Playing with balls - TTLG Forums

june gloom on 12/6/2014 at 22:22

Right, let's get this off to a good start.

Quote Posted by dethtoll

Oh Christ [the World Cup's] today isn't it?

So I get to look at soccer bullshit on my Facebook feed and all the video game sites I visit for an interminable amount of time, or I can unplug my internet and never leave the house 'til like August. Not great choices. Wouldn't it be nice if all this money going into what's essentially a glorified Super Bowl for Soccer went into something that actually did something that mattered, like curing cancer or maybe even helping poor people in Brazil?

What a waste.

Quote Posted by Tomi

Erm... nope. And why are they making all these video games when they could be spending all that money on finding a cure for AIDS or something instead? :mad:

Quote Posted by dethtoll

Yep. It's a flashy, advertising-driven black hole for money and time all about who can handle balls better than the other guys. If you sports really hard you are the sports champion and you get a trinket to show everyone how good at sports you are.

Video games are a medium of art. There's nothing artistic about a bunch of overpaid athletes playing a children's game.

(FWIW all that money going into the Call of Duty series for example could be put to better use, too.)

Quote Posted by henke

I should know better than to engage, but I just can't help myself.

Waste? Not really. The money that goes into an event like this is recouped in ticket sales, advertising-fees, and selling the broadcasting rights to TV stations. The organizers get paid, the advertisers get exposure, the fans get to see soccer, and the economy goes around. Sure the organizers giving all the money to charity instead would be nice, but it's not exactly profitable.

If you wanna keep discussing this we should take it to another thread instead of derailing this one. I don't have any interest in soccer either, but it's clear that some memebers do and they should get to discuss it without any dissenting opinions.

Quote Posted by Tomi

Dunno, people "need" sports just as much as they need art.
I know that soccer isn't such a big deal in the USA, but it is easily the #1 sports in most other countries, and this tournament unites (or divides?) all those people for a month - I think that's a pretty cool thing! I also think that football actually can be compared to art in a way, but there's no point comparing them.

Nobody really "needs" sports. I mean, sure, people need exercise, children need play. That's not the issue. What's the issue is we've made athletics into a business, we've made athletes into superstars. That's not exercise. That's commodification of physical skill applied for... what, exactly? Other peoples' entertainment? We've got books, we've got movies, we've got television, we've got comics, we've got video games, we've got posting on forums, we've got having sex with each other! Are you not entertained?

Moving on...

(http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/12/31/box-office-report-2012/) The film industry made $10.84 billion dollars in 2012.

(http://www.esrb.org/about/video-game-industry-statistics.jsp) The video game industry made $10.5 billion in 2009.

(http://hockeygearhq.com/business-sports-comparing-nhl-nfl-nba-mlb-jobs-industry-3545) The sports industry in the United States alone was $422 billion as of 2012.

What's wrong with this picture? Why are we paying (http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704461304576216330349497852) taxes for stadiums that get people (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/for-some-in-brazil-world-cup-means-evictions/2014/01/24/73799036-7f83-11e3-9556-4a4bf7bcbd84_story.html) thrown out of their homes?

In the United States (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/casey-ganemccalla/athletic-blacks-vs-smart_b_187386.html) we've turned professional sports into a life goal for young black men, (http://newsone.com/2018526/rapper-athlete-economic-buffoonery-keeps-us-broke-and-wishing/) almost to the exclusion of everything else save being a rapper.

(http://www.thenation.com/article/178051/hidden-environmental-and-human-costs-sochi-olympics) Sochi is still reeling from being run roughshod over the Winter Olympics.

(http://alexrister1.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/198ioih2yz6wujpg.jpg) And of course we tend to value athletics over academics.

(http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-06-09/news/50447947_1_brazil-world-cup-pre-world-cup-rio) And in Brazil, soccer was used as propaganda for many years -- ironic that it's happening all over again.

Professional sports are a cancer. They're distorting priorities, draining resources, blunting our culture, and corrupting the political process. They're a massive waste of money that disproportionately goes into advertisers' pockets (and the stadiums themselves are big drains on tax dollars that could be better spent on things like improving schools and infrastructure, while whole neighborhoods of largely lower-income housing are razed to make room for these ridiculously huge complexes) to build a shrine to very specific physical skillsets, all in the name of a form of entertainment that teaches nothing, inspires nothing, and means nothing.

All the physical acumen in the world isn't going to build a rocket, write a book, or give children an education. And still we give a few hundred men a lot of money to kick a ball around for our entertainment. This is the world we're leaving for the next generation. I hope you're happy.

SubJeff on 12/6/2014 at 23:04

Meh. Good business is where you find it. You can't blame business for making a buck out of something that everybody loves. So what if it's Superbowl for football? What's wrong with Superbowl? And those people who were evicted were probably living there illegally anyway and should get proper jobs.

I always find the people who hate sports suck at sports or are too lazy to play a sport. Which are you? Both?

Yeah. Both.

june gloom on 12/6/2014 at 23:11

Reported. I'm not going to let you derail my thread with personal insults and Fox News-style victim blaming.

Renault on 12/6/2014 at 23:23

Seriously though, in all fairness, it would be helpful to know:

Do you (or have you) play(ed) any kind of organized sporting activity?
Do you ever attend professional sporting events?
Do you ever watch sports on TV?
Do you follow any sports teams in media (newspaper, web, magazines, etc.)?

Also, your comparison of the various industries (gaming, movies, sports) is completely skewed - you list the profits for movies and games, but then compare it to total dollars involved in sports.

june gloom on 12/6/2014 at 23:40

Can we actually discuss this fucking thing without turning it into a referendum on me? That'd be great, thanks. Yes, I played sports in school. I hated it. Yes, I went to see games. Yes, I sometimes will put on a hockey game if I am well and truly bored. No, I don't follow sports because why the fuck would I?

Regarding profits vs total dollars, the $10B for movies and video games is total revenue, not profits -- and anyway, it still illustrates the larger point that we dump quite a bit of money into sports.

Scots Taffer on 12/6/2014 at 23:41

eligible thread for members chat.

just realised members chat means dicks talking to each other.

june gloom on 12/6/2014 at 23:46

I do not want it in the Subjeff Subforum. I posted it here because want it here.

Scots Taffer on 12/6/2014 at 23:57

I'm appealing to moderator discretion. Carry on.

fett on 13/6/2014 at 00:11

I don't want to tell either of you how to work out your issues, but have you tried giving each other a blow job?

Also, SubJeff - really? The trolling is becoming more transparent with every post. Wth?

fett on 13/6/2014 at 00:26

Quote Posted by Brethren

Yes, yes, yes, and Baseball and Hockey. Regardless, why can't someone have an opinion on sports without being a fan? I've got a truckload of opinions about Iraq and its impact on American politics and culture but I've never been there, never been in the military, etc. I hope you're not implying that if I would just get more excited about the Red Sox I would see the light and not worry too much about the destruction of our education system on the altar of sports.

As for the argument that those critical of sports are lazy or bad at them, what about people who are critical of politics? Music? X? Y? Z? You have to be energized and good at something to point out its failures? Please tell me TTLG is smarter than that. Geez. Even people who LOVE sports, play them, etc. will generally admit that we have an issue of disproportionate spending in our schools and colleges, and that kids are pushed too hard to be good at sportsing, often times when the kids themselves don't like sportsing. I find that the only people who don't see this huge and growing problem are meatheads that either can't grasp the economic impact of the obsession or are so consumed by said obsession that they can't be objective about it because SPORTSING!!! SPORTSING!! TEAM FROM MY TOWN!!! RWWRRARAAARRRR!!!! LOOK AT MY HUGE PENIS!!!! You can't even have a conversation with them about it. Kinda like here.

Btw, I started a thread on here somewhere about this years ago and got shouted down by a lot of sportsing people and it turned into the equivalent of a high school locker room takedown except with better grammar. Don't hold you breath