Tell me how I’m wrong.
It’s not about great athletics or players hellbent on winning a championship. It’s salary caps to expand leagues into soft markets and all about ratings and a 24/7 news cycle/controversy on ESPN and is basically another form of reality TV.
TV pro sports are about as real as the nightly news or professional wrestling. Radically change the rules or definitions until you get a desired outcome that’s expected to increase TV revenue. It’s orchestrated for ratings.
That’s fine but it’s an orchestrated reality TV show with rule changes based strictly on ratings draws.
Boomer’s…
Tell you how you're wrong? Gladly.
It is absolutely about superior athletes and players hell-bent on winning a championship. Jokic is a two-time MVP and should have been named MVP for the third straight year this year. That’s the definition of a great athlete. He basically put the team on his back and carried them to a championship, along with Jamal Murray who had a bad knee injury and had to sit out and re-hab for a year. Add in Murray’s legendary training regimen as a kid, that’s the definition of dedication and being hell-bent. Strike one.
Your observations on the changes to the games are nothing more than a description of capitalism at work. Pro sports are enormously popular and they generate a ton of revenue and profits. Do you think the owners and their business managers should just ignore that? What you interpret as pandering to the almighty dollar is just good business and giving the consumers what they’re asking for. No different than automobile manufacturers giving their consumers what they’re asking for. To do otherwise is just bad business and a recipe for bankruptcy. To assume that the purveyors of these enormously popular and profitable products are going to ignore their consumer’s preferences in deference to some loyalty to “the sport” is incredibly naïve and quaint. Do the automakers crank out the same vehicles that were popular "back in the day" because they're loyal motorheads? Strike two.
And your interpretation of the salary cap is ass-backwards. It was put in place for the same reason no one knows who Nikola Jokic is—small media markets. If Jokic was in New York or LA he’d be a household name. Small media markets can’t compete with big markets in generating revenue and paying salaries. Without a salary cap franchises in Denver and San Antonio couldn’t compete with New York and LA, so the salary cap creates parity and a level playing field. Nobody wants to see teams from the big media markets dominate because they can afford to pay more for the best players. Strike three.
And last, your comment about boomers is hilarious. I don’t watch pro sports much, but two of my sons in their 30’s are always talking them up and got me interested. And the rule changes in baseball and football aren’t the result of boomers losing interest in the old-school sports we grew up with, they’re the result of younger fans being bored with the games and not watching in droves. Adapt or go out of business. Apparently you favor the latter.