Oxygen-free professional sport has become boring

Sport has long been a place for community to come together and collectively show their identity to the world.

From the music of the marching band, the barbeque, a few beers on the hill, getting raucus and banging on the signage, it used to be a top day out.

The players were a reflection of their upbringing, and reflected that in their style of play and their press conferences. You’d get the average punter that just wanted to play hard footy in rugby league, or the very articulate son of a lawyer who played rugby – and boy did he let you know about it.

There was the son of the Greek immigrant who played at the local football (soccer) club, and he was fascinating and had verve too.

And then our culture changed. And so did professional sport.

Gone were the hills – in were the all seater stadia.

Gone were the beers (at least full strength and for a reasonable price) – for the government decided we’re too stupid to decide what we drink.

Gone were the personalities, who now resemble politicians spitting out the same talking points and giving 110 percent.

And finally, gone was the concept of a club itself, replaced instead by a team imagined by first year marketing interns at the central office, with logos to match.

Sport is no longer a clash of community and identity, or something that brings us all together. More and more, it is becoming merely a dinner party afterthought – mild entertainment after work on a Friday night.

It is now of course a crime to be passionate about sport in Australia – if you’re a rugby fan, you’re a rugby tragic. If you’re a league fan, a bogan idiot. Instead, it’s best to attend sport as a form of a kind of beige vanilla drone, silently observing the days play.

This is the culture that sees our national teams shunned while 100,000 people turn up to watch foreign teams play in a match with no meaning.

(AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts)

What has made sport so incredibly colourless, odourless, even dull? It is not the professionalism itself, but several key policy decisions made by governing bodies that are utterly incapable of original thought.

Problem number 1: The centralisation of teams and the death of the concept of a club
People often talk about the English Premier League as the standard bearer for sport, and they’re right. It has the most connected fans, some of the best TV ratings, noisiest stadiums, and most of all, people care about the teams.

The teams still have an active connection to their community, and it’s because they aren’t run out of head office. In fact, of England’s professional clubs, not one is owned by the Football Association (and to my knowledge not a single amateur club is either).

The teams thus have genuine, grass roots connection to their communities, with individual histories and narratives that make the game beautiful. The community influence is so strong that rogue owners of teams that make bad decisions are condemned, denounced even by their fans, to the point of them having to sell the team.

The opposite is happening right here in Australia. The Big Bash, though well attended and popular, is eight teams run out of central headquarters, with literally no distinguishing features apart from the grounds in which they play.

While entertaining, most Australians have no connection to the actual performance of their team, and don’t care if it wins or loses. The Big Bash, as aforementioned, has become one giant dinner party amusement tool.

(AAP Image/Dave Hunt)

Other sports too have ventured down the centralisation path – look no further than rugby union, which has systematically destroyed the amazing rugby culture that used to be in Australia. It firstly bulldozed clubs with huge followings and history, by not bothering to make them professional (think Randwick). These clubs still exist of course, but not to the extent they used to.

Then, it created centralised, fictitious teams out of head office. Rugby made the mistake of not only creating bizarre centralised teams, it also made them play in locations that fans did not actually know existed, including strange localities in far off corners of the globe, further confusing fans.

Centralisation and the destruction of clubs and the replacement of them with franchises has universally destroyed the community that followed a team, its individuality and its culture. And it’s making sport boring.

Problem Number 2: The anti-match day experience
Australia’s sporting infrastructure has lagged a little in recent years, and we all know from recent proposals that the plan to upgrade Sydney’s two stadiums has become politicised.

Believe it or not, it’s not even the stadium that’s the problem. They could definitely use an upgrade, at some point, but you can start with fixing literally everything that happens on match day.

There is no reason adults in Australia should be forbidden from purchasing heavy beer. And yet, through our government that knows better than us, we have been forbidden. When fans go to the games, they want to have a good time and have some drinks. Or they might not.

The fact is, it’s not for someone else to decide whether I want to drink or not. That’s my right in Western Civilisation, not the right of some evangelising wowser. Unless someone is behaving illegally, there is no reason to stop them.

That of course brings us to the second part of the beer – the price. Government-owned stadiums usually generate revenue for the cash strapped state governments that are fortunate enough to own the infrastructure. They sell football clubs/franchises the right to play, and make money.

They also own the rights to sell any food or drink in the stadium, which is why you can’t bring any in. And, deliberately, they choose to only sell this right to one group. That’s to say they deliberately monopolise the sale of food and drink, so they make more money. Suncorp Stadium might sell the rights to O’Brien group, who then have a captured monopoly, and set prices accordingly.

We are constantly told by the government that there’s nothing they can do about the outrageous prices at our stadia. There is. Stop the monopolisation of food and drink and the extra cost that comes as a result. Stop using stadiums as taxes in disguise.

There’s other simple stuff as well – stop kicking people out of stadiums for behaviour that displays a passion for a team, for example. It’s now a crime to stand up and roar and support your team. It should be a crime to be seated.

(Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

Problem number 3: Destruction of the personalities that used to make sport great
Older Australian sports fans will remember some of the amazing personalities that used to be involved in sport.

Do you remember when David Campese called England boring? Personally, though I wasn’t alive, I love it. David is giving his honest (and correct) opinion on an insipid English side utterly incapable of inspiring play.

Of course, players these days don’t do that. They don’t say anything at all. They are monotonous, and they are boring.

When was the last time a professional athlete said something worth listening to at a press conference. I count never. They stick to the same talking points spat out by commercial media, and it’s dull.

They are, fundamentally, afraid of offending people, which is a shame.

Now too, sporting organisations have bowed to social justice warriors, fearful of offending them. They do not support free speech in sport and actively seek to shut down dissenting, original thought.

They do this through the contractual clause, which you have probably heard, called, ‘Bringing The Game Into Disrepute’. This clause essentially has the effect of a sporting organisation being able to fire, gag, or worse, send to ‘re-education’ any player who acts or says anything they don’t like.

The result is that anyone who says anything critical of the administration, or other teams, or whatever, can potentially face legal action for expressing an opinion.

It’s garbage. It destroys individuality. It destroys character, and has made professional players monotonous robots.

Professional sport has a lot wrong with it, and some good aspects as well. Modern Australian sport however, at least in my opinion, has destroyed every resemblance of the beautiful community run beast it used to be. And we regret it.

Now it’s time to fix it. Governing bodies should get out of the lives of clubs and let the blossom.