…………is FAN loyalty.
I know that I am stating the obvious, but sports is big business for the players and the owners. Very few, if any, players have loyalty to the franchise, hence no loyalty to their “team” nor to their fans, who ultimately pay their paycheck.
On the other side, franchises view players as chattel, commodities to be bought and sold, traded and discarded. Consequently, franchises have no loyalty to players nor to the fans who keep the franchise afloat, nor to the cities that embrace them. (Just ask those die-hard Cleveland Browns dog-pound fans, bare-chested with letters painted on their chests in 15* weather with the wind blowing off Lake Erie how they felt when the team they lived and died for for so many years ultimately won a championship in a different city, how they felt and how their loyalty was rewarded.)
I’ve been a Cs fan for over 50 years, a Bs and Giants fan for about the same (the G-men were New England’s de facto NFL team before the Pats in ‘60, and I couldn’t switch loyalties, even when a local team came along) and a Yankees fan for even longer (the Yawkey “plantation” mentality made me sick!!!), although the steroid era has made baseball a sport I now only watch in late Sept. and Oct..
I guess my question is rhetorical, but why should I or anyone else have loyalty to teams (franchises) and players in any sport, when there is no loyalty in return???…. Talk about unrequited love!
If we ran our personal lives like we deal with sports and the things we overlook (Donaghy, PEDs, lockouts, strikes, lost seasons and partial seasons, etc., infidelity to fans), we would be loyal to people who give no loyalty in return!!!!!>>>>That’s fornicated up!
If there is a shortened season or a complete loss of the season, we as fans should scream out our windows like in the ‘70s movie, Network, "I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore" and then act on our words and not take it anymore by boycotting the NBA for a set period of time as a mass protest.
Not gonna happen, I know, but we, as fans, ultimately supply the revenue for the owners and the players. Let’s let them know that we are p---ed off.
Really wish it would happen, but I’m just dreamin’ here. As Cs fans, we are in a particularly difficult bind. If we do that, for any length of time, our window with this likeable HOF bound group of players we have will be gone.
Still wish it could be done.
Topic: The only loyalty in all of sports anymore.......... (Read 6924 times)