US sports are ruined by attention-span-wrecking, tacky, plastic, pre-packaged razzmatazz. A while back I went to watch the Philadelphia 76ers. Within a few minutes I was starting to get a feel for the rhythm of live basketball, noting how a little chap called Allen Iverson repeatedly used his brain as much as his body to outfox players who loomed over him. I was thinking what a great soccer midfielder he'd make. A Maradona with hands. Then, suddenly, I wasn't thinking anything at all. I was watching dancing girls.
This set the pattern for the rest of evening. A few minutes of basketball sandwiched between go-go dancers, a Frisbee-catching dog, time-outs, free T-shirts, irritatingly short blasts of music, distracting scoreboard graphics and Hip Hop the Rabbit's amazing guys-in-fat-suits sumo wrestling competition.
The audience, for the most part, sat still and listless. The few fans that did chant were drowned out by the PA system. It was if there was a morbid fear that - if allowed to actually watch the sport - the audience might become bored.
This moronic circus has all but killed fan culture. What's amazing is that it hasn't killed the sports themselves. Watching a game is like watching a great Shakespearean drama dumbed down to the soundbites. The great moments that emerge from fluid, open play and the interplay of fatigue, instinct and technique are lost. And the near-hypnotic state of focused concentration that defines the truly great fan experience is denied the American fan.
But the greatest horror is that, after decades of being treated like sugar-stoned two-year-olds, entire generations of fans have grown up thinking this brain-frying farce is normal.
"Listen, we've got fan culture," an angry NFL fan told me recently. "Every franchise has got its own song."
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