What owners owe us.

• Position: Edge of Sports - Viewpoint essay

I once had a coach who could spit tobacco hard enough to break a window. He smelled like an old hamper, and only wore pants that came with an elastic waist. Still, every last one of us loved the guy. He always said, "Sports is like a hammer, gents. And you can use a hammer for all kinds of things. You can use it to build a house, or you can use it to bash somebody's head. Choose wisely."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

In the twenty-first century, the heads of far too many sports fans have been bashed by far too many hammers. Our collective migraine comes from the idea that we are loving something that just doesn't love us back. If sports was once like a playful puppy you would wrestle on the floor, it's now like a house cat demanding to be stroked and giving nothing in return.

Sports fans are fed up.

It's the extra commercials tacked onto a broadcast, as companies attempt to use the games to brand our subconscious. It's when you decide to finally take the trip to the park, look up the ticket prices, and decide immediately to do something--anything--else with your time.

And so you go a year without making it to the ballpark and fail to even notice. Or you don't feel the same urgency to watch every minute of every game for fear you might miss something magical.

If a car's brakes failed, you wouldn't blame the driver. You'd blame the manufacturer. And when we feel bludgeoned by the state of professional sports, it's the owners who need to answer for this sorry state of affairs.

Players play.

Fans watch.

Owners are uniquely charged with being the stewards of the game. It's a task that they have failed to perform in spectacular fashion.

In fact, with barely a sliver of scrutiny, they are wrecking the world of sports. The old model of the paternalistic owner caring for a community has become as outdated as the typewriter. Because of publicly funded stadium construction, luxury box licenses, sweetheart cable deals, globalized merchandising plans, and other "revenue streams," the need for owners to cater to a local working and middle class fan base has shrunk...