Fame follows the money. The development of professional sports in America has been uniquely capitalistic. Once viewed as a collegial extracurricular activity or the stuff of childhood pastime, in days of yore professional athletes required second jobs during the offseason to make ends meet. Sports leagues now generate hundreds of billions of dollars every year domestically across a broad spectrum of platforms and venues. Athletes at the top levels of their sport can earn in excess of 2,000 times the annual salary of a teacher or nurse or factory worker with lucrative endorsements augmenting their contractual wages. What began as a spectacle of human competition has become something else entirely.

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In an April 2011 game against the San Antonio Spurs, Los Angeles Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant was whistled for a technical foul by referee Bennie Adams. So incensed by the perceived injustice of the call, Bryant resorted to the most childish of actions; name-calling. But the name television cameras caught Bryant shouting was more than just another harmless insult. He didn’t challenge Adams’ intelligence, which might have made some sense; he didn’t demean Adams’ competency, which would have seemed relevant; he didn’t even attack Adams’ ability to see. What came to Bryant’s mind in a moment of intense frustration was a homophobic slur, a commonly heard refrain meant to challenge the manhood of another man.

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A puerile, bilious post recently appeared on the Dignified Devil professing the belief that watching professional sports is a total waste of time. The author, a real killjoy if there ever was one, had a variety of overblown and contradictory arguments: it’s militaristic, it’s over-commercialized, it’s totally meaningless, the players are too talented. He even trotted out the old shopworn cliché “It’s only a game.” Each of his arguments will be demolished in due time, but what really bothered me about Mr. Killjoy’s rant was its intrinsic contradictoriness. In arguing against wasting time, he wastes ours—and his.

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Amid the grandeur and excitement of the nation’s premier sporting spectacle, a terrible thing happened. This has nothing to do with the lights at the Superdome, inept officiating, bad commercials or questionable play calling. The moment was several hours old before the game started. Only a small fraction of the 108 million viewers of the game saw it happen. Few of them recognized what they saw. The Dignified Devil was watching and listening…

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Watching professional sports is a colossal waste of time. You know it’s true—come on, search your heart. The players who aren’t even from the cities they’re representing, the ever-changing rosters, the bloated salaries, the clichés, the platitudes, the endless commercial breaks—aren’t there better ways of spending your time? Read a book, learn a language, go hiking—go out and play a sport yourself.

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You might be surprised to learn that at its inception in the mid-1800s cheerleading was an all-male sport.  Characterized by gymnastics, stunts, and crowd leadership, cheerleading was considered equivalent in prestige to an American flagship of masculinity, football.  As the editors of Nation saw it in 1911:

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Felix Baumgartner is none other than the Austrian guy who, in 2012, set the world record for skydiving. He jumped from what was by all intents and purposes a spaceship flying 24 miles off the ground. Baumgartner entered a supersonic freefall and even lost control at one point before landing safely on terra firma. A bigger badass in 2012 there was not.

Steve Sabol was president of NFL Films when he passed away this past September. Sabol was a pioneer of modern sports broadcasting, and helped create tremendous new promotion and revenue opportunities for professional sports. With his father, Sabol created NFL Films, purchasing the rights to film the 1962 NFL Championships in a time when “smarter minds” saw no value in doing so. College running back, filmmaker, artist, Jersey boy—he helped make football so much more than just a game.

If you have spent anytime near a television the last few months you might have heard Notre Dame has reclaimed its place atop the college football world. The biggest story in college sports by far this year, the once-proud program is ranked number one in the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) standings and the Associated Press standings (first time since 1993). This has been covered, discussed, analyzed, and celebrated ad nauseum. There is a far more important achievement tied to the success of the football program. To the NCAA’s discredit, this isn’t being discussed anywhere.

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The Miami Marlins stole headlines this week as the penultimate act in the financial fleecing of Florida taxpayers played out on a national stage. The Marlins ownership gutted their roster in a 12-player trade that freed them any long-term financial commitments and hopes for fielding a competitive team in the near future. The trade is the latest in a series of moves specifically designed to maximize returns for the team’s ownership and have nothing to do with building a business, competing to win baseball games, or returning value to the community. Major League Baseball has disgraced itself yet again and We The People will be footing another extravagant bill.

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Cheating has long been part of sporting culture. For much of our history, we have cared very little about this. In part, sports were protected by a code of silence culture where no one dared tell of what happened beyond the public eye. For its part, the public eye wasn’t much interested in looking as previous eras viewed sports as a leisurely concern. Times have changed. Sports are big business generating billions of dollars each year and athletes are celebrities. The money and status have brought incredible scrutiny. The cheaters have become sporting pariahs (with a few notable exceptions) and leagues, federations, governing bodies of all forms, have been forced to make public displays of discipline. The prevailing strategy has been to use revisionist history; we find this tactic sorely lacking.

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ESPN’s popular documentary series “30 for 30” (ESPN celebrated its 30^th year in 2011 with 30 documentaries covering major sporting events during its tenure) returned Tuesday night with Broke, a long-form series of talking head interviews with former athletes who have declared bankruptcy and a few industry experts. Directed by Billy Corben, of Cocaine Cowboys fame and a “30 for 30” alum, the film works as a series of talking head interviews describing how and why professional athletes can fail so spectacularly at financial management. Seemingly simple on the surface, this is a highly-nuanced problem deeply rooted in our cultural values. Sadly, none of that context is provided here.

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