A Return to the Rockage of Football

It's fair to distinguish the two footballs: one with a capital 'F' to designate its commercial whoring (yes, of course, at the college level, too) and another to signify the more organic (bullshit term, I know) spectator experience that occurs without the direct mediation of the television.

To be sure, I'm not advocating a viewing experience punctuated by Nike ads and Verne Lundquist's Madden-esque statements like, "Well, it's going to come down to the team that has the most points. That's how you win games, Al, by scoring the most points and holding their offense to less points than you score by moving the ball into the endzone." We can apply all of the traditional critiques of television to broadcasts of sports games without oversimplifying TV criticism or being unfair to televised football in particular. Each of those charges is completely fair. (And, btw, it's not "almost as if the sport was made for commercial breaks." It simply is tailored to commercial breaks. Indeed, this year's new gameclock rules are clear indicators that the college game is paced to generate maximum TV income, following cues from college basketball and the professional sports.)

But I do think there's room for some carry-over from the live experience which I've been pushing with my "experiential thesis". What I mean is this: there's some residue from the live experience that, if you're really hooked on the stadium vibe, can resonate a little on TV--though of course that sentiment is diminished by all the critiques we've already addressed. I'm not trying to reject the appeal to "admit that watching football on TV is a depressing, boring, and soul-draining experience" as most TV-watching tends to be, but I think there's something else that comes into play to make all the Tostitos commercials a little more bearable.

A great analogue is the Phish experience. Does the experience of a live bootleg ever compare to that of the live show? Hell no. And the live bootleg has far less persuasive power to a Phish neophyte than would the live show. But for those of us who've had the live experience, we can find a bit of joy in the bootlegs that maybe won't be understandable for the folks who've got nothing more than the bootlegs to go on. I don't know how that transference works, but I think it's there somehow.

Then again, what the fuck do I know about sports? My NBA Fantasy team is so disgraceful I've been thinking about playing the bench for the rest of the season just to make sure my starters don't shame themselves into oblivion.