From a Washington Post survey of 806 people in the Washington metro area:
I think asking people if they are "favorable" toward a sports franchise isn't the right question. You wind up registering a lot of Benign Neglect: The Washington Capitals? -- Yeah, sure I'm favorable towards them. I always want them to beat the Harlem Globetrotters. A better question would be to ask individuals to name players on each team. But polling companies hate asking questions that might display the ignorance of the people being polled.
The accompanying article "Black fans have grown to love the Redskins" is superficially dull in its recounting of things like how blacks love the Redskins because Doug Williams of the Redskins was the first black quarterback to win a Super Bowl back in the late 1980s. The article doesn't present any evidence of any NFL team that is not popular with its local black population. Americans like the NFL and African-Americans really like the NFL. Occam's Razor suggests that NFL teams tend to be popular with their local populations not because of some unique historical record but because they are local. It's not like the San Francisco 49ers are popular in San Francisco because Steve Young was an expert on Napa Valley wines or Jerry Rice was a C++ programmer. Instead, the 49ers are popular in San Francisco because they are the San Francisco 49ers. This really isn't that complicated.
But, the article is interesting in its underlying unquestioned assumption that black racialism is a virtue that should be cultivated and celebrated. The reporter didn't seem to make any attempt to find a black person to say something like, "Hey, it's great that all sorts of different people, black, white, or miscellaneous, root for the Redskins. I really like that about the Redskins: they bring us Washingtonians together."
Here's a question: If Bill Simmons of ESPN were to come out and explicitly admit something that's implicit across hundreds of pages of his Big Book of Basketball -- One reason the 1986 Boston Celtics remain my favorite team of all time is because they were so much whiter (Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Danny Ainge, Bill Walton, Scott Wedman, Jerry Sichting, etc.) than their rivals, and that shows that us white guys aren't totally hopeless at my favorite game -- would he get in trouble?
Steve asked: If Bill Simmons of ESPN were to come out and explicitly admit something that's implicit across hundreds of pages of his Big Book of Basketball -- One reason the 1986 Boston Celtics remain my favorite team of all time is because they were so much whiter (Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Danny Ainge, Bill Walton, Scott Wedman, Jerry Sichting, etc.) than their rivals, and that shows that us white guys aren't totally hopeless at my favorite game -- would he get in trouble?
ReplyDeleteHunsdon replied: It depends on whether Simmons framed it as a bad thing, as a lingering reflection white privilege and white racism. If he did so, and presented it as an attack on same, he would not be in trouble, nay, he would be praised.
Right.
ReplyDeleteSo, if Simmons went on -- "And therefore, I've decided to root for Duke in the NCAA because they too are the racial underdogs who recruit white and mulatto players who are smart enough to be college students, maybe not at Duke, but somewhere, and because they aren't usually skilled enough to hop to the NBA after one year, they stick around long enough to become superior team players" -- what would the reaction be?
Steve,
ReplyDeleteHere's a great article from earlier this year detailing why white fans are abandoning the NBA.
This writer admits is all about race. It's a shame that Bill Simmons can't admit that over at Grantland.com
Have you tried to submit a piece to that site?
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-02-18/sports/30078659_1_lebron-james-number-of-foreign-born-players-nba
And don't forget these survey results from ESPN's look at Black History Month (yet another racial look at sports through only Black and white sports fans eyes):
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/otl/news/story?id=5988173
"One reason the 1986 Boston Celtics remain my favorite team of all time is because they were so much whiter (Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Danny Ainge, Bill Walton, Scott Wedman, Jerry Sichting, etc.) than their rivals"
ReplyDeleteDoubleplusungood thoughtcrime detected.
That 11% of DC African-American NFL fans who are Dallas Cowboys fans would make for an interesting article. I bet 70% are obnoxious little brothers with older brothers who take football way too seriously, but that's just a guess. That's true with the ones I've met.
ReplyDeleteWashington's transient population skews heavily white and middle/upper class, which explains why many white bring their own teams with them. The Caps have become good in the last 4-5 years, so many newcomers who weren't into hockey have latched on to their success (doesn't hurt they are fun to watch, either.) But the blacks here are mostly from here, and still are either heavy Skins or Cowboy fans. I'd like to see this survey done in a town like St. Louis, or even better, a team with an NBA team and an NFL team, like Cleveland or Minnesota - with a less transition population.
ReplyDeleteFinal note: the NFL is our new religion. The male soap opera. EVERYONE loves the NFL.
"If Bill Simmons of ESPN were to come out and explicitly admit something that's implicit across hundreds of pages of his Big Book of Basketball -- One reason the 1986 Boston Celtics remain my favorite team of all time is because they were so much whiter..."
ReplyDeleteThis is a good question and legit one, but it ignores the historical context. This context may not matter much in the future but it does matter still because of the potent social symbolism of sports in the 20th century in the larger context of social history.
By keeping blacks out, white sports came to be associated with racial discrimination and bigotry. This was especially jarring cuz blacks were obviously much better.
Also, there was the Nazi thing with white supremacy and sports.
So, whites-and-sport came to be associated with supremacism, bigotry, unfair privilege(keeping out better athlets) while blacks-and-sports came to be associated with struggle for pride, respect, rights, equality, and etc--and maybe even righteous revenge for the humiliation experienced by blacks. Also, sports had immense symbolic value in the rise of blacks and acceptance as genuine Americans and national heroes(though pop music is up there too).
If blacks and whites were different only in skin color, this would have been a great story. Blacks would have gained equal participation in sports and some would have succeeded. It would have been good for whites and blacks(who would have been whites with black skin).
But the problem is blacks are better in sports, which proves the truth of race-ism. Liberals use black success in sports to argue for anti-racism but black supremacy in sports is one of the most obvious proof of race-ist truth in differences among groups.
The old white racism of white supremacy was based on lies(whites are toughest, whites are smarter than Jews who are only 'clever'), but it is a race-ist truth that racial differences exist, not least in phyusical attributes.
So, what happend is instead of blacks gaining equality with whites in sports, they gained supremacy over whites. And so, the narrative of blacks struggling to gain equality in sports seems rather silly today. If anything, there is BIOLOGICAL DISCRIMINATION against non-blacks in sports.
It's often been said JOE LOUIS AND JESSE OWENS DESTROYED THE MYTH OF ARYAN OR WHITE SUPREMACY. What is not mentioned is the flipside: JESSE AND JOE ESTABLISHED THE FACT OF BLACK SUPREMACY(at least in athletics). So, bogus white racism wasn't replaced by racial egalitarianism but with the genuine race-ism that recognizes the Negro as the better athlete--a truth that we know but cannot mention. Mental and moral habits die hard.
Because of the legacy of the 20th century and its symbolic value in sports, it will continue to have significance for yrs to come. Also, people who control the media perpetrate that narrative.
But, with spoiled rotten black athletes, trashy rappers, and black thugs ruling the streets, there will have to be a different narrative.
But for this to happen sooner than later, the white right commentators must drop the BS that whites are just as good at sports as blacks.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteTo your question about Bill Simmons...Chuck Klosterman, who writes with Simmons over at Grantland had an essay in his book "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoapuff" that dealt with the whiteness of the Celtic versus the blackness and swagger of the L.A. Lakers. p.97
He wrote:
"To say the 1980s rivalry between the Celtics and the Lakers represents America's racial anguish is actually a short-sighted understatement."
It's a good read.
According to the Lib narrative...
ReplyDeletePro-white fandom in sports smacks of both white supremacism and white privilegism(via affirmative action for whites).
White supremacism: harking back to a time when whites dominated sports by controlling the rules of admission.
White privilege-ism: favoring and rooting for inferior white athletes over naturally better black ones.
So, the issue is a double-loser.
"Here's a great article from earlier this year detailing why white fans are abandoning the NBA."
ReplyDeleteFunny... whites seem to love hiphop and rap.
If rooting for race in sports is wrong, why is okay to root for nation? I thought nationalism was the root of all evil.
ReplyDeleteWhat also accompanies what Steve notices is the ironic black sports fan who rallies behind a white player. It's the black sports fan version of hipsterdom.
ReplyDeleteThe black fan usually endearingly refers to the white player as "white boy" as in, "damn, that white boy good," or "damn, that white boy can shoot."
While he doesn't use the terms of endearment, black sports writer Jason Whitlock is the best example of this. He tends to take the white side of the argument in order to set himself apart from the consensus. Like a black person choosing Herman Cain over Obama.
"One reason the 1986 Boston Celtics remain my favorite team of all time is because they were so much whiter (Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Danny Ainge, Bill Walton, Scott Wedman, Jerry Sichting, etc.) "
ReplyDeleteSteve, you're doing it again this week.
Is it really "implict over hundreds of pages" or just 2 or 3? And maybe Simmons motivation in life is not yours (as ridiculously silly as that may be).
Maybe he likes the the '86 Celtics because they were really, really good!
(And oh, by the way, he's from Boston.)
" I've decided to root for Duke in the NCAA because they too are the racial underdogs who recruit white and mulatto players who are smart enough to be college students, MAYBE NOT A DUKE, BUT SOMEWHERE(!!!!)
ReplyDeleteLOL, Stop it Steve-O, you're destroying me here today:
Coach K: Hey Brad, I'm offering you a scholarship because you're white, and hey, you're too dumb for this school, but you're smart enough to qualify For NorthEast Missouri, so, Welcome Aboard, Son!"
"Here's a great article from earlier this year detailing why white fans are abandoning the NBA."
ReplyDeleteThen the white fans must be a little retarded because the league has been black since the 70's.
Looking at that chart, what pops up to me is that making the Redskins more popular among Blacks has made them less popular among Whites. Now, who has more money, Whites or Blacks? Which is the larger amount of the population? Which has the higher percentage of nuclear families?
ReplyDeletePC makes you stupid. Without "making the NFL Black" it is likely the NHL would have collapsed long ago. Indeed you could argue there is a move of White DC sports fans FROM the Redskins to the Capitals. And more largely, out of Baseball (Dominican dominated, look at the Angels, hardly any White players left), the NFL/College Sports (almost no White players left), and Basketball (maybe ONE White star and he's not featured much) to Hockety, Soccer, Rugby, Golf, and other White dominated sports (NASCAR).
Simmons was recently attacked for saying NBA players have less intellectual capital (i.e. intelligence) than the NBA owners. Imagine what would happen if he flat out said something along the lines that he rooted for Larry Bird because he was white.
ReplyDeleteThe NBA is on lockout because they claim about 28 of the 32 teams are losing money. The NFL lockout was about the same issue, money, and the inability of the NFL to grow internationally (no one outside the US cares about the NFL) and the "Blackening" of the sport driving down TV revenue.
ReplyDeleteAt a certain point, and college football is probably there as well, too many Blacks cause White fans to lose interest, and become less passionate. Fewer fans, less intensity, equals lower ad rates, tv rights, etc. Which in the modern game dominate.
Jerry Jones and the like are mostly highly leveraged, requiring big amounts of money to service their debt. Maybe not all are like Frank McCourt, but they are within shouting distance. Thus a direct conflict between their desire to play status-games by being "as Black as possible" and actually making money by having a more White team that draws fans. From SoCal, the Boston Red Sox are shockingly White, compared to the near absence among the Angels who have almost no White players. The Patriots are far Whiter than say, the Raiders or Chargers. That seems to have worked for both teams, as they seem to make a lot of money (hard to tell, the books are not open).
But look at "Los Dodgers" and Frank McCourt. Courting the Latino fans led to gang beatings and the beating of Giants fan Brian Stowe, leading to Dodger Stadium being half or three quarters empty most of the season. Which led to ticket price reductions next season, and all sorts of promotional gimmicks.
Only 15% of whites and 3% of blacks in DC follow baseball the most. In NYC baseball dwarfs all other sports combined. Among blacks and (Caribbean) Hispanics too, I think.
ReplyDeleteWhat Steve omits is the historical context with the Redskins. They were the last team in the NFL to accept black players, which really rankled lots of people when I lived in the D.C. suburbs in the 1970s.
ReplyDeletethe NFL is our new religion. The male soap opera.
ReplyDeleteThe professional wrestling of the major American sports. All image and no substance.
Simmons is left wing but you can't be anything other than that to survive at ESPN. That's why their sports-talk shows are so bland. Nobody is ever allowed to say anything the least bit interesting. I remember how shocked I was when they hired Limbaugh and you saw how that turned out. Were truer words ever spoken than what Limbaugh had to say about McNabb?
ReplyDeleteKinda pisses me off that Dana Jacobsen was able to keep her gig after drunkenly shouting F Jesus at a roast....granted it was a roast but can you imagine if she insulted [insert any other religion besides Christianity]?
Most of my buddies want the NBA to stay locked out......may have something to do with being Wizard fans though. Kenyon Martin didn't help when he wished AIDS upon the "haters". I wasn't familiar with that usage so I went to Urban Dictionary and it turned out that yep, I was a hater. It was fun seeing Lebron completely gag against the Mavericks in this year's NBA finals. He was visibly nervous in the 4th quarter of those games...hilarious.
Duke hatred among whites has really amped up in the age of Obama.... I think it's some self-loathing disorder. I used to hate Duke players for all the right reasons: smarter, better-looking, more athletic....
Steve- how could you forget Greg Kite? No player, with the exception of your neighbor Paul Mokeski, ever looked more out of place on an NBA court.
Growing up a skins fan, you could group DC area Cowboy fans into 2 groups: black nationalists and attention-seeking losers. Everybody loved Dougie Fresh Williams though when he was QB in 1987. Seemed like a genuinely nice guy.
Dan in DC
Anon at 1:37pm is dead on right.
ReplyDeleteWashington Post doesn't account for % of non-natives. People who grew up in the DC, black and white, are Redskins fans, with the exception of some legacy Cowboy fans who are still mad about the Redskins being the last segregated team.
ReplyDeleteSomeone has mentioned that whites in the DC area are more likely to be from somewhere else. In addition, blacks in the DC area from somewhere else tend to be from the South, which outside of Atlanta and New Orleans didn't have NFL teams.
Funny that the Celtics of 1986 are the remembered team for their combined excellence and lack of melanin. You saw t-shirts in Southie and Charlestown with the Celtics shamrock and "How 'Bout Those White Boys!"
ReplyDeleteThe Celtics of the Sixties under Red Auerbach regularly dismantled all opposition (10 NBA championships from 1959-1969, missing only 1967) was the first to start five black players and to have a black coach.
Looking at that chart, what pops up to me is that making the Redskins more popular among Blacks has made them less popular among Whites.
ReplyDeleteWhat Anonymoust at 3:50pm said. I suspect blacks are more likely to be long-term D.C. residents than are whites. Especially with a sport like football, people carry their home teams with them wherever they go. That skews the results.
I went to a ~90% black high school in the late '80s, and I remember 1 black guy there who was a Celtics fan, just to be different.
ReplyDeleteBissinger: I make a habit of asking every white sports fan I know whether they watch the NBA. In ... every instance, they say they ... no longer do. When I ask them if it has anything to do with the racial composition, they do their best to look indignant.
ReplyDeleteEven Bissinger doesn't really get it. I've stopped watching the NBA, but I was a devoted fan when my team, Golden State, was all-black in the '80's and all-black but one (Mullin) in the '90's's. I know he's talking about the league as a whole having fewer whites, but the point stands.
No, the reason white fans would give up on the NBA these days has to do with the behavior of blacks who are not themselves players. What I see in black life is an entire culture of exemption. Blacks speed and weave in and out of lanes with impunity, they all seem to have handicap placards, they park in red zones all they want, they smoke on BART platforms with impunity, in the workplace they're not required to put out any effort, and of course if you dare to say anything to them they feel entitled to clock you, and the cops are terrified of intervening. All of this entirely apart from the gratuitous "wilding" scene. I can't be the only one to have noticed all this. That there used to more whites in the NBA is a classic red herring. When whites were attached to the NBA, blacks hadn't fully defined "civil rights" to mean, "we don't have to play by the rules."
Dan in DC:
ReplyDelete"Simmons is left wing but you can't be anything other than that to survive at ESPN. That's why their sports-talk shows are so bland. Nobody is ever allowed to say anything the least bit interesting."
This is true of most sports talk shows and magazines. There are just too many blacks involved for there to be any real talk about race. Those topics won't get traction in news room. Jim Rome never broaches the topic.
"It was fun seeing Lebron completely gag against the Mavericks in this year's NBA finals. He was visibly nervous in the 4th quarter of those games...hilarious."
The racial divide in that series was palpable. Blacks were for the Heat; Whites were for Nowitzki and the Mavs. That divide was underdiscussed (not sure if Steve covered it).
"Steve- how could you forget Greg Kite? No player, with the exception of your neighbor Paul Mokeski, ever looked more out of place on an NBA court."
I'd have to give that title to Uwe Blab.
Remember there are no Hispanic, Asian or East Indian people anywhere near the Washington D.C. metro area.
ReplyDeleteIt's always important to keep that racial truth in mind.
Duke hatred among whites has really amped up in the age of Obama.... I think it's some self-loathing disorder. I used to hate Duke players for all the right reasons: smarter, better-looking, more athletic....
And that's why you remember the phony Duke lacrosse rape hoax and why you and others have never heard of Eve Carson.
Somebody already mentioned it, but Klosterman has written about the Showtime Lakers, the Celtics and the racial component between them, he and Simmons have also discussed it on a podcast. And it was either Simmons or Klosterman on a podcast who said they thought that the hate for Duke was partially due to how white they are. Even blacks hate Duke because they view the black players as Uncle Toms, something that came up last year with Grant Hill and Jalen Rose.
ReplyDeleteAnd if you're looking for a "race realist" involved in the sports media, it wouldn't surprise me if Colin Cowherd read this site and others like it. He's very much anti-egalitarian, is always talking about IQ and has been pegged a racist on more than one occasion.
Dyork said..."And that's why you remember the phony Duke lacrosse rape hoax and why you and others have never heard of Eve Carson."
ReplyDeleteYou'd be wrong. The Carson case was infuriating and there's a ton of injustice out there but it's important to keep some semblance of a sense of humor.
Dan in DC
DYork, I work in IT in Herndon, VA (near DC) and there are plenty of Indians here. The Hindu body shops are alive and well in the nation's capital.
ReplyDeleteIf 0% of black fans follow hockey how can 54% of them feel favorable toward the Caps? Weird stat.
ReplyDeleteTo put it simply - for blacks their "team" is their race, black. They are on the black team first. The particular cultural, sporting, political or legal manifestation is a distant second.
ReplyDeleteFor White people their team is almost always anything but their race. In fact Other people of their race, the Bad White people, seem to be their primary rival.
A partially anti-PC sports talk show with right wing comic Nick Di Paolo and drug addict Artie Lange.
ReplyDeleteHere's a NSFW rant by comic Bill Burr about New York sports fans.
Bill Burr: The State of New York Sports Rant.
Don't underestimate the White Boston to White New York rivalry.
Interesting that a full 0% of black fans like Hockey. Maybe they have a tough time identifying with the players. Maybe they are not the only ethnic group that has trouble identifying with players that have nothing in common with them. Duh. As for the NBA, I don't have enough mustard to go to one of their games with all those hot dogs.
ReplyDeleteIIRC, Simmons once wrote about an all time all-star white team being competitive against and all time all star black team. (I don't have the energy to search around for it.)
ReplyDeleteSimmons definitely leans left but not egregiously so. Like someone pointed out, he recently got some heat for a comment about basketball players not having the intellectual wherewithal to negotiate effectively with owners.
But note, he didn't have to apologize. The fact is Simmons carries too much juice at ESPN. They are in mortal dread that he'll go somewhere else and take half their .com audience with him.
Contrast that with what they did to Gregg Easterbrook over some pretty innocuous comments. Or Hank Williams Jr, for that matter.
So no, Simmons wouldn't get in trouble over there. But anyone else would (with the possible exception of Berman -- but just maybe).
The Redskins really were anti-black. The were pretty much the football team of the white south:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/41422/why-a-washington-baltimore-game-sparked-redskins-segregation-policy-protests
"Looking at that chart, what pops up to me is that making the Redskins more popular among Blacks has made them less popular among Whites. Now, who has more money, Whites or Blacks? Which is the larger amount of the population? Which has the higher percentage of nuclear families?"
SWPLs are not as into the NFL as most white people, and DC has a lot of SWPLs.
Blacks seem to be more logical than Whites here.
ReplyDeleteBlacks like the Redskins and watch football.
Whites like the Capitals but don't watch hockey.
Huh?
Yes, Simmons wrote a long footnote about an All-Time All White team that was pretty much the 1986 Celtics (Bird, Walton, and McHale) plus, if I recall correctly, Jerry West and Rick Barry.
ReplyDeleteHey, I thought I was the only the one who liked the '86 Celtics above all!
ReplyDeleteWhat's funny is its the Black guys I liked the most. DJ and the Chief were the ones who REALLY deserve as much credit as Bird and McHale.
But it was more than just "hey White guys can play too". It was their dominance, the teamwork, the passing, the shooting ability.
Everyone on the '86 Celtics looked like they were having fun out there and were part of something special. Its like Walton and Bird were in a competition to see who could make the greatest assist.
So many of the other Great teams always had flaws or tension between the stars. I never sensed that in the '86 Celtics. Probably the nearest closest was the '85 Lakers.
Great post Steve. Liberal sportswriters are probably the most liberal, and most stupid, of all the media.
ReplyDeleteDid the writer bring up the great 'Negroes are leaving Baseball!!!' meme? You see, if Blacks don't like BB or make up at least 20% of the players we're all supposed to care because ah...I don't know why...but we supposed to care.
Similarly, if 90 percent of NFL DB are Black that's OK - but if 80% of NFL QB's are white, why that's Racism and we're supposed to very concerned.
Cowherd is a woman but yes he does occasionally touch on off-limit topics.
ReplyDeleteI've been looking forward to that new Artie Lange sports talk show.
Simmons does dominate ESPN- he could probably kill a stripper and get 2 weeks probation....I know for a fact he has done just that....
Agreed Chuck, Uwe Blab ftw
Dan in Dc
Hmmm, interesting thought about Simmons. And I definitely can see it being true.
ReplyDelete(I've been a huge fan of Bill Simmons for about a decade now.)
Steve, didn't you write a long time ago about lib sportswriters going the extra mile with political correctness to make up for lack of respect in the newsroom? Someone wrote it and I've been claiming it as my own for some time now.
ReplyDeleteDan in Dc
Dear Dan:
ReplyDeleteYes, I said that regarding various witch-burnings, like Paul Hornung or the coach of the Air Force football team, who got in big trouble for mentioning that blacks tend to be faster runners.
Way back a generation ago, the Washington sports writers got together and got George Allen fired as coach of the Redskins. It's disappeared down the memory hole, but my impression at the time (from afar, of course, so don't take this as gospel) was that the Washington sportswriters saw George Allen as their Richard Nixon and this was their Watergate moment.
Well if you won't link to it I will
ReplyDeletehttp://www.vdare.com/articles/nfl-teams-and-sports-journalists-discriminating-against-white-players
The lack of white cornerbacks is a fun topic to discuss. It's been a long time since Jason Sehorn and before him who? John Mangum? Brian Davis? Pat freakin Fisher?
This is a weird bit of Redskin trivia- they drafted 2 white corner backs from Nebraska in the 2nd round in back to back drafts. Tory Nixon and Brian Davis.....maybe not back to back drafts but it sounds better
Holy Sh#t, i just wikipedia'd Pat Fischer a white cornerback who played for the Redskins and guess where he went to college? Yep, you guessed it- Nebraska. I'm really freaked out right now.
Dan in DC
"Only 15% of whites and 3% of blacks in DC follow baseball the most."
ReplyDeleteThere's no tradition of baseball in DC for 30+ years. Even worse: they have been terrible for the last five...which leads me to this...
"If 0% of black fans follow hockey how can 54% of them feel favorable toward the Caps?"
...no one supports a winner like black folks (N.B.: My favorite activity: asking black dudes in Steelers and Cowboys gear where in those respective cities they grew up. The silence is usually deafening. Makes this Bills fan quite smug.). The Caps are known as winners, so no surprise that black folks (and recent white transitioners) are disposed to be favorable to them. With the way the Lerners are spending $$ on players, I'd imagine that shortly the Nationals will begin to cut into that lead (slowly). They are everyone in DC's 2nd favorite baseball team.
Way back a generation ago, the Washington sports writers got together and got George Allen fired as coach of the Redskins.
ReplyDeleteThe Washington press really don't like anybody named George Allen, do they?
I think asking people if they are "favorable" toward a sports franchise isn't the right question. You wind up registering a lot of Benign Neglect.
ReplyDeleteThe Washington Capitals? -- Yeah, sure I'm favorable towards them. I always want them to beat the Harlem Globetrotters.
A better question would be to ask individuals to name players on each team. But polling companies hate asking questions that might display the ignorance of the people being polled.
What's funny is its the Black guys I liked the most. DJ and the Chief were the ones who REALLY deserve as much credit as Bird and McHale.
ReplyDeleteActually, what is REALLY funny is that even now, even with the awareness of racial issues you must surely possess (commenting here), you still believe that it's imperative to SAY SOMETHING NICE about blacks -- even if, as in this case, you have to cut it out of whole cloth. (I mean, yeah, okay Isaiah Thomas, Larry Bird is "just another good guy.")
Silver
Courting the Latino fans led to gang beatings and the beating of Giants fan Brian Stowe, leading to Dodger Stadium being half or three quarters empty most of the season. --Whiskey
ReplyDeleteBrooklyn! Brooklyn! Brooklyn!
(Hey, it worked for Oakland and Winnipeg.)
A twist of the knife in today's Onion: under a tiny photo of what appears to be the WNBA champion Lynx is the headline, "Sad, Pathetic Minnesota Fans Will Take A Win In Any Sport". How true!
ReplyDeleteI just spent the week struggling with the Financial Times Prize Crossword. The answer to "Join team, sounding very perceptive (4,4)" stumped me till the very end, and I'd already had ___XEYED. What the hell beast ends in X? Minx? Jinx? Oryx? Manx? Foxx?
Of course, the answer is LYNXEYED. (I.e., "join team" = "link side"-- get it?) The Lynx had just been crowned champions eight miles away, and their name didn't occur to me for a week.
WNBA-- Will Nobody Bestow Attention?
The Washington press really don't like anybody named George Allen, do they?--anonymous
ReplyDeleteThey might like this George Allen, the President's (and my) eleventh great-grandfather.
As a sidenote, Mexicans have always loved the Dallas Cowboys and this was true way before the Hispanic-octoroon Tony Romo took over as QB.
ReplyDeleteHere is an article from ESPN that discusses the racial divide from Black fans and white fans for the 1980s Celtics.
ReplyDeletehttp://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=adande_ja&page=Celtics-071219
You guys are morons, Cowherd and Simmons alike are SWPL pussies who worship big black athletes, like everyone white employed by ESPN. Auto racing is more popular than NBA, but gets a fraction of the ESPN coverage. NHL is no less popular than NBA, but also gets only token coverage. All three of these sports have only small niche audiences, but NBA is treated like a major sport--which it isn't.
ReplyDeleteLast NBA all-star break Cowherd was chastising his white audience for not liking the NBA, telling them to "get out of your small towns and see the world" followed by a bunch of "diversity is strength" treacle. Because we all know that living in diverse neighborhoods makes you more tolerant to difference. By the way Colin Cowherd grew up in a 95% white town of about 1000 people.
I'm with Truth on this one. I rooted for the Celtics when they were the blackest team in the league (1960's), when they were the whitest (1980's), and when they were the only entirely American team (2000's). Because I'm from NH, and they're the home team. That's it. Bill Simmons, similar.
ReplyDeleteIt has been hard for me to believe that people from other parts of the country liked them for their 80's whiteness, but I have heard it from enough non-PC people of solid observation to accept it must be somewhat true.
The reverse, of people liking the Lakers because they were blacker (as Klosterman claims) always struck me as a hypocritical SWPL attitude that I hoped wasn't true, but eventually concluded it was.
"Occam's Razor suggests that NFL teams tend to be popular with their local populations not because of some unique historical record but because they are local. It's not like the San Francisco 49ers are popular in San Francisco because Steve Young was an expert on Napa Valley wines or Jerry Rice was a C++ programmer. Instead, the 49ers are popular in San Francisco because they are the San Francisco 49ers. This really isn't that complicated."
ReplyDeletebut it is complicated since most of the players on all these local teams are not local themselves.
assistant village idiot said that he's always rooted for the celtics "because I'm from NH, and they're the home team."
i just don't get how avi, or anybody else, can support a bunch of people who are/were not from his home town (unless it was different in the 60s). -??-
this aspergian requires an explanation.