I like it when people read my blog, so I’m not going to piss them off by spouting off about something that isn’t a normal topic for my blog.  If somebody stops reading my blog because I make fun of James Patterson, then that’s a risk I’m willing to take.  If somebody stops reading my blog because I discuss the etymology of profane words, then I’m okay with that.  If people stop reading my blog because they think my writing is crap, that’s the price I pay for writing crap.

But I don’t want to drive people away with political stuff.  People take political stuff seriously, and everybody thinks they’re on the correct side.  If I want to discuss politics, I go to political websites.  I don’t watch sports channels to hear politics, and I’m guessing you don’t want to read political commentary from a guy like me who makes Moby Dick jokes.

*****

It was tough not paying attention to football today.  It’s easy to not watch football when it’s not on, but when you know a bunch of games are on, it’s almost impossible not to check for scores.  When my wife noticed that I wasn’t watching any games (I was reading with the television off), I told her there weren’t any good match-ups today, except for our local team, and they’re okay but very flawed.  The networks kill games with commercials anyway, so it was easy to say I wasn’t feeling it.

Then my wife piled some chores on me and wanted me to go with her and my daughters to a movie that I didn’t want to see.  I got out of seeing the movie, but it was tough to do without my family feeling like I didn’t want to spend time with them.  I explained that they don’t want to spend time with me while I’m watching football, and I don’t take that personally.

Plus, I found a couple good books to read.  At least, I think they’re good.  I don’t know for sure because I haven’t finished reading them yet.  But so far nobody in these books has interrupted my reading to force their political views on me.