Vampires, Zombies, and The Beautiful Game
Jamie F.
"At Ginger's request, I am back to attempt a sophomoric piece for her very excellent blog. Last time I wrote about zombies. And Jesus. There were lots of insightful comments, and at least one seemed to be offended that I spoke with light heartedness about the Lord. So, if I made some people laugh, learned something about zombies (holing up in Wal-Mart), and caused someone else to pray for my lost soul, then I think I did OK. In fact, that pretty much sums up the effect of my existence on the world, in a microcosmic manner.
"Just a few minutes ago, my boss told me about an episode of some show called something like "Moral Oral" that comes on during Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network. I have never seen this show, but apparently this episode involved zombies. My boss was showing it to his mother, whom he thought it would offend greatly. However, in an act ready-made for my Zombie Jesus piece, the zombies, immediately prior to eating the flesh of their victims as zombies are wont to do, say grace. Genius. Perhaps they are thanking the Great Zombie for supplying these lemmings for their violent consumption. My boss' mom loved it.
"So for this week, we move from zombies to vampires. For me, vampires do not hold the same apocalyptic charm as zombies. They are much more stylish and suave. They are the tornado to the zombie hurricane. The angle I'm going to take with vampires is to find them in corporate America. But I am not going to jump for the low-hanging fruit that is a holiday like yesterday's Valentine's day. Let's take a look at a different area in which corporate America is threatening to destroy something good. And maybe we'll see that zombies and vampires are interconnected.
"The potential victim is my beloved Major League Soccer. Ah yes, the league created in 1996 as a condition for FIFA letting us host the World Cup in 1994. I am a huge soccer fan. I have traveled around the world to watch games. I have played since I was 4 years old. I have endured 2 knee surgeries and three months of a casted wrist, among a myriad of other injuries and treatments, just to keep my aging body on the field. Since 2003, I have been a season ticket holder for the Metroplex's own FC Dallas (formerly the Dallas Burn). Christine and I drive 65 miles each way 20 times a season to watch the team play.
"The league was founded as a way to develop the American player. It provided a place where American players could play week in and week out in real, professional games. Before MLS, when the US National Team played in the World Cups in 1990 and 1994, most of the players were amateurs. Their foes were all professionals. Eurosnobs, comparing the fledgling league to ones in the Old World, decried the lack of big name players, among other things. They had many legitimate complaints.
"A set of loyal fans showed up for most games, meaning the league posted average attendance figures around 8000 or so per game when you remove their over inflated ticket statistics. The league fought for respect. Its players overachieved in the 2002 World Cup in Korea. ESPN made fun of the league. MLS had to pay ESPN to carry their games. But through it all, there was a camaraderie to it. The fans were die-hard. The players were accessible. In 2003, the Dallas Burn were so bad that when we went to a charity Celebrity Waiter night at Bucca di Beppo, we had dinner with three players, one of whom played in this last World Cup in Germany, because no one else was there.
"The league was built on parity. There was a strict salary cap. The league owned all the teams. The best US players were allocated to the teams through a lottery process. On any given night, any team could win. Most teams made the playoffs, so unless your team was just terrible, a championship was never too far out of reach. The owners considered passing rule changes that allowed buying more expensive players, but Dallas' owner, Lamar Hunt, was always the voice of reason. Hunt had loads of experience in founding the AFL when he was in his 20's and merging it with the NFL. He oversaw the creation of Monday Night Football and the Superbowl. Hunt always voted against breaking the bank on players until the league was more mature. He had gotten burned when the old North American Soccer League did the same thing in the late 70's. Mr. Hunt passed away at the end of last season. And with him, so did the voice of reason.
"The MLS Board of Governors passed the Designated Player Rule at the end of last season, allowing a team's individual owner to pay one player anything they want without counting it against the cap. It is know colloquially as the Beckham Rule. And true to its name, you may have noticed that the Los Angeles Galaxy signed Mr. David Beckham this off-season. Mr. Beckham will make an obscene amount of money while playing alongside players who make $12,000 a year. MLS players used to fly coach and stay in motels. The arrival of the Real Royalty will mean the Galaxy get chartered flights all of a sudden, unless David Beckham wants to fly from LAX to Kansas City in the middle seat of a 757. The New York team, owned by Red Bull, is still looking for their Beckham Rule player. The current rumor is they are courting 1998 World Cup Winner and renowned head-butter Zinedine Zidane.
"My extremely belabored point is that, all of a sudden, people are coming out of the woodwork. MLS season ticket sales are exploding as everyone wants to see Beckham. In the short term, this will give soccer in the USA a boost. In the long term, what is it doing to the sport? One player on a team is not going to dramatically change the quality of the product on the field. Beckham's novelty will wear off, but his contract will not anytime soon. What I predict seeing is the same scenario that occurred with the North American Soccer League. The coastal teams, in our case LA and New York, will invest huge money in their players and make it back with sponsorship deals, season ticket sales, jersey sales, and the like. Smaller-market teams, with the stingier owners who want to follow the original salary-cap model, will see attendance dry up except for those few games a year when the traveling freak show comes to town. The fans in Dallas will stay home and watch Beckham and Zidane on TV instead of coming out to watch another "dull" game between Dallas and Columbus. Eventually, I worry that, like with the NASL, whose New York Cosmos had all the league star power with players like Pele, Beckenbauer, and Chinaglia, the small market teams will go out of business. The league will fold, as did the NASL, and the owners of New York and LA will leave with their Beckham-provided profits.
"This is where the vampires come in. I am afraid the owners willing to pump in loads of money for star power now will use that star power to suck the league dry. The result will be some big buzz for the next couple seasons. The stadiums will be flooded with throngs of soccer zombies and tabloid zombies running to consume and see the prettiest soccer player in history hit some of the prettiest dead balls in history. Seriously- all these people who could not be bothered to buy a ticket for the last 11 years because the sport was boring and MLS plays it at a mediocre level, will now instantly be season-ticket holders and watch one very pretty man play mediocre level soccer. I promise you, even if Beckham is the best player in the world, which he is not, The other 21 players on the field will still be guys like Bobby Rhine and Chris Albright. If you get lucky it might be the world-famous Christian Gomez! Yeah, I don't imagine you've heard of them.
"This is a case where the big owners and sponsors have become short sighted. They are tired of losing money on American soccer. They are tired of waiting for the league to grow slowly. It looks like they are ready to start making some money now at any cost. What will happen when the zombies in the crowd realize that Beckham is not making the soccer much better overall? Give them a few years and the star power will fizzle like it did with Freddy Adu. The development of the US player will suffer, and the sport may be set back to where it was in 1994, minus the promise of a league about to start up.
"Soccer is a good, beautiful thing, for the most part. It gets vilified, as in the current situation in Italy. It has lots of problems- racism in Europe, corruption, commercialism. But it can bring people together in ways nothing else can. It has stopped wars temporarily. It facilitates conversations on trains between fans from the all over the world. Even when it divides, it unites.
"The United States needs to be a part of this global community for so many reasons, especially now. The sport is growing slowly over here. Now is not the time to suck the blood from it quickly and leave it for dead."
Jamie F.
"At Ginger's request, I am back to attempt a sophomoric piece for her very excellent blog. Last time I wrote about zombies. And Jesus. There were lots of insightful comments, and at least one seemed to be offended that I spoke with light heartedness about the Lord. So, if I made some people laugh, learned something about zombies (holing up in Wal-Mart), and caused someone else to pray for my lost soul, then I think I did OK. In fact, that pretty much sums up the effect of my existence on the world, in a microcosmic manner."Just a few minutes ago, my boss told me about an episode of some show called something like "Moral Oral" that comes on during Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network. I have never seen this show, but apparently this episode involved zombies. My boss was showing it to his mother, whom he thought it would offend greatly. However, in an act ready-made for my Zombie Jesus piece, the zombies, immediately prior to eating the flesh of their victims as zombies are wont to do, say grace. Genius. Perhaps they are thanking the Great Zombie for supplying these lemmings for their violent consumption. My boss' mom loved it.
"So for this week, we move from zombies to vampires. For me, vampires do not hold the same apocalyptic charm as zombies. They are much more stylish and suave. They are the tornado to the zombie hurricane. The angle I'm going to take with vampires is to find them in corporate America. But I am not going to jump for the low-hanging fruit that is a holiday like yesterday's Valentine's day. Let's take a look at a different area in which corporate America is threatening to destroy something good. And maybe we'll see that zombies and vampires are interconnected.
"The potential victim is my beloved Major League Soccer. Ah yes, the league created in 1996 as a condition for FIFA letting us host the World Cup in 1994. I am a huge soccer fan. I have traveled around the world to watch games. I have played since I was 4 years old. I have endured 2 knee surgeries and three months of a casted wrist, among a myriad of other injuries and treatments, just to keep my aging body on the field. Since 2003, I have been a season ticket holder for the Metroplex's own FC Dallas (formerly the Dallas Burn). Christine and I drive 65 miles each way 20 times a season to watch the team play.
"The league was founded as a way to develop the American player. It provided a place where American players could play week in and week out in real, professional games. Before MLS, when the US National Team played in the World Cups in 1990 and 1994, most of the players were amateurs. Their foes were all professionals. Eurosnobs, comparing the fledgling league to ones in the Old World, decried the lack of big name players, among other things. They had many legitimate complaints.
"A set of loyal fans showed up for most games, meaning the league posted average attendance figures around 8000 or so per game when you remove their over inflated ticket statistics. The league fought for respect. Its players overachieved in the 2002 World Cup in Korea. ESPN made fun of the league. MLS had to pay ESPN to carry their games. But through it all, there was a camaraderie to it. The fans were die-hard. The players were accessible. In 2003, the Dallas Burn were so bad that when we went to a charity Celebrity Waiter night at Bucca di Beppo, we had dinner with three players, one of whom played in this last World Cup in Germany, because no one else was there.
"The league was built on parity. There was a strict salary cap. The league owned all the teams. The best US players were allocated to the teams through a lottery process. On any given night, any team could win. Most teams made the playoffs, so unless your team was just terrible, a championship was never too far out of reach. The owners considered passing rule changes that allowed buying more expensive players, but Dallas' owner, Lamar Hunt, was always the voice of reason. Hunt had loads of experience in founding the AFL when he was in his 20's and merging it with the NFL. He oversaw the creation of Monday Night Football and the Superbowl. Hunt always voted against breaking the bank on players until the league was more mature. He had gotten burned when the old North American Soccer League did the same thing in the late 70's. Mr. Hunt passed away at the end of last season. And with him, so did the voice of reason.
"The MLS Board of Governors passed the Designated Player Rule at the end of last season, allowing a team's individual owner to pay one player anything they want without counting it against the cap. It is know colloquially as the Beckham Rule. And true to its name, you may have noticed that the Los Angeles Galaxy signed Mr. David Beckham this off-season. Mr. Beckham will make an obscene amount of money while playing alongside players who make $12,000 a year. MLS players used to fly coach and stay in motels. The arrival of the Real Royalty will mean the Galaxy get chartered flights all of a sudden, unless David Beckham wants to fly from LAX to Kansas City in the middle seat of a 757. The New York team, owned by Red Bull, is still looking for their Beckham Rule player. The current rumor is they are courting 1998 World Cup Winner and renowned head-butter Zinedine Zidane.
"My extremely belabored point is that, all of a sudden, people are coming out of the woodwork. MLS season ticket sales are exploding as everyone wants to see Beckham. In the short term, this will give soccer in the USA a boost. In the long term, what is it doing to the sport? One player on a team is not going to dramatically change the quality of the product on the field. Beckham's novelty will wear off, but his contract will not anytime soon. What I predict seeing is the same scenario that occurred with the North American Soccer League. The coastal teams, in our case LA and New York, will invest huge money in their players and make it back with sponsorship deals, season ticket sales, jersey sales, and the like. Smaller-market teams, with the stingier owners who want to follow the original salary-cap model, will see attendance dry up except for those few games a year when the traveling freak show comes to town. The fans in Dallas will stay home and watch Beckham and Zidane on TV instead of coming out to watch another "dull" game between Dallas and Columbus. Eventually, I worry that, like with the NASL, whose New York Cosmos had all the league star power with players like Pele, Beckenbauer, and Chinaglia, the small market teams will go out of business. The league will fold, as did the NASL, and the owners of New York and LA will leave with their Beckham-provided profits.
"This is where the vampires come in. I am afraid the owners willing to pump in loads of money for star power now will use that star power to suck the league dry. The result will be some big buzz for the next couple seasons. The stadiums will be flooded with throngs of soccer zombies and tabloid zombies running to consume and see the prettiest soccer player in history hit some of the prettiest dead balls in history. Seriously- all these people who could not be bothered to buy a ticket for the last 11 years because the sport was boring and MLS plays it at a mediocre level, will now instantly be season-ticket holders and watch one very pretty man play mediocre level soccer. I promise you, even if Beckham is the best player in the world, which he is not, The other 21 players on the field will still be guys like Bobby Rhine and Chris Albright. If you get lucky it might be the world-famous Christian Gomez! Yeah, I don't imagine you've heard of them.
"This is a case where the big owners and sponsors have become short sighted. They are tired of losing money on American soccer. They are tired of waiting for the league to grow slowly. It looks like they are ready to start making some money now at any cost. What will happen when the zombies in the crowd realize that Beckham is not making the soccer much better overall? Give them a few years and the star power will fizzle like it did with Freddy Adu. The development of the US player will suffer, and the sport may be set back to where it was in 1994, minus the promise of a league about to start up.
"Soccer is a good, beautiful thing, for the most part. It gets vilified, as in the current situation in Italy. It has lots of problems- racism in Europe, corruption, commercialism. But it can bring people together in ways nothing else can. It has stopped wars temporarily. It facilitates conversations on trains between fans from the all over the world. Even when it divides, it unites.
"The United States needs to be a part of this global community for so many reasons, especially now. The sport is growing slowly over here. Now is not the time to suck the blood from it quickly and leave it for dead."
Now to the comments! (that means you..)
6 comments:
So, here in the US we won't go to the stadium to watch soccer, but we will go to see Beckham. And he'll seem tiny down on the pitch so really we're paying to see him on the jumbotron. People will fill stadiums for the chance to watch Bex on TV. In the vampire myths the victims willingly let themselves be taken after falling under the beast's evil spell. How apt.
And Ginger what's with pimping out your friends to your blog? We can do that? In that case Christine I'll be expecting you treatise on lycanthropes and their impact on the homo sapien psyche as evidenced by the ironic juxtaposition of an American Werewolf in London.
Here are a few randomly purged thoughts on the topic:
1. $12000 per year was what was cool about soccer and hockey (though I’m sure the players would disagree). $12000 meant that you had to really want to play, even if that meant working at Denny’s on the side. Now all sports are becoming tainted by vampiric capitalism - except of course women’s sports that just roll over and submit to this biting, patriarchal blood fest! For example:
“Finally, the WNBA! Cool!”
Blink
“Hey, where’d it go?”
Shrugs all around
“Mmmmm. Beckham..”
2. Allegorical Paradox: When a vampire bites his victim, the good news is the victim becomes a vampire; he becomes immortal - unless he is slow moving and gets staked through the heart, has holy water thrown on him, stands out in the sunlight, etc. - and he acquires what seem to be new powers. BUT then again, to the real world, that fledgling vampire is no longer human. He, like the zombie is technically dead, and what’s worse is he then has to either feed on the rest of the living or allow himself to fade into nothingness like poor Mina Harker in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Sounds like a certain someone’s career…
3. Also, in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (which scared the living crud out of me, btw), a major cause of Dracula’s demise is that he is young and naïve. He hasn’t had enough experience to make the smartest decisions and Van Helsing, who is much wiser, is able to use his knowledge and understanding of human nature to predict the moves of the reactionary vampire and is then able to kill the immature, blood-sucking count. Where have all the Van Helsings gone? Rich wrote an insightful post on this very topic. Read it at: http://wratch.blogspot.com/index.html
4. When we were traveling through Europe last summer (especially in Austria and Germany) during the World Cup, I very much enjoyed the camaraderie among all of the nations. “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!” Soccer does bring people together! That’s fo' sho!
5.
Over the loud speaker in a very public place: Big Nerd, party of one, you’re table is now available. Big Nerd, party of one. Your table is now available.
Me: That’s me. (Sheepishly looking around). Rats. I should’ve given them Rich’s name.
Ow. You made my head hurt, guys. I think I have to stop hanging out with you (and Jamie) since this getting smarter via diffusion thing is just not working.
But... in response... (and don't try to make the numbers match with Ginger's, because it's too late for me to think in that orderly of a fashion)...
1. Rich: Having never seen said film and not being a fan of similar song, I'll have to also admit that I'm a believer in CLINICAL lycanthropy and believe it is a defect of rather than an actor upon the human psyche. So there.
2. G, I like your point about the low salary, and by that I think you're pointing to the hunger of the players. There is a purity to the game on that level, even when there's not as much grace or skill to it. I, for example, greatly enjoyed the lack of diving in MLS after watching the World Cup. It is hard to balance keeping/drawing strong players and the negative impact (on the clubs and the locker room psychology) of the growing salaries of only a few players.
3. I want to believe that Jamie's wrong, that this Beckham rule won't kill the league. I want to believe that it will gain us at least some new fans in each market, some who will stay around even for the non-Becks/Zidane/Figo/insert-other-old-European-guy-here games. I think it's a great game. It is not boring -- you have to pay attention for 45 straight minutes and that's what I really like about it. I get sidetracked during the time between plays in football, even though I like it. So soccer works for my one-track mind. Maybe others are too ADD.
4. Jamie said it but I have to repeat this. Soccer has stopped wars. Yes, it was only temporary, but it has STOPPED A FRIGGIN' WAR. Name me another sport that's done that. There has to be some intrinsic value in a thing that has that much power, something that will refuse to die, even in this cynical country.
Oh, and I believe that is "Big Nerds, Party of Four."
So today while buying a pair of boys size 13 soccer shoes (no, he couldn't make it through the season without growing; and yes, I asked him to) I had this conversation with the kind older man that owns the soccer shop around the corner. He said basically: yeah, but twice a year Houston gets a star when we play the coastal teams and that makes enough money from the extra attendance to infuse the league a bit and keep on going. Keeping the league going is the point, after all. Plus, he says only the newbie grunts make 12K and the leagues are paying the players better and better as MLS grows.
I was happy to hear this point of view because it was my instinct, but I was too uninformed to make the point like he did. After watching how terribly US car companies are doing with lowsy subsidized markets through their growth years (gov't building roads and not passenger rail tracks, securing oil basins with military, allowing pollution, etc), I've about decided subsidies of any kind are evil. Funny, because liberals always get the subsidy-pushing rap, right? Anyway, the caps and all these rules should just go away and let the league be what the capitalist market pushes it to be.
Regarding vampires, according to Anne Rice's interpretation a la Interview, what really kills a vampire is falling so behind the times from living so long and not being engaged with society that he just gives up living. The morals are change is good, change or die, and hotties make lots of money.
Post a Comment