My hero H.L. Mencken once said politics is the greatest spectator sport. I wholeheartedly agree with the sage of Baltimore, so watching overgrown men run up and down a field in tight pants doesn’t do it for me, but I do realize that football is very popular. Perhaps even America’s most popular sport.
Growing up in northern Virginia I naturally became a Redskins fan. I remember the Redskins glory days with John Riggins, Joe Gibbs and the Hogs. The days when winning a Super Bowl was expected every season. However, my devotion has been reduced incrementally over the last few years, until this season, when I plan not to watch a single snap from the center.
The Marxists learned last century that the key to controlling a country was to control the culture, and of course sports and entertainment is part of the culture. This year it is the National Anthem protest, next year it will be a new left wing cause the NFL will be pushing. It will not stop. Any day now I expect the NFL to decree that no Super Bowl can be played in a state with a Confederate monument.
In terms of the latest protest, it is particularly galling that millionaire players have decided America is an unfair place. They are indoctrinated by left wing groups such as black lives matter (don’t all lives matter?)
The purpose of the kneeling protest is to propagate a lie that America is a racist, unfair country.
As a conservative I won’t give succor to the NFL and the left-wing sports media, so I am comfortable with my decision to put watching football behind me, and to end that phase of my life. The snarky liberal sports commentators can go on without me.
However, my main argument for boycotting the NFL is not political, although that in my mind is sufficient, rather it is personal. The main reason is time, the most valuable thing we have. Every hour of your life is priceless. Watching others (not your kids) play a game is a massive, indeed I’d say sinful, waste of time.
Let’s say you spend 3 hours a week on watching the NFL, and add the playoffs, the Super Bowl and a couple hours a week listening to sports talk radio, and of course the pre-game show and you get to close to 100 hours a year. Just think what you could do with that time. And if you go to the games you will be spending several thousand dollars.
Think of the opportunity cost! In a hundred hours you can read dozens of the best books ever written, complete numerous projects around the house. You can spend time with your family, work on your other hobbies. You could learn to play chess, learn to cook. One season you could spend your new found 100 hours touring historic sites in Virginia.
Plus, there is the emotional investment you put in football. What happens if your team loses. You feel depressed. What happens if your favorite player pulls a hamstring muscle? You feel bad. Put your emotional energy into something more productive.
Watching football can never improve your life. Oh, sure it may be fun watching a giant man make a catch and run down the field, while another man is in hot pursuit but that is never going to make you truly happy. Don’t give the NFL your money, your time or your attention.
So, retire as a fan, as I have, and get your Sundays back. You will thank me one day. And when you are asked at work what you thought of the big game, and that amazing catch, respond with, “Just because grown men decide to play a game doesn’t mean I have to watch.”
