11 November 2010

Sports, Black-Outs, and Tax Money

This Sunday’s Buffalo Bill’s game will not be televised.

Back when I was younger and still had a television I would get ticked off when my usual weekend viewing was interrupted by sports. Nothing is more annoying than looking forward to the latest episode of your favorite show only to have it replaced by a bunch of grown men playing a silly game. At least now that I don’t have a television I watch what I want when I want online or on DVD so there are far fewer disappointments in that regard.

I’m not much of a sports fan. Football…. or I guess it should really be called Tackleball, is certainly not something I would watch. A bunch of overweight men in tight pants bending down around a ball is not my idea of an entertaining time.

However, as a taxpayer I find the Bills being able to black-out the game as highly offensive. While I don’t like football many other people do. Millions of taxpayer dollars went to help pay for a frickin’ playing field for a bunch of millionaires and now that the locals don’t want to buy overpriced tickets to sit in cold weather and watch a terrible team play the high-up muckity-mucks in the Bills organization black-out the game.

Screw them. That stadium is owned by the government not the Bills. When you don’t pay your own way you shouldn’t be able to decide if your game is televised or not. Everyone in western New York is owed a lot by these ungrateful schmucks. If you won’t televise all the games then give us our money back.

Of course the government won’t ever make such an interpretation of things. How many communities have been fleeced by various professional sports teams. Countless times have crybaby millionaires complained that a ten or fifteen year old stadium is no longer suitable for their childish little game and if they are not given tens or hundreds of millions of dollars they will take their toys and go somewhere else. Next comes the stream bureaucrats telling how the community will actually make more money by keeping the team in town and push through the funding.

After the taxpayers get fleeced for the stadium next comes the police overtime. Then if the community is really lucky the team is good and wins a couple championships… and then the related victory riots burning parts of the city that the police don’t dare try to stop without hearing cries of police brutality.

In return we get some low-paying seasonal jobs at the stadium, increased traffic accidents as tens of thousands of people (many of whom are drunk) try to leave the city at the same time, increased sales of multi-colored body paint (and the related sales tax revenue!), and an over-inflated sense of self worth because we have a big sports team.

And another thing; how can anyone have any loyalty to a team? Players are traded and move with more frequency than they did thirty years ago. The team is made up of a bunch of carpet baggers not local talent.

I have no problem with people who play sports for fun. It’s great exercise and competition is a good thing. I just hate having my money stolen for something that doesn’t benefit me or at least the community.

Finally, I’ve heard a number of people say that the Bills have a chance this weekend to defeat the Lions and get their first win. I still have faith in them. They are going to what they are best at… finding a way to fail.

FUN NOT REALLY FACTS
#1 The average football fan that goes to a game weighs 220 pounds. With 70,000 people crammed into the stadium that makes 7.7 kilotons of flesh and bone. With each person consuming an average of 1.7 pounds of food at the game… almost like 541 additional people leaving when the game is over!

#2 Enough urine is excreted at the stadium on game day to fill a 12 by 24 foot in-ground pool 3.5 feet.

#3 For every person that thinks the fan that the camera always zooms in on who is shirtless and covered in paint is cool there are 577,314 people laughing at him. While these 577,314 don’t want that guy in the gene pool, the are more than willing to push him into the pool mentioned in fun not really fact #2.

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