Not much to talk about with the start of the current NFL season. It was an exciting enough first week, but it will not be indicative of how many teams perform down the stretch.
What I did find interest in was the simple, though oft repeated remark by ESPN's Bill Simmons about how football, a typically blue collar sport that captivates most of the nation, has become a white collar event, at least if you want to see it live. Tickets are pricey, parking is pricey, food is...pricey, which has been the case for long enough. But now you have teams charging for seat licences to help pay for and raise the profile of their pricey new stadiums. Meanwhile, the economy is making it so that longtime season ticket holders cannot afford their seats, and longtime waitlisters may not be able to act on their one and only chance.
As Simmons has pointed out, this leads to a situation in which homefield advantage means very little in some fields, where the only people who can afford to go do not really care that much about the team. The people who do are at home watching on a nice TV (which, while pricey, is easier to save up for than tickets), or at the bars. That's not the best situation for America's Game to be in. Thankfully, Hi Definition and good camera work can make the home experience pretty intensive. But how this obvious sign of class division can continue to go on without anyone really noticing or caring is more than a little unsettling.
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