How the NFL Can Save America

#Quickie #SuperBowl #DrakesFuneral

This will be a short post, by my standards. I just wanted to share a quick idea I had that grew beyond a simple note, but frankly had not quite developed into one of my full-fledged posts. Kind of like when Britney was no longer a girl, but not yet a woman.¹

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I recently had the misfortune of watching the annual American “circenses” spectacle known colloquially as “a super bowl.” For those unfamiliar with the event, it is a special game of foosball (the Devil’s game!) played at the end of the sportsin’ season, where the two remaining teams of pituatary retards repeatedly run into each other (No longer headfirst though, tragically. Thanks, Will Smith!) for a few minutes in between hours of interminable advertising and an extended musical interlude replete with shambolic sharks, demonic dances, and serendipitous “wardrobe malfunctions.” (Eyes up here, Justin!)

It’s a great time all around.

Well, actually, this year’s game was a boring blowout and the commercials sucked.²

However, Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show was infinitely excellent and more than made up for it. Kenny—cosplaying Virtua Fighter’s Jacky Bryant to symbolize the beating he was about to deliver Drake—not only gave a great performance (“Humble” and “DNA” back to back? Chef’s kiss.), but again he also made time to continue his epic annihilation of litigious Canadian pedo (Allegedly! Allegedly! Don’t sue me, bro!) rapper Drake.

This note sure generated a huge response!

I cannot overstate how hysterical it is to me that, in the same week, a guy won a Grammy for a song about how Drake sucks and is a pedo, and then that guy performed that same song to universal acclaim across the nation during America’s most watched event. It was “crazy, scary, spooky, hilarious,” and I’m sure it had Drake sprinting to “turn his TV off.” I don’t think anyone has ever had a worse week than Drake just did. He is the Justin Trudeau of rap. The memes are absoultely priceless.

After Drake’s funeral the halftime show concluded, one of the teams was still nowhere to be found, so the present team grabbed some more free points and won. In “a super bowl,” whichever team sports the hardest wins a trophy. And a parade back in their home city, which in this case is Philadelphia where your own mayor can’t spell your team’s name and has to beg her retarded constituents not to climb poles in celebration (or frustration, Philadephian brains cannot distinguish between the two) and tumble to their deaths like cordyceped lemmings.

That last sentence is not a joke.

But, it is thought-provoking. Sure, Philadelphia is the Mos Eisley of America, a uniquely “wretched hive of scum and villainy,” but lest we forget: America is loaded with decaying, ultraviolent, post-apocalyptic, Mad Max, Fist of the North Star, Hunger Games cities chock-full of retarded, indolent, belligerent lunatics and governed by corrupt, self-serving glad-hands with hidden agendas who dine at French Laundry while the plebes battle for crumbs and bleed out in the streets. Our inner cities are wastelands and warzones. People need help.

“You are winning, proles! Celebrate the success of millionaires who play a game for a living before you return to dodging gunfire and rapists on the way to your minimum-wage job replacing urinal cakes at the Carl’s Jr!”

So, I got thinking: what is the one thing—the one thing!—that all Americans actually do care about? That they are invested in? That can unite them? That can inspire them to alter their behavior, to work together toward a goal? That can motivate even politicians to get off their asses and do something positive for a change?

Yup, you guessed it: football.

Not the environment, not the economy, not injustice, not crime, not poverty, not their community, not their families, not their own health, not their god, not their immortal soul… no, perish the thought. None of that trash matters to these dumbasses.

Nor does any inspirational invention, exciting discovery, or life-improving program generate more than an apathetic shrug. And the politicians simply line their pockets while their cities burn.

Right, Christina?

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Unless it’s sports.

Sports is the one thing that engages the populace and galvanizes politicians. People deeply care about their local football team. They are emotionally attached. Even the most sociopathic, dead-eyed nihilist seems somehow capable of truly thrilling to every win, suffering with each loss. They are intellectually tuned in. Even the most braindead, drooling troglodyte can somehow remember and recall endless, obscure, decades-old stats and minutia about his favorite team.

And then there are the luxuriating politicos. If it earns them a photo-op with a cartoonish team mascot, the same politicians who wouldn’t lift a pen in order to provide their people with basic necessities like clean water somehow spring into action like Mayor Mike Haggar learning that the Mad Gear Gang has kidnapped his daughter.

I have been saying for a while now that society is basically a giant Skinner Box: positve reinforcement and negative reinforcement molding behavior, conditioning subjects. Look, I’m not usually in support of social engineering (unless it is me doing it, of course), but sports is the one stimulus that we can use to condition people to behave in a positive way. Having a team in your city is extremely desirable because it can generate jobs, revenue, and endless merch; people enjoy it; and politicians get easy wins and PR opportunities. You want a team in your city, and you especially want a winning team. Hence the parade.³

So, here’s the game plan.

I’ll stick with football for now for simplicity, and because today was the day of the Philadelphia Eagles’ STUPID PARADE⁴, but this can be extrapolated and applied to whatever sports people are most enthralled by. So, for everywhere else in the world just use “football” soccer. Back in the U.S.A., the National (Real) Football League is essentially run by a commission that oversees things like salary caps, the draft (which decides the order and frequency with which teams get to pick new players from college), and the process of expanding teams into new cities or relocating existing teams.

Now, what we do is work with this commission to tether teams’ in-league advantages and disadvantages, e.g., draft position, salary cap, access to free agents, etc…, to their respective city’s metrics.⁵ Teams in high-performing cities get perks. Teams in low-performing cities get penalties.

For example:

• If a city’s high school literacy rate surpasses a certain percentage, their team unlocks access to a higher tier of free agents.

• Conversely, if a city’s homicide rate exceeds a certain threshold, their team is penalized draft picks.

• If a city meets certain benchmarks for things like infrastructure, cultural sites, economics, employment numbers, or environmental standards, they could earn additional perks like a playoff bye, more home games, additional timeouts per game… the list is endless!⁶

• Conversely, if a city’s stats fall below certain standards, their team could face increasingly severe punishments like a reduction in salary cap, a limit on Gatorade, or mandatory Chippendales dancers for cheerleaders. Again, the possibilities are limitless.

Just spitballing here, but you get the idea. Basically, we hold people’s football hostage like the Mad Gear Gang unless they get their shit together. I guarantee you, we’d be living in a paradisal Star Trek future within the week if this was implemented. Superstitious fans already feel responsible for their team losing if they don’t wear their lucky jersey or position their beer bottle just right. Imagine if their behavior really did impact their team’s success! You know how popular sports are with gang members. Johnny Gang Member might not rob that cornerstore if it means his Raiders were going to miss out on the playoffs because of him. Speaking of criminals, politicians in Flint, Michigan would have Dom Pérignon pumping through the pipes by now if an NFL franchise was on the line. And talk about a great way to get players involved in the local community, as well. This plan covers it all! From star quarterbacks to hot dog vendors, gang members to suburban moms, general managers to mayors, everyone would be patrolling the city streets like Batman every night to thwart crime, battling baddies like Final Fight, and scraping bubblegum off the sidewalk, all to get their city’s stats up so that their team could gain on-the-field advantages and win “a super bowl.”

Team owners could still relocate their franchises, and now they would be motivated to take their team to the best performing city to get all those bonuses, not just the city they can scam the most tax money out of to fund another Ozymandian stadium with overpriced concessions and astronomical PSLs. Citizens and municipalities would be rewarded for their excellence, their humanity, their civic responsibility because—in true Skinner Box fashion—without that reward nobody gives a flying hoot about those things! This would create a race to the top, with cities competing against each other to attract the best teams, and the best teams competing against each other to woo the best cities.⁷ Win-win!

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The trick here is how to get the NFL commission on board. They will balk (to mix sports) at the idea of anything outside of their direct control impacting their gameday success. Like I said, this is just a quick idea I wanted to share; I haven’t hashed out all of the, ahem, minor details yet.

I will say, while workshopping this socially soteriological proposal with good friend of the show (much to his chagrin)

Jidasfire

, he suggested there may be an unlikely hero who could champion this initiative: the “Rice President” himself… Andrew Yang!⁸

Remember Andrew Yang? No? That’s OK; Peppridge Farm ‘members. Yang has a mix of entrepeneurial savvy and political experience, along with a down-to-earth demeanor and uniquely forward-thinking, outside-the-box approach to solving societal ills. He is the perfect man for the job.

Plus, I think he’s unemployed and desperate at the moment, so we may be able to get him on board if we can get this idea in front of him. Just… um, don’t show him that “Rice President” bit. You bigot.

And if Yang did help us spearhead this massive undertaking, rescuing our cities from years of intractible urban decay while rejuvenating our sense of civic pride, imagine how sweet that parade would be!

[The end. Or is it? Click here for another #Quickie!]

1. I can’t help but feel like Brit’s outfit in this video is leaning toward one of the two :/ Not that it would matter either way to Drake since he’s (Allegedly!) a massive pedo!

2. And, no I’m not bitter just because I’m a Giants fan, and the wretched Eagles won thanks to our front office being INCOMPETENT BUFFOONS WHO LET SAQUON WALK NO IM NOT BITTERATALL!!!@!

3. In 2019, the execrable New England Patriots drew 1.5 million people to their parade celebrating the team's Super Bowl LIII victory… on a weekday, in little ol’ Boston, for a team that had just had a championship parade two years earlier. You'd have a hard time getting half that turnout for a free Guinness giveaway; good luck getting that number of people to turnout for any other, vastly more important issue, initiative, or accomplishment. The long-suffering Chicago Cubs' World Series parade in 2016 reportedly drew somewhere around 5 million people. For comparison, MLK gave his famous I Have a Dream speech at the 1963 “March on Washington” to a crowd of “only” 250,000 people. Even the much-ballyhooed “Million Man March,” despite the best efforts of the marketing team, was estimated by the United States Park Police to draw around 400,000 people back in 1995. Nothing gets folks out like sports.

4. NOT BITTER!

5. Solutions. Oriented. ‘Nuff said, bub.

6. Some of you may notice that my plan has eerie similarities to the recent “stakeholder” ESG fad that is all the rage with the Davos crowd. You’re right. It does. However, the big difference is that I am using my power here for good (Surely, they don’t all say that?), and Klaus Schwab and dem bois are using their power for evil. Cue “Philosopher King” stuff, and all that. Simple really! Our mouse utopia, Skinner Box system isn’t going anywhere—at least, not for now—so better we (and by “we” I mean “me”) are the ones setting the parameters and deciding what to incentivize. Listen, it’s my awesome plan here… or their agenda of destroying the world fighting the Weather Monster and funding depop porn and tranny comics in Peru. Pick your poison, people. And I am open to various opinions regarding which parameters, which aspects of a metropolis, are to be factored into this equation, along with what array of penalties and priveleges we should dole out.

7. I have considered that given people’s predilection for evil, they may forgo improving their city and just skip to destorying rival teams’ cities, but that is a bit outside the scope of the thought-experiment for now.

8. Really I just want an excuse to share Cumtown links because that show was hysterical and remained a rare beacon of comedic brilliance even through the the Dark Age of the Woke Comedy Purges. “Chairman Mao, is that you?”