We've Got Olympic Spirit!

Here's something that blew my mind, in that I've never even considered that there could be a protest movement against the Olympics itself. From the excellent Edge of Sports blog by David Zirin:

"Only 50 percent of residents in British Columbia think the Olympics will be positive and 69 percent said too much money is being spent on the Games...Bringing together a myriad of issues, Vancouver residents have put out an open call for a week of anti-game actions. Different demonstrations on issues ranging from homelessness to indigenous rights have been called. Protesters from London and Russia, site of the next two Olympics will be there. Expect a tent city, expect picket signs, expect aggressive direct actions. Tellingly, according to the latest polls, 40 percent of British Columbia residents support the aims of the protesters, compared to just 13 percent across the rest of Canada. Harsha Walia of the Olympic Resistance Network said, 'We are seeing increasing resistance across the country as it becomes more visible how these Games are a big fraud.'"

Supposedly the Winter Olympics in Vancouver is ten times over-budget and according to the most recent estimates, the economic impact of the games will be offset by the security costs alone. Meanwhile homelessness in Vancouver has quintupled according to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, allegedly due to the games but I can't be sure. To be frank I think the whole thing is so farcical it's funny. You have to screw up pretty bad for there to be a significant protest movement against something like the Olympics, and for that movement to enjoy widespread support among Vancouverites? Hilarious.

Also while I'm at it I'll post a link to his decent piece on the whole Tim Tebow Superbowl hooplah. I kind of wish everyone would shut the hell up about it, and focus instead upon how the Saints are going to cream the Colts.

Supporters Groups And Sports Culture

I watch a lot of soccer. The game itself is pretty entertaining, but what really intrigues me when I watch a match from Europe or Latin America is what goes on in the stands.

Soccer fans are nuts. One almost never sees this kind of hardcore dedication in the United States (and there is a fine line between dedication and punching a fan from the opposing side in the face). Here's a good example of what I mean:

1. FC Union Berlin is a club with a lot of history. During its years in the East German soccer leagues, it was supported by the local Berlin trade unions. It carried on a bitter rivalry with Dynamo Berlin, which was supported by the Stasi, or the secret police. Union fans, whenever they played Dynamo, would sing thinly veiled anti-Soviet songs in the stands as police with dogs patrolled up and down the aisles.

Skip ahead to 2008. Union Berlin's stadium, the Stadion An der Alten Föresterei (Stadium Near the Old Forester's House), is crumbling. The cinderblock terracing can barely support the weight of the 15,000 or so fans that show up to Union's games. The club decides to renovate the stadium. Rather than pay construction companies money to do the job, the club instead uses approximately 2000 fan volunteers to carry out most of the necessary renovation.

Could you ever imagine something like this happening with an American sports team? It can't be done. And there's a reason for this. In Germany, sports teams are actual clubs that people can join, and in fact many teams require that a person purchase a club membership before he can purchase game tickets. Fans are treated as partners and stakeholders by the clubs because they actually are partners and stakeholders. American sports teams operate differently. Sports executives in America treat sporting events like a commodity to be consumed passively. This is so ingrained in their thinking that in recent years it has resulted in a marketing tactic called "sensory overload," wherein noisy music is pumped into the stadium through the PA system because it literally never occurs to the executives that it is the fans that should be making all of the noise themselves. Spectators in the United States are expected to be passive consumers. If you tried to do the things they do in Europe and Latin America, like hoist banners, light flares, stand or sing songs throughout the entire game, you would probably be kicked out. Take your free bobblehead, maybe buy a t-shirt, get a hotdog, whatever. Just don't do anything unexpected or spontaneous.

Fortunately, there are germs of a better sports culture in the North America. Fans of MLS clubs, for example, tend to imitate their European cousins and stand and sing the entire game, raise banners, and occasionally light flares. Fans of Toronto FC in particular have gained notoriety for their drunken, often ill-advised revelry. But this is all good, in my mind. If the growth of soccer in the United States means introducing soccer traditions such as tifos and ultras, then I am all for the growth of the sport here. It would inject some vitality in our moribund sporting culture.

What.

The Saints are in the Superbowl. What.

I screamed loud and hard when this happened (and not even out of jubilation, I just cold screamed my lungs out):

I'll let the rest of the images speak for themselves:

Blogging for Nothing

Part of the challenge of writing a blog for me is coming up with new material, since absolutely nothing interesting has ever happened to me. Usually I end up talking about politics, but I have a much wider range than that. I can also talk about sports.

Ahem.

Anyway, two of the things that I've been reading is a book called Moving With the Ball: The Migration of Professional Footballers and another book called Baseball: The Early Years. What strikes me the most is how similar the early histories of baseball and soccer are. They both started out as a nebulous grouping of children's ball games, were first codified when they became the pastime of gentlemen, flourished early on as a club sport for the petit-bourgeoisie before becoming a popular game with mass appeal, and so on and so forth. Where the histories of baseball in the United States and soccer in Europe really begin to diverge is at the formation of the first professional leagues. Soccer in Europe, as you may know, operates on a promotion-relegation system, whereby the best clubs at one level of play are promoted to the next highest level of play after every season, and the worst clubs drop at each level drop down a level. Baseball leagues in America, of course, are closed-circuit, meaning that teams compete at the same level every year regardless of their performance. The reason this is so is because unlike Europe, where the governing bodies of soccer still maintain a fair degree of clout, the governing body of baseball in America, the National Association, was severely weakened and later destroyed by the emergence of the National League and the rise of professionalism. Baseball in America was therefore allowed to evolve along monopolistic lines, whereas competition in European soccer remains comparatively well-regulated.

Up until 1992, for example, the league structure of soccer in England was managed entirely by the governing Football Association. Likewise, the National Association of Baseball Players in the United States regulated all national competition and organized a national championship that was open to any club willing to pay a piddling sum. The traditional narrative goes that the National Association was beset by all kinds of organizational problems (which is true) that the National League managed to circumvent (which is not true). For example, it is frequently argued that the closed-circuit system the National League operated on had the effect of providing greater stability than the National Associations, where teams folding before the end of the season was common. In fact, this was every bit as common an occurrence in the National League. Throughout the opening decade of the National League, the only team to consistently make any money were the Chicago Cubs. It has also been argued that the National League provided a better structure for resolving player disputes. This is also bunk; as the league's founder, William Hulbert broke away from the National Association primarily because he had poached players from other Association ball clubs. The reality is the National Association was destroyed by the ruthless business acumen of Hulbert, owner of the Chicago Cubs and founder of the National League, who was able to successfully play off nonleague teams against one another to his great advantage.

Anyway, that's your baseball history for today. Tomorrow I'll talk a little bit about the first organized baseball club in the United States, the New York Knickerbockers. Or maybe I won't. It's hard to tell.