Whither Football?

Baltimore has had a couple of chances at football. Good for them. Cleveland too. St. Louis gave its team away to Phoenix. Colts became Ravens. Browns became Ravens and they were rewarded with a new set of Browns. St. Louis gave up Cardinals in exchange for Rams. Houston had Oilers that became Titans in Tennessee and got Texans in exchange. It's a swirl of franchises that makes people like me who have a fondness for sameness a little nervous. That image of tractor trailer trucks pulling out of Baltimore in the middle of the night, taking all the gridiron hopes and pigskin dreams of a city with them. Cleveland fans cried when their team left to fill in that Baltimore void. And they broke stuff. Not that there was a lot of damage that would be noticeable to the casual observer of Cleveland's Municipal Stadium.
Because that's the bottom line. These highly paid athletes need state of the art facilities in which they can showcase their talents. A strip of grass with lines on it and benches upon which to sit and take it all in is no longer the standard. You need luxury boxes with video screens. And more video screens to make you feel like you're in a luxury box. It's a feeling you might want to savor if you paid the average price for a ticket to see an NFL game. Go ahead and do the math for eight home games in a regular season, and then you understand that this game isn't being played in front of average fans. They are being played in front of folks who have a considerable amount of disposable income, especially when you consider that going through a "broker" to get your seats will cost you at least twice that. Your average fans? They're the ones sitting at home, watching on television. Unless the game is sold out, which used to mean fans would have to figure out some clever way to view the blacked out game that is taking place just down the street from their local venue for major league sports. Not anymore. That's because the powers that be have figured out what we all did a while ago: Buying a ticket doesn't make you a fan. Wishing you could buy a ticket does.
Soon, you might not be able to buy a seat for a game in Oakland. Or San Diego. Or St. Louis. In the case of the Raiders and Rams, this is starting to feel like the refrain to an old song. Both of these franchises have already done some time in Los Angeles, a city known for their less than rabid attention from the hometown fans. The folks filling up the stands at the stadiums in Los Angeles don't tend to be native Los Angelinos. That's why the parking lots empty out before the game is over. They all have to find their way out of the basin and into the hills before darkness falls. Charger fans will probably feel the loss most deeply, losing the tenants of Qualcomm Stadium and all that history. And will also miss out on the opportunity to fund a new facility for what up until now has been the home team.
Thanks to cable television and satellite dishes, we don't really have to worry about missing a game. We are not bound by space and time. We can catch events from a previous day in another time zone on our DVR. Remaining loyal to a group of millionaires who are employed by a multi-millionaire or two seems like a fool's game. Which is okay, since that game doesn't tend to sell out and you don't need a GPS to keep track of the team.