Authors: Murray Sperber
Beer and Circus (6 page)
In the history of American colleges and universities, intercollegiate athletics had always been important to students in the collegiate subculture, but, in the 1980s, with the introduction of wall-to-wall media coverage of college sports, many collegians began to define their university careers in terms of the success or failure of their schools' teams, particularly the high-profile football or basketball squads. This marked a new phenomenon in higher education, one that subsequently became central to student life.
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In a 1980s experiment, Dr. Robert Cialdini, professor of psychology at Arizona State University, discovered that
After the home team wins a football game on Saturday, ⦠university students at seven major NCAA schools systematically chose to wear apparel to class on Monday that announced their school affiliation. They wore sweatshirts, t-shirts and team jackets with insignias and emblems that designated them as part of the university in far greater numbers after the team won than after it lost. The larger the victory margin, the stronger the tendency to show off.
In previous eras, public exhibitions of student pride in a winning team usually occurred at pep rallies, games, and postgame celebrations, and did not extend to clothing choices during the school week. But the 1980s expansion of SportsWorld to fit the cable-ready universe transformed all sports, including intercollegiate athletics, into a primary and constant part of every fan's existence. In terms of university life, one student noted, “College culture today [1990] is a direct extension of sex, alcohol, and rock ân' roll. Now, college sports, thanks to TV, has enlarged the holy trio to four, and most students like that.”
At this time, another campus observer, Allen Bogan, used the term
fandemonium
to describe the growing “obsession with sports teams and star athletes,” with college sports fans exhibiting a particularly virulent form of the “disease.” Bogan based his comments on the work of psychology professor Edward Hirt, and the
Miller Lite Report on American Attitudes Toward Sports.
fandemonium
to describe the growing “obsession with sports teams and star athletes,” with college sports fans exhibiting a particularly virulent form of the “disease.” Bogan based his comments on the work of psychology professor Edward Hirt, and the
Miller Lite Report on American Attitudes Toward Sports.
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In the early 1980s, the Miller Brewing Company commissioned, in its words, “The most comprehensive sports study ever conducted.” Miller compared its inquiry to the Carnegie Report of 1929âexcept, unlike the Carnegie Foundation, the brewery did not want to reform intercollegiate athletics: it sought to understand the fans better and, in so doing, create more effective ways to sell them its beer. The results of the
Miller Lite Report
and other market studies convinced the brewery to increase its already huge sponsorship of TV sports programming, and to amplify its popular Miller Lite commercials featuring famous athletes.
Miller Lite Report
and other market studies convinced the brewery to increase its already huge sponsorship of TV sports programming, and to amplify its popular Miller Lite commercials featuring famous athletes.
The
Miller Lite Report
also provided useful information on the evolution of “fandemonium.” One key question asked: “When your favorite team or
athlete wins, do you feel something
important
has been accomplished?” Most respondents who identified themselves as “sports fans” and, significantly, most who did not, answered affirmativelyâover 90 percent of the former, and over 80 percent of the latter. Thus, even many nonfans assented to the increasing cultural importance of athletics and chose teams to follow at a distance; this paralleled the growing importance of college sports to many noncollegiate students, particularly vocationals.
Miller Lite Report
also provided useful information on the evolution of “fandemonium.” One key question asked: “When your favorite team or
athlete wins, do you feel something
important
has been accomplished?” Most respondents who identified themselves as “sports fans” and, significantly, most who did not, answered affirmativelyâover 90 percent of the former, and over 80 percent of the latter. Thus, even many nonfans assented to the increasing cultural importance of athletics and chose teams to follow at a distance; this paralleled the growing importance of college sports to many noncollegiate students, particularly vocationals.
Similarly, when asked, “When your favorite team or athlete wins, how often do you feel [that] you've gained a
personal
victory,” only a minority of fans and nonfans answered “rarely” or “never.” The importance of victory and the personal connection to itâeven though fans and nonfans have almost zero input into building and running teamsâwas confirmed by the responses to, “When your favorite team or athlete loses ⦠do you feel
depressed?”
Sixty-six percent of the fans answered yes. And when askedâ“When your favorite team or athlete loses ⦠do you feel
as if you suffered a personal loss?Ӊ
38 percent of the fans replied affirmatively. Again, this response illustrates the imagined personal bond that many people have with their favorite team or athlete, and it prompts cries of “Get a life.” Miller would prefer calls of “Get a Lite,” and, a generation later, probably many more people would answer affirmatively to these “personal attachment” questions, and also feel that they possessed a full life with beer and sports.
personal
victory,” only a minority of fans and nonfans answered “rarely” or “never.” The importance of victory and the personal connection to itâeven though fans and nonfans have almost zero input into building and running teamsâwas confirmed by the responses to, “When your favorite team or athlete loses ⦠do you feel
depressed?”
Sixty-six percent of the fans answered yes. And when askedâ“When your favorite team or athlete loses ⦠do you feel
as if you suffered a personal loss?Ӊ
38 percent of the fans replied affirmatively. Again, this response illustrates the imagined personal bond that many people have with their favorite team or athlete, and it prompts cries of “Get a life.” Miller would prefer calls of “Get a Lite,” and, a generation later, probably many more people would answer affirmatively to these “personal attachment” questions, and also feel that they possessed a full life with beer and sports.
The main difference between the early 1980s and now is summed up in four lettersâESPN. The twenty-four-hour all-sports cable network began as a small operation in late 1979 and exploded in the 1980s, allowing fans to spend every waking hour within SportsWorld. Never before in sports history was this possible.
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ESPN first attracted widespread attention through its college basketball telecasts, not only with March Madness games and events but also with its regular-season coverage of the sport. For its college b-ball programming, it concocted
Big Monday, Super Tuesday, Championship Week,
et cetera, and it hired such superenthusiastic announcers as Dick Vitale to provide commentary on the games. A college student in the early 1990s explained, “ESPN generates a level of energy and intensity that is really fun for college basketball fans. I love all the hours that I can watch games from around the country, and how ESPN cuts from a great moment in one game to another in another game.” ESPN both fed and validated this fan's obsession, and alsoâas its increasing ratings demonstratedâit generated new fans and caught the attention of nonfans.
Big Monday, Super Tuesday, Championship Week,
et cetera, and it hired such superenthusiastic announcers as Dick Vitale to provide commentary on the games. A college student in the early 1990s explained, “ESPN generates a level of energy and intensity that is really fun for college basketball fans. I love all the hours that I can watch games from around the country, and how ESPN cuts from a great moment in one game to another in another game.” ESPN both fed and validated this fan's obsession, and alsoâas its increasing ratings demonstratedâit generated new fans and caught the attention of nonfans.
ESPN also changed the sport of college basketball in various ways, one of the most telling and innovative was Midnight Madness. In the 1970s, when the NCAA ruled that coaches could begin basketball practices on a certain day in October, Lefty Driesell at Maryland decided to begin at midnight of the designated day “to get an edge, start [as] early” as possible; a few years later, Driesell invited Terrapin fans to watch the early start, and several other coaches imitated the “midnight open practice.” In the early 1980s, ESPNâalways having to fill twenty-four hours of airtime with some sort of sports programmingâbegan televising some of the early A.M. practices, hyping them as Midnight Madness. Soon, many coaches joined in, offering ever gaudier shows in the hopes of being on the ESPN Midnight Madness telecast. Thus, instead of the traditional quiet afternoon practice to begin the long season, Midnight Madness took holdâalmost every school in Division I now does itâand the new breed of college fan reciprocated, turning the occasions into huge raucous parties.
With its Midnight Madness programs, ESPN also transformed a sports nonevent into must-see TV for many fans and even nonfans. ESPN extended this concept when it mutated casual athletic endeavors like skateboarding into elaborate sports competitions like the X Games. ESPN became the master magician at turning noncompetitive sports and noneventsâfor example, the NCAA's bureaucratic selection of teams and first-round games for its annual men's basketball tournamentâinto required viewing, particularly on college campuses.
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In a late-1980s survey of how college students spent their time, the researchers discovered that, on average, undergraduates watched 9.2 hours of TV per week. Many women followed daytime television soap operas and their evening equivalents, but men preferred sports, both the telecasts of games and, increasingly, ESPN's daily program
SportsCenter.
An early-1990s researcher noted that in all-male college housing units, particularly off-campus ones:
SportsCenter.
An early-1990s researcher noted that in all-male college housing units, particularly off-campus ones:
Dinner is frequently eaten in front of the TV in order to watch the 6:30 P.M. edition. For the 10:30 P.M. edition, many males group in front of the large TV screens in the Student Union building or their fraternity houses or dorms to watch. Another large contingent watches in the various sports bars [in college towns]. In addition, many choose to view the program at 2:30 A.M. because they have missed the earlier editions or because, as they explain, they “cannot get enough of it.”
A large part of
SportsCenter
's appeal was (and is) the language of the studio announcers, a combination of traditional sentimentality and hip skepticism. Both forms of sports reporting continued very old stylesâthe upbeat “Gee Whiz” approach and the skeptical “Aw Nuts” attitude, but ESPN's innovation, borrowed from such sportswriters as Dan Jenkins, placed the sentimental and the skeptical side by side. When longtime
SportsCenter
anchorman Chris Berman showed a clip of a home run, he often intoned, “Back-back-back ⦠,” consciously paying homage to old-time broadcaster Red Barber's call of a famous drive by Joe DiMaggio in the 1947 World Series. Then Berman would mock a player by giving him a comic nickname, e.g, outfielder Mel “Kids in the” Hall; and Berman's partner, Keith Olberman, would show a clip of Hall dropping an easy fly ball, and groan a nasty, “Guh!” For long football runs resulting in touchdowns, announcer Larry Beil would yell, “Run, Forrest, run!,” evoking scenes from one of the most sentimental movies of the 1990s, Forrest
Gump.
But when showing an injured player on the sidelines during practice, announcer Dan Patrick sometimes commented, “He's listed as day-to-day, but then again, aren't we all.”
SportsCenter
's appeal was (and is) the language of the studio announcers, a combination of traditional sentimentality and hip skepticism. Both forms of sports reporting continued very old stylesâthe upbeat “Gee Whiz” approach and the skeptical “Aw Nuts” attitude, but ESPN's innovation, borrowed from such sportswriters as Dan Jenkins, placed the sentimental and the skeptical side by side. When longtime
SportsCenter
anchorman Chris Berman showed a clip of a home run, he often intoned, “Back-back-back ⦠,” consciously paying homage to old-time broadcaster Red Barber's call of a famous drive by Joe DiMaggio in the 1947 World Series. Then Berman would mock a player by giving him a comic nickname, e.g, outfielder Mel “Kids in the” Hall; and Berman's partner, Keith Olberman, would show a clip of Hall dropping an easy fly ball, and groan a nasty, “Guh!” For long football runs resulting in touchdowns, announcer Larry Beil would yell, “Run, Forrest, run!,” evoking scenes from one of the most sentimental movies of the 1990s, Forrest
Gump.
But when showing an injured player on the sidelines during practice, announcer Dan Patrick sometimes commented, “He's listed as day-to-day, but then again, aren't we all.”
For TV viewers, the perfect mind-set for watching
SportsCenter,
particularly when seeing clips from college sports events and knowing all about the corruption in intercollegiate athletics, was (and is) the equivalent of what George Orwell defined in 1984 as “doublethink”: the ability to believe contradictory ideas simultaneously, for example, acknowledging the dysfunction of college sports while fervently following its teams and games. College students were (and are) especially prone to doublethink: encountering intercollegiate athletics firsthand, they often relate inside stories about the jocks on their campus receiving special financial and academic deals, but when those jocks take the court or field, they cheer madly for them, particularly if the team is winning.
SportsCenter,
particularly when seeing clips from college sports events and knowing all about the corruption in intercollegiate athletics, was (and is) the equivalent of what George Orwell defined in 1984 as “doublethink”: the ability to believe contradictory ideas simultaneously, for example, acknowledging the dysfunction of college sports while fervently following its teams and games. College students were (and are) especially prone to doublethink: encountering intercollegiate athletics firsthand, they often relate inside stories about the jocks on their campus receiving special financial and academic deals, but when those jocks take the court or field, they cheer madly for them, particularly if the team is winning.
A nationally published guide,
How to College in the 1990s
, perfectly caught the student doublethink attitude toward college sports, as well as its connections to beer-and-circus, and the importance of winning:
How to College in the 1990s
, perfectly caught the student doublethink attitude toward college sports, as well as its connections to beer-and-circus, and the importance of winning:
Come game time, all this [college sports corruption] seems trivial. When you're chugging your eighth beer and passing your buddy's girlfriend up the stadium rows while your football team clobbers its archrival, or [you're] vacationing in New Orleans while your team plays in the NCAA basketball championships, you couldn't care less if the star player got an F in Remedial English 1. You're happy, you're partying, and he helped you get to that state of mind.
When ESPN started a print magazine in the 1990s, it focused on college-age readers, and it filled each edition with doublethink (as well as numerous ads for beer and liquor products). In an issue with a syrupy article on a University of Tulsa basketball recruit who had been home-schooled before entering college,
ESPN The Magazine
also published a feature comparing “Halloween vs. Midnight Madness,” asking, “Two rituals that ease fall into winter, but which best fulfills its promise? Tykes hopped up on sugar. Undergrads polluted on grain alcohol. Let's see how they stack up.” The magazine formatted the piece as a gambling chart (many college students bet on sports events, and ESPN caters to their habit, see Chapter 17). Among the entries were:
ESPN The Magazine
also published a feature comparing “Halloween vs. Midnight Madness,” asking, “Two rituals that ease fall into winter, but which best fulfills its promise? Tykes hopped up on sugar. Undergrads polluted on grain alcohol. Let's see how they stack up.” The magazine formatted the piece as a gambling chart (many college students bet on sports events, and ESPN caters to their habit, see Chapter 17). Among the entries were:
The negativity and cynicism about intercollegiate athletics in this feature would have startled earlier generations of college sports rooters, yet current fans cheer as loudly for their teams as their predecessors did, mainly illustrating the power of doublethink.
In the final decades of the twentieth century, however, not all college sports fans moved to doublethink: indeed, this attitude marked a generational divide among college sports enthusiasts, younger fans adopting it much more readily than their elders. College students and young alumni accepted corruption as the norm while embracing their favorite teams and athletes, but older fans, particularly those over fifty, tended to believe in the NCAA's student-athlete ideal as portrayed in the association's halftime TV clips (younger fans remarked that these promos occurred at a time when most viewers were not watching TV but opening refrigerators or flushing toilets).
Marketing surveys charted the generational split. In the early 1990s, one study reported that “fans aged 18â31 are much more tolerant ⦠than their elders” about off-the-field problems, including “the commercialization in sports.” For example, a majority of all older fans believed that “beers shouldn't be allowed as sponsors” of sports events, whereas almost two-thirds of young fans had no problem with brewery or even cigarette sponsorship (also opposed by older fans). In the twenty-first century, surveys would probably reveal a greater spread in the numbers, with youthful indifference and cynicism increasing every year.
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