Everything is Spiritual

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We wouldn't watch sports if...

Ok...So I've had this thought for a couple years now, and am finally beginning to formalize its implications.

I say this definitively (I write that because, well, I'm writing, and you may not be able to pick up how sure I am of this by simply reading a bunch of words written in boring font...But I digress): We would not be interested in watching sports the way we do, in this day and age, if they didn't wear such video game like UNIFORMS.

This goes, pretty much for ALL sports, though I think it is probably one of the single biggest reasons that football is so popular. They've got the best accessories in sports. They ARE a living video game (This is the other reason why football is king--its seamless transition to a video game format--And look how NFL broadcasts do all their graphics in similar video game format). As a kid--any of you ever "design" football uniforms/helmets while sitting in school? Baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey (which by the way might not even exist as a spectator sport,at least in the U.S., were it not for the exceptionally cool jerseys--or sweaters, to put it in puck lingo--they wear and can market. We barely care about it now because it doesn't translate to t.v. well for those of us uninitiated. (See also Soccer.)

Even, well maybe especially, NASCAR--I mean, seriously, I know there are some car guys out there who love to hear a hemi rumble, but for most people, would there be much interest at all if they couldn't associate their team/driver with those colorful uniformed cars and sweet driver jumpsuits?! And we don't even care that the uniform is just graphically well placed and displayed sponsor icons! But this country loves it some NASCAR.

Hmmm.....What's missing in mass spectator viewing popularity (mind you; no less the athletic prowess involved)? Swimming and Diving; wrestling (the real kind); tennis; track and field; cycling... All of these have A fanbase, no doubt. But they don't have mass media appeal. There are, admitedly, a variety of reasons for that, but lack of an "eye candy"/video game type uniform sets them all behind the eight ball to start.

Now, Golf, on the other hand, is it's own animal. To me golf's uniform is The Course itself. The one's that the Tour plays on week in and week out have a beauty and uniqueness to them that even those of us who are only occasional golfers like to see. The only people caring about what the actual golfers are wearing are the people who play the sport and want you and I to know that they play the sport/game... What I'm saying is that golf is an island. And let's be honest, without Tiger, golf would have waned in popularity as a spectator sport in the modern era (Again, I think video games help this too).

Please note: None of this is a critique of any one sport. We like to think up various reasons why certains sports do well and others don't as spectator sports.. and there is more than likely truth in most intelligent assessments. But we are a VISUAL valuing culture. We like color, cartoonish designs, and change. In the sports above--we get them all. Quick question: What is one of the reasons any of us like reading the extremely mediocre, written (literally) at a 5th grade reading level USA TODAY? THE COLORFUL DESIGN of it's front pages. That is one of the reasons they did it that way in the first place. Similar concept. And local newspapers have taken a cue from USA TODAY...Compare them now to even 15 years ago and you see the use of much more color...And then look at the Wall Street Journal. You really have to want to read it.

Uniforms unify...hence their desgnation. They unify us around a certain team. They, obviously, help the teams know who's who. But they could do that with shirts/skins or wearing just plain white/grey, etc. But that doesn't sell and it doesn't attract interest. Now I know sports have always been around with varying levels of uniform emphases...But even in ancient times, gladiators and the like got to use/wear stuff that most people did not. And the ancient Olympics--hey, they were naked. How great of a uniform is that? And heck, those guys even had to fight against Centaurs, who had the coolest uniforms ever.