Why I Don’t Care About The Warriors’ Victory
A Family Enthusiastically Watching A Basketball Game
The first thing I want to say is I’m Abraham Woodliff, not Stuart. If you’re mad about my stance, send the hate to me. Stuart’s innocent. Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I can say this: I don’t give a fuck about sports in the sense of regional teams. Which means, I don’t give a fuck about the Golden State Warriors. I do understand that in terms of athletic performance, the people who end up in the NBA are truly special. The worst player in the NBA is an absolute beast compared to the best basketball player you know in real life, unless they’re in the NBA, but I kind of doubt that.
Your city didn’t win anything. A group of highly paid athletic mercenaries did, dipshit.
I get why people admire Steph Curry. He’s a fucking beast. I get why people admire Michael Jordan, or Lebron James or any other pro athlete. They make the impossible look easy. I can’t shoot a basketball into a hoop from 10 states away, but Curry can. That makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is deriving pride from a group of people who aren’t even from the place they’re supposed to be representing being good at something. If the Golden State Warriors were all from the Bay and they beat a group of athletes from Boston, I’d get the regional pride, but they’re fucking not. They’re a bunch of dudes chasing checks who end up where they end up. Steph Curry is from Ohio. He’s the face of Bay Area sports. Lebron is also from Ohio and went to play for Miami for a while. Your city didn’t win anything. A group of highly paid athletic mercenaries did, dipshit.
You think I don’t love The Bay, but I do. I just don’t like when rich people exploit regional sentimentality for a buck, and that’s all professional sports is
You know who else won? The rich. That’s right. Sports arenas (not Chase Center, it was privately financed) are usually financed with public money. So basically a guy gets to own a sports team, make a shit ton of money on them and then has a city pay for the construction of where they play and make off with a giant check. On top of that, they rarely pay their fair share in taxes. The Warriors, who you know, love the Bay and give a shit about San Francisco, were working to get their property taxes cut during the pandemic when the city needed the tax revenue most.
What I’m saying is they don’t give a shit about you. Now, there are cases where they do. Marshawn Lynch gives a fuck about Oakland and joined the Oakland Raiders before they moved to Vegas. No one can question Marshawn’s love for Oakland. But I can question the Raiders as an institution. Why did they move to Vegas? Because Oakland wouldn’t let Mark Davis, a man whose money can’t afford a single competent barber, get a new stadium on the taxpayers dime. The Raiders still were able to get a ton of money out of Oakland and Alameda County.
I know what you’re thinking. You think I don’t love The Bay, but I do. I just don’t like when rich people exploit regional sentimentality for a buck, and that’s all professional sports is. We even made college sports into a thing. No one fucking does that. And you want to know the best part? The players, who built an industry worth billions, weren’t allowed to get paid until 2021 after heavy scrutiny.
So next time you get upset about your team losing or excited about your team winning, just remember this: the people who you’re rooting for are just incredibly talented athletes who have no connection to your city. They’re just paid a lot to sweat in a shirt with your city’s name on it.
Maybe stop killing each other in parking lots over a billionaire’s plot to use sweaty demigods to sell you hats, jerseys and beer.
Just a thought…
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7 Comments
Kind of a weak take (except for the part about Davis’ awful haircut) It isn’t like any of this is news to anyone. I get the sentiment behind the article but it the team is what people root for and rally around. That the local team is made up of people who weren’t born here is immaterial because they live here now.
If Curry were traded to the Lakers the love for him around here would dissipate immediately. If LeBron ends up on the Warriors, Warriors fans will do a 180 on their
hatred for him. This is because the fans are behind the team and the players as long as they are on the team
The socialist screed about the organization getting tax breaks is a dead horse that no amount of whipping is
going to resurrect. And no one cares.
Wait, professional sports are a corporate enterprise and rich people profit the most off of it at the expense of the fans and players? YOU DON’T SAY. Yes, the industry is inherently corrupt and yes, it’s an important reminder, but writing it with so much condescension towards fans and thinking calling them ‘dipshit’ will win them over reeks of that college newspaper editor who thinks they’re the first one to question authority.
Hear Hear. Thank you for the counter point. While it is not new, it’s great to bring it up from time to time.
I enjoy sports entertainment for time to time. I admire the folks who made it. However, I was never able to empathize with the “loyalty” to the team. It’s a business. They care about viewership, tickets and merchandise sales . If they can, they will even make taxpayers pay for the stadium.
Hadn’t though about that, but it makes sense. How about American pride? Well, Yao Ming is an anomaly. However, he has been elected to the Hall of Fame, been named Chairman of the Chinese Basketball Association, and even has opened his own winery in Napa Valley, California. Okay. I get it now. Yay Napa!
I completely agree with Abraham on this. Also, I can’t fucking stand it when people say “we” when talking about a team. It baffles me how much money people spend on gear to advertise for a team that rips you off on everything they sell from the tickets to the beer and food.
If people would contribute even half of what they spend in their actual communities, we might be able to take care of some of the outstanding issues. You know, homelessness, school programs, infrastructure, etc.
I’ve always seen sports as minor territory conflicts that don’t mean anything. Or little wars, if you prefer.
Unfortunately, people are still going to participate on this level because it makes them feel included. Poor bastards.
question for the room: how are we supposed to square up the sentiment of this article with the fact that the focal point of the writer’s photo involves them tipping an A’s cap? i’m genuinely confused by this. what did i miss?
Did Sancho Panza ghostwrite this?
Geesh. Such umbrage at low hanging fruit.
Next: why people with money are bad.