The end of American sports culture

As is often the case with the Super Bowl, the commercials on Feb. 5 overshadowed the game between the Steelers and Seahawks. The Clydesdales were back in form, Bud Light maintained its tradition of producing consistently funny promotions, and the Emerald Nuts druid was exceptional.

But the focus of this article is neither the decline of sports and rise of consumerism nor the massive craze surrounding what is usually, in the end, just another football game. No, I want to rant about one commercial in particular — the advertisement for the new ESPN mobile phone, which gives its user access to stats and scores from every pro and major college team. As I see it, the existence of such a device is both indicative of the American sports culture and a sign of the end of traditional fandom.

On American sports culture: It is surely common knowledge on many levels of our society that ESPN, and more specifically, its flagship and ever-present program SportsCenter, hold a monopoly on the psyche of young sports fans. Especially in the male college dorm room — replete with beer, cold pizza, and tangled videogame controller cords — SportsCenter is the show of choice. Even 74-year-old Tom Wolfe, author of the misguided study of social dynamics at an elite private university, "I am Charlotte Simmons," saw it necessary to describe the 24 hours a day ESPN viewing of frat boys.

Why is SportsCenter so central to youth culture and perhaps more so to college dorm culture? Certainly, we are the SportsCenter generation, for even though the show first aired in 1979, it did not rise to prominence until the mid-90s. The place the show holds in young people's lives is a result of what was once trendy and unique about the show, such as the exclamations of Stuart Scott and the flashy presentation. But this is now tired and worn-out. Maybe it ended when Scott acquired a permanent lazy eye from a Vinny Testaverde throw. Or maybe not.

Either way, at the heart of the SportsCenter discussion is the disturbing possibility that the show now defines the culture. Do we still want to be bombarded with mostly meaningless numbers and factoids? People across America watch SportsCenter in this day and age for no reason other than it's simply what they do. Do you consciously think before falling on the couch after class and flipping to ESPN? Sports in America is synonymous with SportsCenter, and we, as sports fans, have become one with the show. We have been coerced, against our best wishes; Dan Patrick is our Big Brother.

On the end of traditional fandom: what need do sports fulfill in our culture? No longer do people support local teams and their long-serving players. Rather, with information on each and every team readily available and the rise of fantasy sports, people support faraway teams and often individual players. Being a sports fan is now not dissimilar from following the stock market — numbers dominate, instead of the emotional connection with the local team. SportsCenter's Bottom Line is like the ticker tape of the market, making sports into a pseudo science, which is how gamblers already viewed them.

If SportsCenter has been a catalyst for the decline and fall of traditional fandom, then the ESPN mobile phone is Brutus' knife. What American male needs sports information and highlights reproduced faithfully on a tiny screen in between his daily doses of SportsCenter? I personally do not want the score of a midsummer Royals-Tigers game anywhere near me or my phone. I accept the intrusion of such a game's box score as part of the downside of SportsCenter, but I do not want such a thing penetrating further into my life.

Many people will likely buy the ESPN mobile phone, although it may not do as well as the company hopes. But how many customers will think before buying "Why do I need this? Why do I care about utterly meaningless February college hoops games and midsummer baseball games between non-contenders? Hasn't SportsCenter gone far enough?" Sports are about emotion and loyalty, not stats and scores. But more and more people define them by the latter parameters and by doing so, contribute to recent trends and erode the old American sports culture.