The Virtues Low Key Ownership

"Hey, Great game! "Can you you believe it??!?" "What an upset!" "....Spectacle .... suspense .... and that Eli Manning....!" Blah blah blah ya-da ya-da. In all honesty, even for this philistine who believes that steroid-pumped behemoths slamming into to each other and scrumming toogether in tights and armour for 60 minutes bounded by anal-retentive letter-of-the-rules interpretation and eagle-eyed camera enforcement is rather absurd, the second half admittedly was exciting, though I make no apologies for my cynical opinion regarding the game, the sport, the game of the sport, or is it the sport of the game?

Foul and curmudgeonly critic that I may be, what I found curiously emblematic amidst the post-joust celebration and triumphalism of the presentation of the Vince Lombardi trophy was the peculiar comfort everyone seems to have with the oxymoron represented by the concept: "Owner of The Team". This seems such a long way from my youth soccer club, or the PAL baseball and basketball leagues with which I grew up, as well as foreign to the university teams and sporting clubs with which I played. I never, in fact, recall being "owned" as such, and rebel that I am, wonder aloud about what it might have meant.

I can tell you I don't know the Mara's (the NY Giant's "owners"). They might be fabulous people. "Ma' Mara, looked a bit uptight on the podium, but its hard to look warm and matronly in Gucci on TV, right?? They might even have had something "hands-on" and endearing to do with enabling the victory (though I harbour my doubts - for many "owners" of professional sports resemble "lucky squatting" monopolists). But like throes of nationalism, and the often-dubious benfits accruing to the median-citizen from its pursuit, there remains a veil between The Team and its fans, and the business interests of The Owner. Some Owners, like perhaps a few enlightened corporations, or benign Lords or Viziers of old, understand the tenousness of the relationship between owners and owned, and the potential for backlash when said relationship is deemed too exploitative. Others are already well-beyond any reasonable indication of their intention.

This tension is always there. The "Game" (however absurd) IS a game of the common man, and the benefits derived by owners therefrom requires buy-in in the form of passion, enthusiasm, and the willingness to either fork over huge sums of money for tickets, parking and memorobilia OR large chunks of time in front of the big-screen TV devouring the finest Madison Ave has to offer. The People's continued buy-in requires - at the least - lip-service and the appearance of sensitivity to issues of capital-labour relations (insuring the Fan doesn't feel similarly exploited in the process). It's hard to be "one of the lads" from The Super Box, emerging to bask in others' glory and collect the spoils. The danger that lurks here is that "The Owners" - or at least those that are not hands-on, salt of the earth-types (like Jeff Lurie of Phila) or rabid charitable enthusiasts, should NOT be center-stage, EVER. Certainly not in public jubiliant celebration. And I suggest this not out of a preference for self-effacing behaviour over racuous triumphalism (though I am more sympathetic to the former), but as a detached observer looking at it from the vantage point of their long-term interests. For while it may remain deterministic that complexity, media, spectacle and finance in modernity are ever more central to professional "Sport" generally, money, monopoly, greed, exploitation of taxpayers for private gain, makes farce of this same "sport" (if this is even possible at this point), exposing The Game itself precisely for what it is (and isn't). So my advice to the "Owners": watch from a distance. Always take a backseat to Club and Team and managers, for it is welll-nigh impossible to appear genuine when you're not.