A thought on NFL’s anti-labor news coverage; a reminder that cities aren’t hellholes; and one tip for going car-free (or car-light)

Roundup - October 31, 2024

Good Thursday, and welcome to the weekly Out in Left roundup, in which I highlight things about sports, politics, and American life without a car that subscribers should know about. This week’s round-up includes:

• A thought on NFL’s out-of-control and anti-labor news coverage

• Women leading the labor movement in professional sports

• A reminder that cities aren’t the hellholes that Republicans claim them to be

And, as always, there’s a tip for going car-free (or car-light). 

If any of this is interesting, and/or you want to support Out in Left in its mission of thinking differently about American society and culture, then please subscribe below. Subscribers receive these weekly emails, as well as access to the archives and subscriber-only lists (like the upcoming list of tips for going car-free/light and the Political Sports Figure Hall of Fame). If you’re already a subscriber, then, with all sincerity: thank you.

ICMYI

Two pieces of mine entered the world this week. For San Diego Magazine, I wrote about UC San Diego's ascension to Division I sports:

LionTree Arena is the same, and so are the practices there. Head coach Eric Olen is on the sideline, as he has been for 20 years. And UC San Diego remains one of the best universities on the planet. But the UCSD community is coming together like never before, and it’s not because of a groundbreaking research paper.

For the first time in school history, the men’s basketball program is eligible for the NCAA Division I basketball tournament. Affectionately and better known as March Madness, it’s the single-elimination tournament for the national championship that pits powerful “blue bloods” like Kentucky and Duke against mid-major “Cinderellas” like San Diego State University and, now, UCSD. 

And for this space I wrote about why I keep watching the NFL despite claiming to dislike it:

Why can't I quit the NFL?

A thought on the NFL’s out-of-control and anti-labor news coverage

Speaking of the NFL, it was an unusual week in that I watched ESPN’s slate of morning shows. I am dumber for it. Nearly every segment and talking head focused on either Tyrique Stevenson, whose mid-play showboating supposedly doomed his Chicago Bears, or Anthony Richardson, the starting quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts who was recently benched. Receiving little attention was the World Series between two of the most iconic franchises in sports.

But the problem isn't that the Worldwide Leader ignored baseball. That’s typical. It’s that ESPN’s “coverage” manufactured drama that means nothing. Richardson is a young quarterback who has been injured and not playing well. Benching a player like that is standard operating procedure, but to ESPN it represents everything wrong with kids these days. It’s just braindead yapping. 

This isn’t a new or an original take—the debate format endemic to non-scripted television has long been fodder for the Think Piece Industrial Complex—but it supports my view, discussed in my piece, that the NFL isn’t popular on its own merits. Rather, it’s cultural anesthesia: something that plugs people into the mainstream, at the same as it unplugs them from workaday life. You live, you die, you stare at screens that make you forget both of those facts.