I wanted to start a discussion about libertarianism/minarchism/voluntarism and sports. I’ve noticed that a lot of libertarians don’t follow sports. I can enjoy the physical talents and abilities of basketball, football, and baseball players but I don’t really follow sports due to the heavy government involvement and the fanaticism. Much has been said (by Chomsky and Molyneux) about the role of sports in revving up jingoist attitudes in the population. I think this is true, and has turned me off to sports. I think that if sports were completely private and less violent, I would watch/follow them.
Do you watch/follow sports? Is it just another form of entertainment? What are your thoughts on the subject?
I really prefer individual competition sports like snowboarding, the olympics, tennis. As far as team sports I really only like the NFL and most soccer.
The government is definitely a problem is most sports, most recently with this whole NFL lockout with the unons and the owners. It is really sad that the people who really lose out are the poeple that pay for all of it.
But also it goes deeper, the fact that the NCAA acts as a legal cartel dominating the personal aspects of individuals lives. Students cannot be compensated besides with nominally limited scholarship. ie Reggie bush lost his hiesman and USC isnt BCS eligible because of the house pete gave his family here in la mesa before he dipped to seattle.
I feel like student athletes should be paid to play sports, and fo those who want results, say let them earn it and keep it in an account and when he graduates, he gets it otherwise it can go to the school, not the NCAA.
That subject gets stickier the further you go in.
In another sense the way the state and the media promote profressional sports comes off as somewhat fascist to me. Not to mistake this for sense of identity, its just almost like religion in someplaces.
I torture myself ever year by watching the Pirates flounder in last place as a glorified AAA team and watch Notre Dame and the Big Ten flounder to the SEC conferece in football. But the Penguins can be good from time to time
I like watching one day cricket and rugby and international football. But if i miss a match i will not mind what so ever and I do not follow the news on the sports or read up on the players. When i was young 7-15 I used to follow football in the uk (man utd) very much by knowing all the players.
In the uk the obsession with sports is extremist. Some grown men follow sports like I did when i was a young boy, they know every player and follow every bit of news and they even refer to the team they support as their team. When they speak about it they, “we played well” I ask them, you were playing? Of course they were not, they sat on their couch with a beer. They refer to the team as “my team”. As if they are the coach.
Football is also the primary distraction for adult males in the UK from anything intellectual and academically stimulating. They pay more interest to the back of the paper than to the front. They don’t know what is going on in the world but they can tell you who played last night.
international football
champions league football
english premier league football
austrian league hockey
alpine skiing
ski jumping
international handball
international basketball
euroleague basketball
international water polo
I think Chomsky is too caught up in his egalitarian sentiment to seriously consider the amount of achievement and testosterone-releasing effects of athletic competition. Of course, Chomsky is against any form of competition virtually. But that’s beside the point. I think it can be a tremendously fulfilling activity and I don’t begrudge people watching it. It’s a domesticated form of Roman gladiators and it’s better than people actually killing themselves.
That said, I love college football although I realize that the dead hand of the state is all over that institution. I also realize that college football would significantly wane if the NCAA broke up its cartel (also the vast majority of schools in the NCAA are state-run). I think most 18 and 19 year olds who can play football would be better off to get paid to play in a developmental league and that’s where the majority would gravitate towards in a free market. I also love baseball, hockey, and college basketball. I play lacrosse currently at the university level (club division 2 level, not NCAA) as a goalie. I love to watch college lacrosse, but playing it is infinitely more fun, even though the sport has the highest douchebag : player ratio I’ve ever witnessed.
"I think Chomsky is too caught up in his egalitarian sentiment to seriously consider the amount of achievement and testosterone-releasing effects of athletic competition. "
Seriously, I’m really sick of his attitude and the way my liberal college fellows quote his ideas incesently.
I can’t stand to watch sports. It’s mind numbingly boring and feels very counter productive to me. I’d rather waste hours playing video games. Playing sports on the other hand is entirely different. I enjoy being physically active the proof of which is my very active crossfit lifestyle.
Watching sports or playing sports video games on the other hand sadly seems more degenerative than anything else. I’ve never been able to place my finger on why I feel that way however. I just assumed my personal preferences never lined up with it.
I find the topic interesting. I guess I’ll have to see Molyneux’s stuff.
I enjoyed reading a Consumer Research article titled, “Welfare for the Rich”, referring to the taxpayer subsidation of sports stadiums. I read it years ago - the mid-90s. This is the one use of public funds that really stirs me up. The public picks up the tab for the stadiums and pays an even more exorbitant price for the tickets. Since it’s public, you would think it should be free. This deal is a gold mine for sports team owners.
I played several sports growing up and even played baseball at the Junior College level. I follow Yankees baseball religiously and have attended almost every Vanderbilt home football game for the last decade. (yes i did say Vanderbilt) What really bothers me about some sports is the general attitude of many of the fans and nearly all the players. It seems like every fan of any team other than the New York Yankees wants a salary cap for whatever sport they like. Many fans hold serious grudges against certain players who have left their favourite team for another team that offers them more money, saying that player was “too greedy” or only plays for the money. And players tend to think they’re entitled to more money than their contract dictates. I love sports and I don’t think I’d enjoy my life as much as I do if I didn’t have sports to watch and follow. I just wish the government would stay out of sports altogether, and that the attitudes of the players and fans would change. And as for paying college athletes, if its a private college we’re talking about then thats totally fine, but I would have a serious problem with my tax money going to athletes.
Coach Gary Pinkle used to coach my Toledo Rockets. He is one of my favorite coaches, which makes me sympathetic to Mizzou. And since the Pirates suck so bad, and I HATE Cubs fans, I got used to rooting for the Cardinals- plus Albert Pujols is the greatest hitter since Ted Williams.
I’m a fan of the MAC, William. I don’t have a dog in the Western Michigan / CMU / EMU hunt (being from Michigan), so I pretty much cheer for all of the above. Toledo looks good this year, and definitely shouldn’t have lost the Motor City Bowl last season
Do you watch/follow sports? Is it just another form of entertainment? What are your thoughts on the subject?
I love watching sports, although I have gradually become a less fanatical a fan, and my favorite sports to watch have also changed over time. As a child, I followed baseball and American football religiously, and recall throwing furniture and nearly smashing my fist through a wall when the Patriots lost in the playoffs one year. Nowadays, I am more inclined toward European club soccer and the four major tournaments in tennis.
Sports are a unique form of entertainment because there is no script - nobody knows the ending beforehand. In close contests, this creates a thrill unlike that found in literature or cinema. Sports are also refreshing from a libertarian perspective because the abilities of each player are laid bare over and over again on the playing surface, like the skill of the entrepreneur is tested every day in the marketplace. Therefore, natural elites tend to rise to the top based on pure athleticism and talent.
On the other hand, sports are certainly an integral component of the “bread and circuses” paraded before the masses in order to keep them subservient to the state. Like war, violent “blood games” focus the anger of the masses on a specific opponent and distract them from their enslavement at the hands of their own government. Is the recent explosion in the popularity of professional sports, and the building of massive stadiums across America a reflection of public demand, or an attempt by Leviathan to distract its subjects from their ever-diminishing freedom?
I’m a fan of the MAC, William. I don’t have a dog in the Western Michigan / CMU / EMU hunt (being from Michigan), so I pretty much cheer for all of the above. Toledo looks good this year, and definitely shouldn’t have lost the Motor City Bowl last season
Holy crap, another MAC fan! Central M. has been great fun to watch for the past few years (great coaches like Brian Kelly and Dan Lefevre as QB) so I’ve been kind of rooting for them. But they had some classic games with Western M that are among the greatest football games I have seen these past few years. EMU is kind of hopeless to root for though (though I did live in Ypsi for a year), lol - But yeah this could be a 10+ win year for UT (don’t want to talk about that motor city bowl, ugh), they may even have a shot at beating Ohio State (due to the suspensions). Hopefully the MAC works it’s way back up as a top tier mid-major, like it was 5 or 10 years ago, but it’s been down lately. I think they are looking better though than the past few years, in both football and Bball (Akron and Kent are both going to be damn good next year I think)
Michigan in the Big Ten is going to have another bad year, but I really like their coach (He was the dude who took Ball State to the top 25). Though MSU may have a decent shot at the title - kind of up in the air this year and I don’t know how to gauge Nebraska (though I think they have to run a brutal schedual).