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Yesterday, when I posted about how wokeness was killing professional sports, I was informed, politely, that I am late to the game. Others have been recommending a boycott of professional sports for some time now.
And yet, as the old saying goes, better late than never.
As for timeliness, yesterday the New York Post reported the latest polls about the public feelings about athletes and their sports. Unsurprisingly, the latest upsurge in political activism among athletes has caused public perception of their sports to tank. Republicans and independents have been more disaffected than Democrats, but still, who is the market for pro sports?
Perhaps the overpaid athletes will discover that the playing field is not the place to make political statements.
Anyway, here is the story:
More people have a negative view of pro sports than a positive one, as public support for America’s athletics industry plummeted amid the coronavirus pandemic and athletes’ backing of the Black Lives Matter movement, a new survey released Monday reveals.
Americans who have a positive view of sports dropped from 45 percent positive in August 2019 to 30 percent last month, the Gallup poll found.
The number of citizens who had a negative view shot up from 25 percent last year to 40 percent in August 2020.
That’s a shift of 30 points — from a plus 20 percent positive rating to a minus ten percent negative rating.
The stunning drop comes at a time when sports such as baseball have shortened their season because of the pandemic.
Meanwhile, athletes have walked out of games, kneeled during the national Anthem or wore Black Lives Matters shirts to protest racial injustice following the deaths of unarmed black men while in police custody.
President Trump has slammed the political protests by professional athletes.
“Sports has been acutely affected by the twin events steering news and culture in 2020: the pandemic and the renewed movement for racial justice. The sports industry’s relationship with fans has been disrupted by the need to shrink its seasons and schedules and play to empty venues as a means of keeping fans and players safe,” Gallup said in its analysis of the findings.
“At the same time, the greater social and political activism of players and, in some cases now, coaching staffs and entire leagues appears to have turned off Americans who disagree with their messages or the way they express them. The net effect at this point has been negative for the industry’s image”.
Respondents who identified as Republicans soured the most on sports — from a plus positive 11 percent rating to a negative 35 percent. That’s a shift of 46 points in one year.
The positive-negative ratio also fell 36 points among citizens who identify as independent.
5 comments:
A little context please for an excellent reference. When the Pope's armies forced a mixed community of Christians and Cathar heretics into a church, the soldiers wanted to know how they would know which were Christians and which were heretics-- Amalric replied: Kill them all; God will know his own. The year was around 1200.
Sportsball is for men who cannot, or will not, do anything physical themselves. It is for fat and flabby talkers who have cut themselves off from their body. Mouths and stomachs watching and talking sportsball is a loser parade. A man should be fit and strong until the day he dies. It is a dead end, cut it loose.
Nietzsche said that what made Germans stupid was beer, newspapers, and Wagner's music. I say what makes Americans stupid is beer, sportsball, and university education.
Go do it yourself. Join a league, get a heavy bag, take a swim lesson, bring your kid to the batting cage and do it yourself side-by-side, go for a hike on the weekend away from cities. Buy a used kayak and find a lake, join a gym and be around men who lift; enjoy the comradery.
Put the bastards out of business while getting stronger yourself.
I lost interest in baseball and football yearrrrrrs ago, and basketball many years before then.
I don't think the pro athletes care about boycotts. They seem oblivious of the consequences to themselves. I don't know whether they are stupid or so conceited that they think their worth will remain high.
GB is correct. Another bizarre "entertainment" activity is watching other people have conversations with vacuous, garrulous celebrities on TV. WTF? Talk to your spouse, or lover. Make a friend. Talk shows are conversation porn.
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