Why Men Watch Football by Bob Andelman

Chapter 17. Two Tickets to Paradise

bob@andelman.com (Bob Andelman) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:20:30 PST

by Bob Andelman

"I don't go to sporting events unless I get good seats. It's a waste of money if you don't. If you're an avid fan, it's worth the money."

Larry Selvin
Financial accountant
West Roxbury, Massachusetts

Jerry DeForest Jr. is a superfan.

The 1992-93 season marked his fourth consecutive year of traveling from city to city with his cherished New York Giants. Wherever they go, he goes.

"It's my hobby," he says. "I love seeing other cities."

Understand that DeForest, who played football at New York's Niagara University, also journeys to the Kentucky Derby, NCAA Final Four and World Series. (He doesn't miss Niagara games, home or away, either.)

His mega-devotion began innocently in 1981 when a Giants-Jets clash wasn't broadcast in Buffalo so DeForest and a college classmate hitchhiked to Schenectady. One year he road-tripped to Dallas and his picture appeared in the Dallas Morning News. Seems he painted his head to resemble a Giants helmet. In 1986, he and a pal flew to Pasadena and dropped $325 apiece on game day for Super Bowl tickets.

His special football fixation centers on the pre-game festivities. "I love to tailgate," DeForest says. For a 1 p.m. game, he'll be in the stadium parking lot at 8:30 a.m. He can always be counted on to organize and cater the tailgate parties, endearing him to 80 friends and family members each week. His legendary tailgate parties attract the families of Giants players as well as the beat reporters who cover the Giants for New York metro area newspapers.

DeForest loves to tailgate so much, he name his Staten Island bar "The Tailgate." The bar's red, white and blue decor doubles as a shrine to the Giants.

And he doesn't just tailgate the easy way, during Giants home games at the New Jersey Meadowlands. Noooooo. DeForest organizes moveable feasts. On Saturday nights before away games, he organizes out-of-town cocktail parties which always draw a handful of Giants players.

"I just love football. Everything about football," he says. "Even when the Giants were conservative, that didn't bother me. Running is the same as throwing to me. I'm more of a Giants fan than a football fan. When I'm at a Giants game, I don't care that I'm missing nine hours of football on TV. All I care about is the Giants. The rest of the NFL -- I could care less."

Don't get the idea that Jerry DeForest Jr.'s devotion to the Giants comes at the expense of other things in his life that might fall on the same Sunday the Giants are playing.

Why, one Thanksgiving, when the Giants were scheduled to play the Cowboys in Dallas, DeForest stayed home in Staten Island, closed The Tailgate to the public and feted his family to a holiday dinner -- while watching the game on a 60-inch TV.

And he actually missed one away game in recent years because it conflicted with his cousin's wedding.

Well, to be honest, he didn't really miss that game.

The wedding ceremony was scheduled for 3:30 p.m.; the game started at 4. Obviously, DeForest couldn't be in Los Angeles for the kickoff, but he couldn't face missing the game, either. He compromised by skipping the ceremony and catching up with the bride and groom at their reception -- just after 7 p.m.

"Unless I'm in the wedding party, I'm not missing the game," he says. "My family knows how I am. By not going to L.A., they took it as a sacrifice."

* * *
It costs a lot of money to see a pro football game in person. Tickets start at $25 in most cities. If you're a really big fan, it's not worth buying single game tickets because the best seats go to season ticketholders. Now the cost is up to a couple hundred bucks to reserve a seat for all eight home games.

But you don't go alone, do you?

Taking a son, a wife, a daughter or a buddy doubles the admission cost. Maybe the company will pay for the seats, though, and occasionally you'll take a client to legitimize it as a business expense.

Parking costs $5 to $10 per game. And food. Gotta eat. Consume mass quantities. Can't bring your own. League rules. Once inside, it wouldn't be football without beer, chili dogs and nachos, would it?

If you've gone this far, might as well go the rest of the way: team sweatshirts and hats for chilly days, neon ponchos for rainy days, and a team license plate or plate holder for the car so everyone knows your team.

Then there's the time factor. You could stay home, watch the game on TV and keep your commitment to a mere three hours. But as Atlanta Falcons fan Mark von Dwingelo says, "It's a pain in the neck to watch TV because there's so many commercials."

von Dwingelo obviously never invested the time, money and self-esteem to see the Tampa Bay Bucs play a 1 p.m. game at sweltering Tampa Stadium. Only a real (desperate) man can bear that.

Allowing 45 minutes to traverse either crosstown or bridge traffic, plus stadium gridlock, won't you need at least 90 minutes to two hours before kickoff to properly tailgate? And because beer is only borrowed and there are no trees to duck behind for relief in the parking lot, you'll have to be in the stadium to queue up at the rest rooms at least 20 minutes before 1 p.m.

What about the weather? By November, it sucks in most every NFL city save those in Florida and Southern California.

The game itself will be over by 4 p.m. If you've invested this much time and money already, you must also expect your team could win, something that keeps you in your seat until the last tick of the game clock. If they win, everybody else will stick around, so it'll be impossible to leave the parking lot in a hurry and who would want to? There's a few light beers and a stale bag of open chips in the car, let's celebrate victory for a few hours alongside a couple thousand of our closest pals!

Some people would find all this enough reason to stay home and watch football in front of a TV, just a few paces off the kitchen and toilet. But to many men being there is everything.

"Here in the San Francisco Bay area, with the 49ers," William J. Winslow says, "anybody who goes to the game, everybody else is going to know about it the next day. Tickets are hard to get. It's not so much who they're going to rub elbows with but that they were there. Where the action is. That elevates them."

In cities like San Francisco and Denver or New Jersey's Meadowlands the situation is static. Season ticketholders rule the stadiums, making a fan's presence an issue of status, not cross-strata camaraderie.

"It is a status symbol," Dr. Stanley H. Teitelbaum says. "Any time there is a waiting list to get tickets for anything, once you get to be on the top of that list, you are getting something that a lot of people are not getting. The status is not often spelled out but there is that feeling of, 'Hey, I went to the game!' and that may count for something in office conversation.

"I have season tickets to both the Giants and the Jets games," he says. "They are sold out so a lot of people watch the games on TV by default. They would love to go to the stadium but they don't have tickets and they can't get them. There is a long waiting list. I don't know what it is like in other cities where there may not be sell-outs. Here, people generally love to go the games. I think for most guys it is more exhilarating to be out there and feel closer to the field and closer to the action and you tend to get into it more."

• "We tailgate with a group of 17 people, or we go out to breakfast before the game and back to someone's house afterward," Dave Schwarzmueller says. "But their season tickets are all under my name. They say, 'Don't die, Dave!' but I took care of that. I gave my older daughter the names of the people who have the right to a ticket. She's the executor of my estate. She and my lawyer will make sure everybody continues to get their tickets. The teams are really strict about these things. The tickets will still come to me, in my name. All we have to do is a change of address."

• "I don't care where I sit; I sit in the end zone," Bill Price says. "I like to get there at least 90 minutes ahead of the game, watch them practice, soak up the whole thing. It's electric. There's nothing like being there. You can't get that on television."

* * *
New York Giants fan Jim Luttrell journeyed to Pasadena in 1987 for Super Bowl XXI. It was a quick trip; he flew out Saturday morning, watched his Giants stomp the Denver Broncos 39-20 and left on Monday morning.

Image via Wikipedia

"That was a big moment," Luttrell recalls. "And having them win made it more special. But just being there was one of my biggest highlights as a sports fan. We had champagne in the parking lot afterward. That was when we found out that the trunk of a Cutlass Cierra holds water. We didn't have a cooler; Some store owner gave us a cardboard box of ice."

Here's another almost priceless Super Bowl story:

Christmas, 1992. Bill Price visits his daughter in the West Indies, where she's a Peace Corps volunteer. Wading into the ocean, a wave abruptly flips Price over and lands him on his head, breaking several vertebrae. The accident puts him in an upper-body cast for months.

As fate would have it, Price's beloved Buffalo Bills earn an invitation to Super Bowl XXVII a month after his accident and Price acquires two tickets. He tells his doctor that he has to take a plane trip and needs some extra medication; he just doesn't tell him where. Despite the body cast, he and his son go to Pasadena and sit in the Rose Bowl.

"I said to my son, 'Even though we lost, I'm glad to be here,' " Price recalls. "I think this tells you I am a loyal Bills fan: I would do it again."

Buying a $30 football game ticket apparently gives some of us license to have out-of-body experiences.

All week long, men are expected to report to work, be on time, keep our mouths shut and produce, produce, produce. At the stadium, we get to turn that around. Buy a ticket and rearrange the order of the universe. Now the workers bark the demands. And sometimes we can be pretty demanding. Especially standing elbow-to-elbow, brews flowing, hands cupped to mouths and screaming together for what we want: blood.

"It's an ego need," Dr. William J. Beausay says. "The need to be powerful, to be successful, to achieve, to be the king, even if for one week or one day or one hour. These people work every day. They have to answer to a boss. They have to answer to a wife. They have to get the job done. They have bills to pay and everybody is on their ass, so to speak, so for one moment for one day they can buy a ticket and suddenly, they are in charge. They are the coach, the owner and that's why you have the right to get mad and swear and threaten and get mad at the referees too. When you buy that ticket you buy the right to be angry at your team and demand changes and this and that."

It goes back to group crowd psychology. Our ego becomes submerged into the group ego and it's a different set of rules that we go by. Much more aggressiveness is tolerated than would be individually. Many more demands. "I want what I want and if I don't get it, by God, I'm going to let you know!"

There are few restraints upon crowds. With less restraint, fans can do more damage. They can tear down goalposts, throw bottles, get into fights. In crowds, more interpersonal stimulation develops. When people go to a football game they almost have to talk to the person next to them. They rally and encourage each other and the people all around them, railing against a common foe.

"What will happen," Beausay says, "is if the direction of the emotional tone is positive, the fans go sky high. But if the direction of the emotional tone is negative, it can get ugly and very destructive in very short order. Crowd psychology is a peculiar, interesting phenomenon."

Alone, in the stands, most men would be quiet and restrained. But in the company of our friends and family, we become much more vocal.

It's a social experience where we pick up cues from the people we're with. Human beings in a crowd pick up cues as to what is appropriate. To stand up and cheer -- you wouldn't do that at a church service or a poetry reading but at a football game, the norms say it is okay to do certain things, to scream and swear or whatever you wouldn't ordinarily do. When we're alone we wouldn't get up and swear but if we're with somebody we might because it's expected. The other person does it and it seems normal.

The people who go to the games might even be a little bit different than the people who are at home. They have taken the extra effort to go. They dress in special ways that identify them with their team colors. A "psyching" action takes place. They may have been drinking for a while, which also changes the scope of things.

"A friend of mine from Chicago said it is really an experience to go to a hockey game there," Dr. D. Stanley Eitzen says. "For one thing, the social class is different. These tend to be more working class people than what you would find at a Chicago Bears football game. The women that go to the Blackhawks games are differently dressed. In fact, many of them are called 'hockey whores.' They are not whores but they dress in cheap, garish ways. It is part of the culture that has arisen out of hockey. If people go to the game expecting that people are going to be this way, expecting people to behave in these ways, expecting violent things to occur on the field, they are ready at a psychological level that they wouldn't be at home. At home they turn the clicker on and they haven't gone through all of the kind of levels of preparedness that you would going to a game."

What the fan sees before him on the field or around him in the stands -- fights, verbal aggression, spilled beer and thrown food -- make him tense, angry, ready. That doesn't happen in his living room.

Some people would argue that it's a release of pent-up emotions. But Eitzen refutes that.

"The research actually shows that when you leave these games, no matter whether your team won or lost, your level of aggression is higher than when you entered the stadium," the sociologist says. "It is not like you were released of these pent-up emotions. It actually builds these emotions. I think what is happening, and one of the attractions, is we live, for the most part, in kind of a boring world, routine, hum-drum, day-to-day, and we look forward to these things because they bring excitement to an otherwise unexciting life."

* * *
Football games promote social interaction. NFL Sundays mean celebration, food and good times.

The atmosphere and the energy generated in the middle of a stadium, bar or living room crowded with fans is stimulating. It spills over. There is hardly any way men can sit still or be impartial, whether our team is winning or losing, because of the incessant overload and overcharge of energy that is coming from around us. It's almost physical. We can feel it. If you put electrodes on the entire audience the feedback it would be incredible. They're the ones winning and losing, experiencing the thrill.

Dr. William J. Beausay, in his sport psychology research, found that for adults, the amount of stimulation and projection onto football teams is greater in an enclosed arena than in an open stadium. Fewer brawls break out in an open arena. That suggests one reason hockey fans are notorious: They scrunch together in small arenas, literally on top of each other and the players. Their interaction skyrockets, especially in games where there is a lot of personal body contact.

"There is a factor in hockey called 'continuous process,' " Beausay says. "Football is a 'fragmented process' because you run a play and everybody quits and rests and relaxes, then you run another play. Of course there will be brawls and breakouts between plays, but they are the exception to the rule. However, in games like hockey or auto racing the action is continuous. In soccer it keeps going and the soccer fans are known for their violence. When you go and sit for an hour, enduring the constant pressure of the ball going back and forth without a rest, it builds up a tremendous amount of energy. In the end, if their team loses, the fans destroy the stadium or kill people on the other side. That happens all the time."

Former Chicago Bears offensive tackle Dan Jiggetts recalls leaving Soldier Field after games and seeing fans more frenzied than his teammates. "Some people, that's their outlet for the week. They're satisfied. Other people are jacked up, looking for trouble. But the guys leaving the locker rooms are worn out," he says.

Knowing this, more restrained fans may wonder why stadiums don't increase security to reign in the rowdies.

"There has been the question of what happens when there is obviously the presence of a show of force," Beausay says. "For example, at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia, they actually brought horsemen in from the Philadelphia Police Department. The question is, does that antagonize or arouse? We did some research on that and found that the presence of force makes people feel a little more secure but if the officers have helmets on or have horses or officers stand around with a police dog, it will actually antagonize fans."

Somehow the presence of peace officers ties in to the natural anger and hostility we have for our opponent. We see security as part of the opponent and it creates trouble. Security tries to blend in as best a person with a gun can, not wanting to trigger or incite the mindset that has been created all week long in rabid fans who come to conquer, not to be vanquished. Any little thing could trigger or tip us off.

* * *
Stadiums establish another sociological curiosity: for three shining hours, they put all men on the same level. People at a lower social strata in the business world get to rub shoulders with people they wouldn't otherwise meet. (Really rich -- or lucky -- folks in secluded, luxury skyboxes are exempt from this phenomenon.)

"You are relating indirectly to 70,000 other people who are cheering and booing and ooohing and aaahing along with you," Dr. Stanley H. Teitelbaum says. "Even though you don't even know them you are in some very strange, vague way connecting with them through this common interest."

The stands offer a cross-representation of American culture in most cities, although as ticket prices rise ahead of the rate of inflation, lower-income fans are being squeezed out. The average family of four cannot afford season tickets. One game a season is a special treat as today's outrageous ticket prices and attendant costs keep the wealthy in the stands and the rest of America on the couch.

"When I first became active in the early 1960s, it was very much a blue-collar fan group that was at the games," Dr. Bruce C. Ogilvie says. "Within a decade it became sort of an elitist fan group, stylish, and I'm sure industry reinforced that by making sections of seats available and buying booths and so on. Football gained increasingly more status in terms of the attendees."

When we go to the game in person we likely will not know the guy/jerk we sit next to. It could be anyone. But because we probably root for the same gang on the field, we could connect with somebody that we'd otherwise never meet.

Sometimes we find ourselves seated beside the enemy, or deep in enemy territory. Going out of town to cheer your team on foreign turf is akin to wearing a "Kick Me" sign. No book of etiquette governs these forays. Nobody wants to act as your host. Stick to the rules of the jungle: Scorn or be scorn. Kill or be killed.

Sitting next to someone who is cheering for the other team tests men in ways that cliff divers and rock climbers understand. Each word, each gesture begs confrontation, verbally or physically. A man can't be expected to sit idly by while his boys are attacked. It's an opportunity to get out your teasing, bantering, hostile side.

For instance, a Buc fan visiting Joe Robbie Stadium might say this to a Dolphin supporter:

"Piss off, you low-life, blowfish-worshipping boatlift refugee!"

To which the Dolphin might answer:

"Loser!"

At which point the Buc fan would shrug, buy another beer and pout about being so effectively dissed with a single word.

Copyright 1993 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!

Appendix: Can't Tell the Players Without a Scorecard

bob@andelman.com (Bob Andelman) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 12:50:24 PST

by Bob Andelman

Here's a roster of men and women interviewed during research for Why Men Love Football: A Report From the Couch:

Dr. Robert L. Arnstein, retired chief psychiatrist of Yale University Health Services, lives in Hamden, Connecticut

Dr. William J. Beausay, a psychologist in Columbus, Ohio, is founder of the Academy of Sport Psychology International and a consultant to athletes in pro sports such as baseball, football, basketball, hockey and motor racing

Dr. Daniel Begel, a psychiatrist in Milwaukee, is a founder of the International Society for Sport Psychiatry

Eric L. Berger, a personal injury defense attorney for insurance companies in Sunrise, Florida

Ed Berry, a former Marine and retired gardener for the City of San Diego, lives in El Cajon, California

Kenton Blagbrough, a textbook buyer at Boston University

Barry Bradley, senior editor of the Maddux Report, a business magazine in St. Petersburg, Florida

Roger W. Brummett, a vice president of marketing for a human resources management firm in Carmel, Indiana, is founder and president of the Baltimore Colts' Thundering Herd Fan Club

Frank Bryant, a former Army helicopter pilot, is a property developer in Long Beach, California

Dr. Robert B. Cialdini, a professor of psychology at Arizona State University in Tempe

John Cimasko, a route salesman for Pepsi-Cola in Carmel, Indiana, and charter member of the Baltimore Colts' Thundering Herd Fan Club

Dr. Jay Coakley, a professor of sociology and director of the Center for the Study of Sport and Leisure at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, is the author of Sports in Society: Issues and Controversies (Moseby-Yearbook)

Dr. Gregory B. Collins, a psychiatrist, is section head of the Alcohol and Drug Recovery Center of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio and is a consultant to NFL teams

Jerry DeForest Jr., owns The Tailgate Sports Bar in Staten Island, New York

Joe DiRaffaele, owns Labor World, a chain of temporary help services based in Coconut Creek, Florida

Joe Diroff, a retired Navy man and former mathematics teacher, lives in Detroit

Barry Dreayer, a salesman/consultant for computer software and voice mail systems, taught a course for sports novices called "TeachMeSports" in Atlanta

Dr. D. Stanley Eitzen, a professor of sociology at Colorado State University at Fort Collins is a past-president of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport and co-author (with Dr. George H. Sage) of Sociology of North American Sport (William C. Brown)

Bill Evans, a marketing manager with Compuserve in Columbus, Ohio

Keith Farber, a courier in Buena Park, California

Richard M. "Rick" Georges, an attorney in St. Petersburg, Florida

Dr. Daniel M. Glick, a psychiatrist in Scottsdale, Arizona

Pat Harmon, an historian for the College Football Hall of Fame in Kings Island, Ohio

Peter Hendricks, an attorney in New Brunswick, N.J.

Dr. Edward R. Hirt, professor of psychology at Indiana University in Bloomington

Harold Hyman, a property manager in Tamarac, Florida

Dr. Seppo E. Iso-Ahola, a sport psychologist at the University of Maryland at College Park, is the co-author (with Brad Hatfield) of Psychology of Sports: A Social Psychological Approach (Wm. C. Brown)

Dan Jiggetts, a former offensive tackle with the Chicago Bears, is a sportscaster with WSCR Radio and WBBM-TV in Chicago (partner of Mike North at WSCR)

David Johnson, a truck driver, lives in Chula Vista, California

Bruce Kessler, a warehouseman in North Brunswick, New Jersey, taught the author of Why Men Love Football how to play football

Jim Luttrell, a copy chief with the Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky

Palmiro "Paul" Mazzoleni, a retired service station owner and founder of Martha's Coffee Club in Green Bay, Wisconsin

Larry Mayer, managing editor of the Chicago Bear Report, lives in Palatine, Illinois

Volney Meece, a retired sportswriter of 41 years experience, is executive director of the Football Writers Association of America in Edmond, Oklahoma

Jim Melvin, a health and fitness writer and copy editor at the St. Petersburg Times in Florida

Dr. Michael A. Messner, a sociologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, is the author Power at Play: Sports and the Problem of Masculinity (Beacon Press) and co-editor (with Dr. Don Sabo) of Sport, Men and the Gender Order: Critical Feminist Perspectives (Human Kinetics Publishers)

Mike North, a sports radio personality at WSCR-Radio in Chicago (partner of Dan Jiggetts)

Dr. Bruce C. Ogilvie, a clinical psychologist and professor emeritus at San Jose State University, is a director of the Institute of Athletic Motivation

Jerry Pigeon, a banker in Green Bay, Wisconsin

William E. "Bill" Price, an associate professor of mathematics at Niagara University in New York

Jim Runels, a retired Nabisco Brands sales management executive, lives in Yorba Linda, California

Dr. Don Sabo, a sociologist at D'Youville University in Amherst, N.Y., is author of Jock: Sports and Male Identity (Prentice Hall), co-editor (with Dr. Michael Messner) of Sport, Men and the Gender Order: Critical Feminist Perspectives (Human Kinetics Publishers) and one-time football captain at the State University of New York at Buffalo

Dr. Allen L. Sack, a professor of sociology and coordinator of the sports management program at the University of New Haven, Connecticut, played defensive end for the University of Notre Dame's 1966 championship football team

Dr. George H. Sage, a retired professor of kinesiology and sociology at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, is the author of Power and Ideology in American Sport (Human Kinetics) and co-author (with Dr. D. Stanley Eitzen) of Sociology of North American Sport (Wm. C. Brown)

Dave Schwarzmueller, a banker in West Seneca, New York

Larry Selvin, a financial accountant in West Roxbury, Mass.

Dr. John M. Silva, a professor of sport psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is a co-editor of Psychological Foundations of Sport (Human Kinetics)

Andrew L. Spear, a music sales representative in San Francisco (and Jeff's brother)

Jeff Spear, a comedy writer for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in Los Angeles (and Andrew's brother)

Joe Surdi, a barber in St. Petersburg, Florida

Michele Szynal, a communications manager for the North Atlantic Group of The Gillette Company in Boston

Dr. Stanley H. Teitelbaum, a clinical psychologist in New York City

Dr. Thomas A. Tutko, a clinical psychologist at San Jose State University and a director of the Institute of Athletic Motivation.

Dr. Mark Unterberg, a psychiatrist and executive medical director of Green Oaks Medical City in Dallas, is a consultant to NFL and NBA teams

Aaron Vaughn, a copy editor at the Valley Daily News in Kent, Washington

Mark H. von Dwingelo, a hospitality industry management consultant in Atlanta

Dr. Rick Weinberg, a clinical psychologist at the University of South Florida's Florida Mental Health Institute in Tampa

Neil Wiesenfeld, owner of a promotional advertising company in Atlanta

Ralph Weisbeck, a retired executive of a tool manufacturing company, lives in Williamsville, New York

H. R. "Dick" Williams, a retired cleaning services contractor and founder of the Houston Oilers fan organization, The Derrick Club, in Sugar Land, Texas

Ann Winkler, advertising manager for Apple Computer

William J. Winslow, president of the Institute of Athletic Motivation in Redwood City, California

Chapter 18. 57 Channels

bob@andelman.com (Bob Andelman) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 18:04:01 PST

by Bob Andelman

"I typically watch games by myself. Particularly while I'm watching the Giants. I'm not too receptive to other people's comments, particularly if they don't like the Giants. I get a little intense. I'm fixated on the TV. When the Giants were in Super Bowl XXV in Tampa, I watched it with my wife, my mother-in-law and her husband. I kept turning up the TV every time they started a conversation. My mother-in-law was undaunted. She kept reminding everyone that Buffalo was making a comeback. I about threw her out the window."

Mark von Dwingelo
Management consultant
Atlanta

Football became America's darling in the late 1960s and early '70s when NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle made television a partner in his sport. Little did Rozelle imagine what would happen two decades later when remote control clickers, cable and home satellite receivers joined the fray.

The vast majority of football fans these days prefer to watch their teams charge on to fields of glory from the comfort of their living rooms. The explosion of televised games broadened some geographic boundaries and erased others, creating legions of fans whose loyalty knows no state lines.

Millions more watch football on TV (or listen on radio) than could possibly fit into all the college and pro stadiums ever built in the United States. And even if there were enough seats to accommodate them there are plenty of other limitations -- distance and cost, to name two. People who live in the middle of Nebraska, South Dakota or Wyoming can't get to many pro football games in person. However, they, like transplanted New Yorkers living in Miami, can still catch most of the Jets and Giants games, while Bostonians are at ease praying for the fortunes of the Cowboys and Oilers.

Football, far and away, is the sport that translates best to television. The slow stop-and-go grind works wonderfully on the home screen. Hockey must be the worst for TV, because the puck moves so fast and suddenly the camera fails to accurately follow it.

• "I like watching on TV because you get to watch more than one game at a time," Eric Berger, a lawyer in Sunrise, Florida, says. "I'm a remote-control madman. In Fort Lauderdale, my cable company carries the NBC and CBS affiliates from both Miami and West Palm Beach. Sometimes the affiliates show different games. It's so enjoyable. Doing it as long and as much as I have -- with the benefit of instant-replay -- you can watch all that without missing any important parts of the game. And yes, it drives my wife crazy."

• Browns fan Bill Evans grew up in Cleveland and lives in Columbus today. "I watch football on TV; I've been to very few games in my life," he says. "Even if I lived in Cleveland, I wouldn't go to every game. The weather is crappy. On TV, I can watch other things, I can watch two or three games and get replays."

• In college, Andrew Spear found it impossible to get tickets to see the Denver Broncos. It was much easier -- and cheaper -- to watch the games on television. It turned into a ritual; now living in San Francisco, he watches up to four pro games a week.

"I don't watch every game on television," Spear says. "But I do set aside time to watch the teams I follow: the Broncos, 49ers and the Vikings. In that order. I watch with close friends or alone. The best is when I'm with somebody, but it has to be somebody who pays attention to the game."

A brilliantly choreographed 1993 commercial featured Dallas Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith complaining that football moves so fast he never gets to meet anybody new. With Smith as our guide, we see the football field through his eyes: Speeding down field, he introduces himself to opposing players while streaking past them. "Hi, I'm Emmitt . . . Hi, I'm Emmitt . . . "

TV games differ significantly from the ones ticket buyers see while wedged in the stands at the Metrodome or the L.A. Coliseum. Multiple cameras and angles -- overhead, on the sidelines, in the end zones and even strapped to the helmets of players -- bring the game to the home viewer from every possible point of view.

"I'd much prefer to watch a game on TV where I can see replays and not have to catch a bus to the stadium and back," Larry Mayer, managing editor of the Chicago Bear Report, says "I had season tickets for 10 years until I got this job. Maybe it was my seats; I used to tape the games, rush home and see what I missed."

Mayer's got nothing on Bill Price, however.

When the Buffalo Bills are on the road, the season ticketholder sets his VCR to record the game on television and goes out to a movie. He finds that watching the games live on TV makes him too tense. Radio is even worse. When he returns from the movie, he'll catch the end of the game, listen to post-game commentary and reaction, then rewind to the beginning and watch the whole thing.

"People find that odd," Price says, "but I'd rather find out the result all at once and watch the game slowly. Even if they lose, I watch it." In fact, he also tapes home games and rushes home from Bills Stadium to watch the whole thing over again instead of watching a second game. "It's very enjoyable to watch your team win, I'll tell you that," he says.

Another Bills fan, retired tool company executive Ralph Weisbeck, appreciates guys like Price who buy enough tickets to ensure sell-outs of Buffalo home games so Weisbeck can watch them from the comfort of his easy chair. "You get better seats at home," he says.

* * *
Why do men sit glued to the tube every fall, watching hour after hour of football, cheerfully excluding everything around them? Hint: It ain't the shoes, Spike.

One of the things that happens with football -- and this is probably true of other sports as well -- is that we don't continually lose and we don't continually win. We may be in the middle, where we win more than we lose, or vice versa, but it's the concept of partial reinforcement. What that means is that our team wins just enough so that the hook is set and we're going to be interested in it. Even if our guys didn't win today, there were a whole series of great passes, great hits, good defense and good offense. We get enough within the game to build hope.

Part of the repeated viewing is a man's identification with his team. He becomes very possessive of "his" Colts or "his" Chargers. That's a positive identification. There is also negative identification, when a person is against the other team, as in "I'm for whoever plays Minnesota."

"There is also a third kind of identification," Tutko says. "These are people who just love the game. They could go to a high school game and not even know who the two teams are and still enjoy the game."

That description would fit Harold Hyman: "Oh, man," Hyman says. "Saturday, all day, and Sunday, it's the same. I watch bits and pieces of whatever's on. I don't know if I'd watch three hours of Oregon-Oregon State, but if it's on TV, the game is on in our house. Monday night, I'm doing other things, but the game is on."

Dr. Thomas A. Tutko believes that this form of ultrafans, the ones who live to watch NFL, college, Canadian Football League and Arena Football League games, may be overdoing it.

"It can become an incredible escape," he says. "There are some people who are absolute sports buffs. It is a retreat from reality. It's identification outside their jobs. They're hunting for other places that they can have some kind of tie or emotion. Thoreau said men lead lives of quiet desperation. I think that is true for a number of people. The sport allows them an adrenalin rush, a bit of excitement."

Dr. Daniel Begel, a Milwaukee psychiatrist and founder of the International Society for Sports Psychiatry, agrees. He calls football "an antidote for despair."

* * *
Just as an entire tailgating culture developed around seeing football games in person, so do rituals take place for those who watch on television.

"I won't schedule things for Sunday afternoons," Boston's Kenton Blagbrough says. "Sunday afternoon is for football games. I plan prior to the 12:30 pre-game show to make sure I've eaten lunch so I'm not making noise and miss anything. I make sure whatever has to get done gets done so I have uninterrupted viewing pleasure. I reserve 12:30- 7 p.m. for watching football."

That's what most of us do: Buy some chips and beer and invite the guys over to watch the game on a 30-inch set, preferably one with picture-in-picture so we can monitor a second game. Or show up three hours before kickoff to secure our favorite table at the neighborhood sports bar, the one with the 6-foot screen and smaller TVs everywhere you turn.

Dan Jiggetts says there is even a certain etiquette to be followed when the guys come over to watch a game: "If they're over your house and eating your chow, chances are they want to be for your team," he says.

* * *
Another reason football is such a hit on television is that it is finite in terms of the time commitment each game requires. An NFL game takes three hours. Set your clock by it, unless the contest goes into overtime. College games last almost as long. It isn't hard to plan a day knowing that from 1-4 p.m. or 4-7 p.m., you're going to be in the living room, watching the Dolphins-Bills game. Try scheduling your day around a baseball game. It's impossible because the games can be as short as 2-1/2 hours or as long as 4 hours.

That element of predictability appeals to us. Rules and parameters exist to control what can and can't happen. We take comfort in knowing what the limits are. A script determines the number of acts and duration but at the same time we bow to the excitement of not knowing how it's going to be played out. In that respect football resembles soap opera.

Drama lures many men to the game. While it may be an overstatement to suggest that on any Sunday, any team could beat any other team, miracles do occur. And sometimes the best contests occur when not just the best teams go head-to-head but when the worst slug it out.

No matter who plays, the final score of a football game isn't a certainty till the fourth quarter gun is fired. Suspense and the ever-present specter of a comeback are what keep the games fresh.

"Every game is like a new story, an individual drama being played out," Harold Hyman says. "I've sat in games being a Gator or Dolphins fan thinking there's no way they can win, and yet they do."

That drama is what keeps the real fans' butts glued to the seats of their La-Z-Boys. But the real appeal for the stay-at-home set is their interaction with the TV.

• "Yes, I do scream at the TV set. Occasionally," Eric Berger says. "Whether it be a bad call or a bonehead play or just a great play by the team I'm not rooting for. It's been ingrained in us since we were young kids to scream at the TV like it's going to have some affect. It doesn't of course."

Berger does not yell at the television for anything other than sports. He says.

• Bill Evans says that of all the televised sports, football best fits his lifestyle.

"Because of the way the game is structured -- action/time-out/action -- it fits what I do on a Sunday," he says. "I can do dishes, I can look away if I have to, as opposed to basketball, which constantly demands your attention."

Some guys are not big TV fans, but they will watch football all day long. Dave Schwarzmueller is one of them.

"I pound the hell out of chairs," he says. "I have an easy chair and I have a tendency to pound the armrests when I get mad. I'll swear when the Bills blow an easy play."

* * *
Baseball, which Dr. Allen L. Sack refers to as a "pastoral game" is more consistent with the values of an earlier, slower-paced America, a country of expansive green fields and grazing cattle.

"Baseball resonated quite well with that kind of life, just before or after the Civil War," Sack says. "But our society has gotten increasingly bureaucratized and industrialized. We have gone from a task-orientation where people worked at a craft and were not preoccupied with assembly line production, to a time-orientation where people work in industries."

Frederick Taylor, the father of scientific management theory, wrote and influenced managerial thought in the early 20th century. Taylor felt industry could achieve greater productivity by studying workers very closely. He instituted time and motion studies to eliminate waste.

"Football is more consistent than baseball with Taylor's highly rationalized approach to life, business and society," Sack says. "Whereas baseball is of a slower pace, football fits better with modern industrial values. Especially in notions of time and the passing of time and the tremendous importance we place on every minute that is wasted by inefficiency. First and 10 -- you've got 10 yards and 4 downs and everything is very rationalized. You've got a field laid out in grids. You've got time-outs and sometimes they don't even go into a huddle. The quarterback goes right to the line of scrimmage. It gets faster and faster and the action is constant. It's not the subtlety and the grace and the slowness of movement that you find in a baseball game. You don't have to be particularly subtle to understand and to enjoy football. You can enjoy it without subtlety because every couple of seconds there is another really devastating tackle or shrieks from the crowd or halftime or firecrackers or pageantry or a player being hurt and carried off the field or a fight."

This leads into another major theory of why men love football: instant gratification.

Men long for action. Women provide action. So does gambling. But the easiest, cheapest way to action requires a TV.

For quick stimulation, football beats other sports, cleats down. Hockey and soccer can go whole periods without a score. But in football, you can have an explosive play any minute. And instant replays. Over and over again. Americans prefer action over defense.

"The reason I like football is the excitement," Larry Mayer says. "It mixes a lot of variables: strategy, violence, great athleticism. It's not scripted. You don't know what's going to happen. Anything can happen. In basketball, the game doesn't matter until the last few minutes. In football, teams can come back. "

Football looks like human pinball on the video screen, especially the way young men surf from channel to channel with their remote controls looking for the next big hit. They drive the older guys crazy, punching buttons faster than Dad and Uncle Morty can focus on the last image. They only stop on action.

Adults appreciate slow intrigue but that's not what the kids stop on. They stop on the first murder they see or someone doing a ninja drop-kick on somebody and knocking their lights out. Or they stop on a football or basketball game. It doesn't take much patience to enjoy that. They're not going to stop on baseball because a pitcher is standing on the mound, rubbing a ball or a conference is taking place or, more likely, just endless pitch after pitch and nothing happening. Kids pull away from that.

"Football, because it gives you rapid and instant gratification in terms of seeing action, is far better than other sports," Sack says.

Chapter 19. Bud Bowling for Dollars

bob@andelman.com (Bob Andelman) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:19:28 PST

by Bob Andelman

"Why do men watch football? Because they're bored with their lives. And wives. And it's a bonding thing. And one more thing -- it's because we love beer."

Joe Surdi
Barber
St. Petersburg, Florida

In the 1970's, the corporate underpinnings and ramifications of football exploded, accelerating development of the sports industry itself. Sports as a marketing vehicle became increasingly more apparent to corporations and they seized the moment and the opportunity.

Symbiotic relationships developed between sports and corporate America and between sports and the mass media that created the media-moneyed monster of late 20th century football. The mass-marketing, spectacularization and mediaization of the football spectacle fed the game in a reciprocal relationship.

The NFL worked hand-in-glove with the major television networks to use TV as a means of not only socializing the American people into the role of football spectator but also to associate football with the consumption of products through commercials. Later, the NFL turned its marketing inside out to generate new products from its primary product, spinning off an unbelievably sophisticated system of licensed goods associated with NFL teams. All sports do this now, but the NFL was the first.

Which raises another marketing/consumption issue: Why do we wear or advertise our team on our clothing?

"Americans have been duped into wearing corporate labels as signs of status," says Dr. Jay Coakley, a sociology professor at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. "We pay $15.00 extra for a shirt that advertises Ralph Lauren or Adidas or Nike -- the person who designed it or made it or promoted it or whatever. The wearing of team insignias and licensed things are simply done to express your connection with a local group of people and a local symbol. It is significant on a collective level because it provides a rallying point for people. It provides a social access to others. If somebody has a Broncos hat on, you know that in addition to saying hello, you can also say one other thing and know that you'll have conversational access to that person."

Advertising messages on hats and clothes telegraph our interests, offering a way to connect with perfect strangers, like pinning a name tag on your lapel at an Elks convention. It may not lead to intimate connections but it can provide access to an urban environment otherwise characterized impersonally.

TV commercials during football games seek to reaffirm ideas about meritocracy and masculinity.

Advertisers on football games promote products where men make most of the consumption decisions, such as beer. Other advertisers include investments and insurance companies, especially insurance companies that sell policies to men who are the sole or major wage earners within their families and discover that their families are dependent on them. Isn't it up to them -- as responsible human beings -- to have at least a million dollars worth of life insurance?

Luxury cars fit into these notions of meritocracy, class relations, achievement and upward social mobility as being absolutely essential to a man's identity. Investment opportunities, luxury vacations and even tires are products for which men make the major family consumption decisions and they are products which are related to dominant definitions in masculinity and to the ideology of meritocracy. They are successful men's products.

Madison Avenue's message to football fans: If you buy these products you will be successful or if you already buy these products you must be successful.

"From what I know about advertising," Coakley says, "most advertisers don't think consumers are so gullible as to conclude that, 'If I buy this I'm going to be successful.' What they want to do is associate their stuff with the whole ideology of success so that people who become successful feel that they have to have these things to prove it."

There are, of course, different definitions of success for different men. Might Old Milwaukee's luscious Swedish Bikini Team drop in on my tailgate party because we happen to be drinking OM beer? Worth keeping an extra six on ice -- just in case. The Gillette theme runs through my head when I'm buying a new razor. Gee, that quarterback in their commercial -- the one surrounded by luscious babes -- looked a lot better groomed than I usually do. Maybe I'll get a better shave with a Gillette. Better something, anyway.

Football is unique because dominant definitions of masculinity are such that they make men very insecure. It leads men to compete with each other often in a cut-throat way.

"When you focus in on football," Coakley says, "you are seeing and listening to commentary that emphasizes that these people are the epitome of masculinity. People wouldn't play this game unless they were true men. This is what manhood is all about -- physical domination is crucial and a pecking order between men is very obvious. These people on the field are better because they can physically and effectively dominate another human being.

"So there is this notion on the one hand," he says, "that football is celebrating the power and privilege of men as a whole but it is also creating an ideology that leads men to compete with one another and, in a sense, to see their status in terms of how much they can dominate one another. It makes men very insecure about who they are as individuals. It makes them insecure in terms of how desirable they may be to women or how attractive they may be in the eyes of women. So when you get men liking football, you've got a bunch of people who are emotionally ready to hear messages that they can then take and turn into consumption patterns that will make them even more attractive or more manly."

Certainly corporate America uses football to peddle its wares. Apple launched its Macintosh computers during Super Bowl XVIII in 1984. The advertising campaign received almost as much attention as the revolutionary new product.

"I can't consider anything that doesn't deliver," says Ann Winkler, advertising manager for Apple Computer. "I'd say it's best to be involved in something like football that people are involved with. Of course, I'm a football fan. I'd put anything on a Redskins game."

Gillette introduced men to its Sensor razor in 1991 during Super Bowl XXV. Sensor went on to become -- according to Gillette -- the most successful new shaving product ever introduced. Two years later, it debuted a line of men's toiletries as Dallas pummelled Buffalo in Super Bowl XXVII.

And who could forget the sudsy annual Bud Bowl, pitting the computer-generated beer teams of Budweiser and Bud Lite?

Why do corporations find football to be such an effective tool?

"Fans are loyal to products that support the things they enjoy," Winkler says.
* * * There are 75 million men watching football every weekend. There are only 250 million in the entire U.S. population. More than a quarter of the population attends football games or watches them on TV. And if they miss the game, they'll read about it in the newspaper the next day or catch the late news for highlights and scores. Many men do all of the above: attend the game, videotape it for later viewing, watch the late sports news and read about it the next day.

Corporations know this and also know that they are going to get a bigger audience advertising during football games than anywhere else. Those that can't buy TV spots buy radio. Or they spend big for stadium signs that will appear in the background during TV coverage. They sponsor replays on stadium video screens, put their names on blimps that fly over outdoor stadiums, buy advertising in programs and generally make their presence felt.

"We have a men's product," says Michele Szynal, a communications manager for Gillette in Boston. "On Super Bowl Sunday, the audience is men, men 15 and over, men who shave. Super Bowl has become the premium male sporting event. It delivers. We want to reach these guys and they're there, watching that game. Maybe there's a greater percentage of men who don't watch sports. But since there's a great percentage who do, we go with sports."

The next obvious question: Why is this advertising effective with men?

"The need to be important, successful, powerful, the need to win," says Dr. William J. Beausay, a Columbus, Ohio-based psychologist. "Advertisers are championing their products. If you look at all the beer commercials, they are going straight at the men. It's all macho. Anything you can do, I can do better. Whether it's cars or beer or successful people who are drinking their beer."

Football and alcohol go together like Mom, apple pie and baseball in the minds of many fans.

Dr. Bruce C. Ogilvie says the video wallpapering of beer commercials and advertisements during football games acts as reinforcement to the inclined beer drinker. "It is like a great tapestry that they weave and it includes sucking on a can or bottle of beer while eating popcorn," he says. "It is almost out of character now if you don't merge with the projected scene of what a fan should be."
* * * Barry Dreayer believes in football as a business tool.

"Football is a tremendous asset in business," says the Atlanta-based computer software and voice mail salesman. "When you're trying to establish a rapport with somebody, when trust is a hurdle to get over, there's no better rapport-builder than sports. If somebody buys a new car, what are you going to talk about? Their passion. I sell products over the phone; most of my clients are out of town. If I've got a client in Manhattan, Kansas, I can virtually assume he's a big fan of Kansas State football and basketball."

Here's an example of Dreayer doing his thing:

"'Bob, how are you doing? This is Barry Dreayer with Front Row Systems . . . I notice you're in the Dallas area. Is the town still going crazy over the Super Bowl? . . . Yeah? . . . Well, I went to the University of Florida -- Emmitt Smith is in my will now. . . '

"Once you break the ice," Dreayer says, "the barrier is broken. If the guy in Dallas loves Emmitt Smith -- which he should -- we've got something in common."

Copyright 1993 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!

Chapter 20. The Man Who Fell to Earth

bob@andelman.com (Bob Andelman) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 04:10:04 PST

by Bob Andelman

"I get depressed two weeks after the season is over. I'm a Jets fan. I remember watching games when they were 2-10, sitting in freezing snow. The first game I remember was the Jets winning the Super Bowl. I was 8. I was living in New York at the time. Everywhere you looked, people were talking about it. And Namath made the famous statement guaranteeing victory."

Joe DiRaffaele
Owner, Labor World
Coconut Creek, Florida

Men are bored. Okay, some men are just plain boring, but the fact is that come the weekend, many men's lives are insufferably dull. Ho-hum. Routine. Pass the No-Doz.

Football is a wake-up call for these guys.

Sport sociologists speculate endlessly about the sheer boredom of most men. The boredom and routine, the absence of glamor and excitement in our everyday lives. Football is our chance to almost take on a new identity as the involved fan, imagining participation and feeling the emotion of participation, so there is no question of the emotional charge out of seeing our beloved Vikings win.

This week's Steelers-Browns game may give the average blue-collar worker in the suburbs of Cleveland a reason to slog through another week of going nowhere on his job and enduring the day-in, day-out, hum-drum nature of his family life. For a few hours on Sunday, he'll come alive again, feeling that adrenaline rush the way he did in high school.

Image via Wikipedia

"I not only enjoy it," Eric Berger says, "it gives me some sort of escape from the daily requirements of this and that."

Some men -- like Berger -- may not view their lives as dull at all, but they recognize the need to escape from time to time. They drop out from their routines.

Men's lives are chewed up by work. Football somehow provides us with a space of our own.

Watching football is like going to the gym. It's an area of our lives where we are able to do something for ourselves. A lot of men get into trouble with that, because we resent an intrusion. "What do you mean coming in here in the middle of the game and asking me, 'Who is going to pick Mary up from school tomorrow?' Get out of my face! This is my time and my space."

"For some men," Dr. Don Sabo says, "you might say that football spectatorship is a refuge from the onslaught of work and family responsibility. It's an island of respite. A lot of men really feel disempowered in their lives."

Most people in this example want to escape their workmates, their spouse, their children or their worries for a couple hours. It doesn't mean they don't love their family or they can't face reality. It doesn't mean they're bad people. They just need a break, a time-out from the usual below-the-line stress. Many guys get it from watching football.

"You have, on one hand, people who are seeking rewards and, on the other hand, they are escaping a personal and interpersonal world," Dr. Seppo E. Iso-Ahola says. "When you apply this to the spectator setting, it is an excellent place for these motivational tendencies to take place. Obviously, there are many opportunities for seeking personal rewards. It's an excellent opportunity for people to escape the mundane routines in which they live, especially when you are talking about men. Football is a man's game, a macho game, and it provides an excellent opportunity to escape for a couple of hours."

Iso-Ahola is quick to say that there doesn't necessarily have to be anything bad going on at home or in a marriage for a man to need an NFL break.

"Men often watch football in the company of what they call their best buddies," he says. "They are seeking interpersonal rewards as well. It is interesting at the same time they are avoiding certain types of interpersonal encounters like spouses and workmates they are seeking other types of interpersonal interaction. It is not like they want to be alone. But they want to regulate that social interaction."

Football provides an excellent opportunity, psychologically, for this kind of regulated escape."

Dr. Gregory B. Collins disputes the notion that men, as a rule, are bored. He pins the need for escape more clearly on stress.

"I see a lot of men in my practice and I rarely if ever hear them say that their lives are boring," he says. "I don't think it is a frequent complaint. I hear more about stress or misunderstandings, conflict and that sort of stuff rather than 'boring.' I don't know that football is a major motivator but it fills a void. I see people with all kinds of exciting jobs and they all watch football. It's something that is very broadly appreciated by people with good, exciting jobs by most people's standards and by people with boring jobs. It doesn't seem to matter."

There are certainly a lot of schools of thought concerning the boredom/escapism notion. For instance, healthy, happy people work and play. Sick people work all the time. They are workaholics. Sick people play all the time. They are playboys and playgirls and don't take anything seriously. The happiest people are people that balance their work and their play.

"To a degree," Dr. William J. Beausay says, "when people identify with their team on the weekend, that is a degree of health. When they pay their money and holler and scream, that is cathartic. It vents a lot of internalized aggression and conflict, so that is healthy. The happiest people in the world are people who work at their play and who play at their work. They know what they do each day and what is going to happen. The problem is they can control their play but they can't control their work so, at play, they buy a ticket and they really work at it. They really get into this. They buy the coats, the jackets, the cards and everything. That is healthy."

Beausay says people would be a lot happier and healthier if they played at work and worked at play. He theorizes that if people could really play at their work during the five days of the week, they would spend less time working at their play on the weekend.

"The happiest, healthiest people are the ones who have a balance," he says. "They work at their play and they play at their work. Unfortunately most people are caught in that they work at their play but they can't play at their work. It's a formula and, like algebra, you have to have the equal value on both sides of the equation."

Copyright 1993 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!

Chapter 21. She's No Woman, She's My Wife

bob@andelman.com (Bob Andelman) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 13:11:20 PST

by Bob Andelman

"Why do you bug me during football? Did I bother you during childbirth?"

Tim Taylor
TV Host, "Tool Time"
Detroit

Mothers. Daughters. Wives. Sisters. Women in-laws.

Perhaps the greatest unspoken reason that men love football is because it gives many of us a few precious, uninterrupted hours away from those wonderful women in our lives.

Football presents one of the last great places where men can hide out. It's a game that women are not going to start playing any time soon and that few women care to attend in person, so men can still be men and watch the games, hootin' and hollerin' and behaving like jerks. Like Three Stooges movies, women just don't get it.

"Has football gotten in the way of relationships? I'm sure it has," Barry Dreayer says. "Past relationships didn't have a clue what was going on, didn't want to to have a clue."

Love 'em, hate 'em, can or can't live without 'em, men feel that women often complicate their lives at all the wrong times. Twelve-forty-five on Sunday afternoon is not the time to ask the man in your life to get up and do anything. It is not the time to engage him in deep conversation about Junior's grades or suspicions that Muffy is a lesbian. And it is definitely not the time to complain that he hasn't been showing you enough attention lately. Because for the next 6 hours, it isn't going to get any better.

Some women threaten their husbands with divorce because they can't bear the thought of losing them to football one more week. Some women do more than threaten.

Retired Nabisco Brands sales management executive and Los Angeles Rams superfan Jim Runels decided two could play that game. He divorced his football-hating wife and married a woman who not only tolerates the game but loves it.

"My first wife? I had to sneak off by telling her I was going to play golf," Runels says. "Then I'd go see a football game. I'd come back late and she'd bitch and complain. She'd get mad at me. I'd never hear the end of it. I could never get her to go to a football game."

Runels' home office in Yorba Linda, California, is packed with all manner of Rams paraphernalia -- hats, phones, umbrellas, helmet telephones, directors chairs, pins, cards. "Plus I have jerseys -- Bob Waterfield's No. 7 with my name on the back!" he says. "My first wife, I could never get through the front door with this stuff. When I met my second wife, Marge, I made it clear I was a Rams fan. I sent her a Rams card and she sent me back a Rams magnet and a note that said, 'See? I'm a Rams fan, too!' We clicked."

The new Mr. & Mrs. Runels -- members of the Rambassadors fan club -- make annual sojourns to Hawaii for the Pro Bowl and have even been to the Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

The day before he got married, Joe DiRaffaele, owner of Labor World, a Coconut Creek, Florida, chain of temporary help services, told his bride there were a few things about him that she needed to know.

"One day, I'm moving back to New York," he said. "And Saturdays, I watch football. And Sundays, I watch football. I don't go out."

She knew what she was getting into, DiRaffaele felt. "You know how things change when you got married and have kids? She had to understand."

Then, an amazing thing happened. One day, Kim turned to her husband and said, "You have to teach me about football." And she got into it. One Monday night, the Dolphins were playing the Jets and Joe set the VCR to tape the game while he was out. "But my wife watched it," he says. "When I got home she said, 'The Jets really got hosed.' " Joe decided right then and there that he was a lucky man, married to a rare woman.

Time passed and the DiRaffaeles' daughter was born, on a Saturday. Joe, of course, was watching college football at the time.

"Every time football is on, my daughter watches," DiRaffaele says. "She's 20 months old. I call 'Touchdown' and she does the referee's touchdown signal. She does clipping -- she bends and puts her hand behind her knee. When commercials come on, she walks away. I guess she likes the action of it. My wife has a black shirt with Joe Montana on it going back to pass. My daughter points to it and says, 'Football!' We're a football family."

Ralph Weisbeck's wife likes football, too, but she doesn't watch many games.

"She gets too excited," Weisbeck says, laughing. "She only comes in if we're three touchdowns ahead. She won't watch the game from the beginning; she's afraid they're going to lose. She can't stand losing."

Modern women discover a number of ways to cope with their men on NFL Sundays. They:

• Leave for a few hours.

• Stay, bitch and moan.

• Learn the game.

The rest of Why Men Love Football might be subtitled And The Women Who Want to Kill Them as we suggest possible responses for women struggling with man who plan to watch football come what may.

In the Berger household, Eric's love of football led to separate TVs and separate activities on Sunday. "My wife doesn't get into sports," he says, "but she tolerates it because she knows it's important to me. She knew how it was when we got married and it's not going to change."

Women often feel that football transforms their men into spectators in their own lives. They're probably right. But as one wife put it, "Football keeps him home. It's a hobby. My women friends say, 'Thank God he has something to keep him busy.' "

The same woman almost divorced her husband when he lost his job and filled his days as commissioner of a fantasy football league. They worked that out, but she became a staunch advocate of being anywhere but the living room when her husband pitches camp to watch football. She has no interest in the game. Rather than pouting and tapping her foot, waiting an eternity for the game to end, she'll go out with other disaffected women. Or she'll tackle paperwork brought home from the office.

Image via Wikipedia

Dr. Seppo E. Iso-Ahola says women should accept football as part of their man's behavior. "If you start arguing with that, especially if it's with somebody highly, psychologically invested in football, that is only going to lead to problems," he says. "It is much easier to accept that and say, 'Okay, my husband or boyfriend likes that and chose that and I accept that.' That doesn't cause problems."

"I think each person should have a parallel life," Dr. John M. Silva says. "If I'm going to sit at home all afternoon and watch TV, I shouldn't hold my wife prisoner and make her watch TV. If she wants to go out and tend the garden or go shopping, I think it's important for two things to go on. One, that the woman develops some appreciation for the interests of her spouse, and two, that they also have enough independence in their relationship that they can pursue some separate interests."

There's another good reason for women to flee on NFL Sundays. If they stay, men may expect to be waited on.

A lot of husbands want their wives nearby, even if they are not watching the game. They want them in the house to serve them, answer the phone, keep the kids quiet, get the beer and run to 7-Eleven for more when it runs out.

Hey, doll! We're out of pretzels! Are those nachos ready yet? How 'bout some beer!

"I can see the argument or displeasure with each other," Dr. Bruce C. Ogilvie says. "What can you tell women? Have a women's Sunday, doing things that please them. Leave the home scene because you are not going to change these apes. Do something that brings you pleasure. Be selfish. Go out and do something very, very selfish so you come home and feel totally good about what you have done."

Dr. Stanley H. Teitelbaum recommends that women construct more of a life of their own and develop independent interests so that while their man watches the game, they can do something besides family chores.

"There are couples who can do that," he says, "but there is also a risk, too, because the more people do that then the more they go their separate ways. After a while comes into play new questions: 'How much do they really need each other? How much do they really have with each other? Would they rather go separate ways and get involved in their separate activities and interests or do they really have shared interests and things in common? Do they really want to be together?' Going their own way is okay on Sunday if it's really important to him or on Saturday to watch the game. She can make that accommodation and do other things provided that there are enough other times in the course of their week that they have more mutuality, togetherness and harmony. In that scenario, the relationship probably can work."

Women can find themselves in a no-win predicament if their husbands and boyfriends don't take pains to understand the potential for conflict on Sundays. It doesn't speak well for the survival of these relationships if, to survive, a power game develops in which the husband/boyfriend is in control of the relationship and dictates, "This is what I want to do and this is what I like. Either fit in, go along with it or don't."

Every woman has her own way of dealing with separation anxiety on game day.

Chicago Bear Report managing editor Larry Mayer's second date with the woman he eventually married was at the Bears' 1987 season opener, a Monday night game versus the New York Giants. The Bears won the two previous Super Bowls and Mayer couldn't think of a more exciting place to be. His future bride didn't let on at the time than any place else would have been more exciting to her.

"My wife hates sports," Mayer says. "She was just being polite. She can't stand sports. She only travels on the road with me because the Bears play in good cities. In Tampa, she goes to the mall across the street from the stadium. In New Orleans, she brings a paperback to read in the stadium."

* * *
Railing about a toilet seat perpetually left up would probably prove less aggravating and more constructive than trying to talk a man out of watching football on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.

"If a woman asks her husband to do things other than watch football, he won't find that acceptable. That can very easily lead to arguments," Iso-Ahola says. "In that context, I can see why violence would happen. These males are very highly invested, psychologically, in this game. Their tolerance level for other things is low. There is psychological data that has shown that when we watch or observe somebody else perform aggressively then our own behavior tends to become aggressive as well.

Therefore when these men are watching football -- an aggressive and violent sport -- their feeling of hostility in general tends to significantly increase. If you have an opportunity or situation at home that lends itself to arguments, then it is easier for the man who is already aggressively aroused, or in a hostile mood, to act."

The expression "football widow" refers to spouses of football fans who become invisible to their families from October to January. If yours is a busy family, working all week or busy with the kids, there is the expectation -- not unfairly -- that on Sunday you'll have some time together. But if the guy is more excited and interested in watching the game on TV than in having an outing with his family, he better expect trouble.

In that kind of stereotypical situation, a wife may feel aggrieved and neglected, that "This is our one day to really be together and go out, but you'd rather sit by the tube and watch football! You'd rather be married to football than me!" The husband retaliates: "Hey, I've worked hard and busted my butt all week. Finally, I have a chance to relax, drink a few beers and enjoy the game. But you won't give me space and the room to relax." He feels nagged and a mutual resentment builds.

One of the things that tends to help women a lot is trying to understand not only their own point of view but to get in the other person's shoes. One of the ways couples can do this is to switch roles. Stand back from being so hot under the collar and role-play with each other, assuming the other person's lines. Have a dialogue with the man expressing the views that he thinks the woman has and the woman expressing the views that she thinks the man has. If they can do that, they are in a position to better understand how the other one feels. Once there is greater appreciation for that, there is more of a foundation for negotiation.

Smart, experienced couples don't wait for NFL Sunday to arrive. They anticipate it before it happens, negotiate their needs ahead of time and trade off. "This Sunday, I'm going to watch the 49ers game and next Sunday we are going to do something else together." Or they'll structure Sunday so that at 4 p.m. she knows he is going to be watching the game. "I'm going to be watching the game but let's do something together in the morning and the afternoon before 4."

Dr. Michael Messner says discussion in social science circles about the viewing of violent sports revolves around whether it is something that helps men blow off steam or something that makes men more aggressive and prone to violence. Most of the evidence compiled by psychologists suggests the latter.

"Viewing aggressive and violent sports like boxing or football is more likely to de-sensitize men to violence and victims of violence," Messner says. "In terms of domestic violence, one of the things that is important to recognize is that when fans identify with teams, half of the fans are losing all the time. So if a man watches an aggressive, violent sport coupled with drinking some alcohol with his friends and his team loses, his aggression and frustration level both simultaneously go up. The tendency, once the game is over, to turn that aggression and frustration on someone close is what explains the fact that women's shelters always report much more activity and business on Super Bowl Sunday. In other parts of the world, during World Cup soccer, the same thing happens."

During the media hype leading up to Super Bowl XXVII in Pasadena, California in 1993, much was made of a report that Super Bowl Sunday is the busiest day of the year for women's shelters. An author of the report, Garland F. White, a sociologist at Old Dominion University, immediately claimed the report's findings were taken out of context. But many social scientists and psychologists nonetheless believe Super Bowl Sunday is a very dangerous day for women.

Some women want to learn about sports and get involved as much as possible themselves so as not to leave this as some sort of exclusive male territory. Other women do the exact opposite and on football Sundays they take shopping days with their women friends and get out.

"Rather than seeing this as something that women need to respond to," Messner says, "I think it's something that men need to think about and talk to each other about. Not necessarily that we should quit liking or watching sports together but I think we should try to understand the way it is connected to other parts of our lives. What it means to us in terms of our relationships to women. Does watching sports and the way we watch sports contribute to more supportive and intimate and peaceful relations with women? Or does it separate us more and make us more likely to be antagonistic and even violent towards women?

"Those are questions that men need to ask themselves," Messner says. "Until we do, women are going to be left trying to find ways to keep themselves safe rather than participating with us as equals."

A completely different school of thought suggests that women can never fully appreciate the game, no matter how hard they try. It's just not in their makeup.

Dr. William Beausay says that the large majority of women found at football games go there not to watch the game, but to accompany their companion. "I used to know the exact percentage of women who go because they love football -- it was about 8.6 percent," he says. Even that small number was made up of women who liked the sport for its pageantry, the atmosphere, the colors, the music and the spirit, Beausay says.

"They would never say the powerful team or an effective team, a great athletic prowess or winning. Those weren't the reasons. There were usually aesthetic reasons for women," he says.

So, according to his research, most women at football games are there because of their men. If the men didn't go, they wouldn't be found dead there.

"I don't think women are socialized in the same way as men," Dr. D. Stanley Eitzen says. "They are raised in the same type of society but they are raised to be feminine. To be feminine is to not be aggressive and not be dominant and they also don't play football. They haven't had that experience for the most part and, in fact, when it comes to football, they are on the sidelines being the supporters, cheering and all of that kind of thing while men are the doers. I think this represents a very sexist kind of society, but that is, in fact, what we are.

"Many women get into football and enjoy it, too" he says. "I don't think they have the same depth of feeling that men do because we have played it. We understand the intricacies of football and the precision that it takes to really have a play work well as well as the level of aggression. I don't know that women understand that because none of their sports in our society really are that way. They can be a little bit aggressive in field hockey and things like that but it is not the same."

Silva says he's intrigued by the way football coaches encourage their young men to develop aggression to be hitters, blockers and tacklers, giving rewards for the "best hit of the week." Best hits are bone-crushers, where the opponent who was tackled does not get up for a while. Players gets decal on their helmets for causing that.

"An ex-Denver Bronco told me that every Monday, some people had envelopes in their lockers with money in them," Silva says. "It was for extra hard hits. That's against league rules but it's just part of this macho thing. I said, don't you realize that if every team does that it increases the level of people getting hurt? He said, 'You don't think of it that way. You think of it on an individual basis and you are being rewarded.' Men have been socialized to understand this mentality; I'm not sure very many women do. In many ways women have been robbed because our work world is an aggressive, tough, rock 'em-sock 'em kind of place where men have the advantage of this kind of experience that women don't."

Men get really upset when their mates cannot identify with something that is as crucial to them as football.

"It is important if you can develop some appreciation and some knowledge for the sport," Silva says. "I don't care which way it goes, male/female, female/male. If the wife is interested in some sport, it behooves the husband to develop some interest and vice versa. Some games, I really do enjoy having my wife watch with me.

"I'll say, 'Do you know what happened right there? Do you know what that call was? Why did the team that recovered get to keep the ball?' " he explains. "Sometimes men watch and we know what is going on but our spouses don't. I find that the more I ask questions, the more knowledgeable my wife gets about the sport and the more knowledgeable she gets the more interested she is. One of the reasons a lot of women are not interested is they don't have a full understanding and appreciation. And when they ask a 'stupid' question, especially in front of your friends, they get ridiculed. What is that going to do?"

Some women gravitate to the game and meet with resistance if they get to liking it too much. They start watching it with their boyfriends, husbands or friends but find that men have a really hard time talking to them about it and taking it seriously.

"My sister told me that it took her husband's friends 10 years to accept the fact that she knew as much as they did about the Raiders," Messner says. "They did eventually learn to respect that she knows the game and she is very happy now that occasionally they will even ask for her opinion on something.

They didn't even know how to talk to a woman about those things. There is an assumption among men that women will not be interested, aren't interested and aren't knowledgeable."

That's been Larry Selvin's experience. Sort of. "Either women don't understand the rules or they don't know the players. If they know the rules and a few of the players, they're tolerable," he says.

"Actually, that goes for men or women."

Dan Jiggetts, the former Chicago Bears player turned sportscaster, enjoys talking football with women. "Most guys will seek out a woman that wants to watch a football game with them," he says. "They're very understanding. When you want to sit down and talk strategy, the women listen. They lock in. The guys say they understand, but the strategy goes over their heads. They're watching who gets knocked on their tail."

"My wife is a Cleveland Browns fan," Atlanta management consultant Mark von Dwingelo says. "When we watch games, she occasionally asks, 'Why'd that happen?' Or, 'Why'd they call that penalty?' I appreciate it. It's only annoying if the Browns are playing the Giants. If the Giants are on, she knows the game will only last three hours -- she can hold her questions. She'll say something to me and I'll say, 'Gretch, what am I doing?' And she'll say, 'Okay, I'll ask you later.'"

Copyright 1993 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!

Chapter 22. The Post-Game Report

bob@andelman.com (Bob Andelman) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 12:51:58 PST

by Bob Andelman

"I'm always interested in the sportscaster who says, 'This is going to be a screen-pass to the right' before it happens. I'm still trying to figure out how they know that."

Bill Evans
Marketing manager
Columbus, Ohio

If this book were a TV show, this would be the place we'd recap the action. Feel free to play along at home.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

So, why do men love football?

• Action. Crunching bones, banging heads and huge men flying through the air with the greatest of ease. That's what we want to see. Over and over and over again. It's not just a job, it's an adventure.

• Violence. The natural hangover from too much action. "Kill him! KILL him!" We don't want anybody to actually die on the field, but would it be so wrong to temporarily disable a few of the other team's guys? At the height of passion, a strong hit in the backfield sends us over the edge.

• Skill envy. What's the big deal? Anybody could do that! Yeah, right. In our dreams, maybe we can dodge and weave like Emmitt Smith, sideswipe a quarterback the way Santana Dotson does or throw a Hail, Mary bomb like Warren Moon, but in our waking hours we pray long and hard to be granted such skills. Being a star in business or politics doesn't end our yearning to be football heroes.

• Military correlates. In an era of American men with less battlefield experience than any previous generation, football brings us as close to being warriors as we care to be. And for our fathers and grandfathers, it takes them back to what they remember as glorious battles of right over might.

• Early socialization. Some of us are so swamped by football images when we're young boys and teens that we couldn't dislike football even if we wanted to. Not that we do.

• Community support. Our football team -- high school, college or pro -- represents who we are. The North Brunswick Township (N.J.) High School Raiders carry the pride of that community's residents on their shoulders when they clash with the much hated South Brunswick High School Vikings every Thanksgiving. It's an event that draws disparate elements of the community together for a single reason. Once a year, side-by-side, they raise a paper cup and cheer their sons as one.

• Escapism. Every weekend, Saturday and Sunday, we put aside the mundaneness of daily life and commune with men who are bigger than us, stronger and wealthier than us. We forget our problems, our families, our overdue bills, and enter an astral field where nothing matters but winning and cold beer.

• Statistics. By carefully tracking the Chicago Bears' winning percentage in games when they're down by a touchdown going into the two-minute warning, we become better people. No, really.

• Hero worship. Beyond the art of skill envy lies hero worship, the process through which we identify football players with whom we can identify. We then deify these men beyond all rational thought, putting them upon pillars of righteousness that we then chip away at until their careers go up in smoke. Gotta have heroes.

• Male bonding. Five days and six nights out of the week we'd rather be around women. But on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and Monday nights, we'll be hangin' with the fellas, eating fried foods, drinking by the pitcher, screaming language unrepeatable elsewhere and acting like idiots. That's what friendships are made of.

• It goes well with beer. And pretzels. Gotta have pretzels.

For women struggling to understand men who sacrifice their lives to football, the best advice is this: hunker down on the couch with your own bowl of pretzels, pop the top on a cold one and get educated.

Ask questions; demand answers. What exactly is the quarterback reaching for when he puts his hands under the center's rear end? Who decides who gets to catch the ball? And what the hell is the referee talking about, anyway?

Get mad when your guys screws up; celebrate when they score. (Think of each touchdown as an orgasm; your enthusiasm, however contrived, will sound more convincing.) Take cheap shots at the announcers, the coaches and the players -- it's expected. Look for some element of the game with which you can connect, even if it's just that beefy running back who looks great in tight pants. Know that it's not just whether you win or lose; it's how you watch the game.

And don't ask for the remote control until the post-game show credits are rolling.

The End.

A Report From The Couch: Introduction to Why Men Watch Football

bob@andelman.com (Bob Andelman) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 19:19:10 PST

by Bob Andelman

"It's a brutal sport; I never play it. You've got to be an idiot to play. But I love to watch."

Larry Selvin
Financial accountant,
West Roxbury, Massachusetts

My attorney is a transplanted Washington Redskins fan who roots for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers by default -- they're the only game in town. Rick Georges loves football. He's been a Bucs season-ticket holder for years, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. He drives to home games in an RV fitted with a satellite dish on the roof so he can watch pre-game shows while tailgating at Tampa Stadium. When the Bucs game is over -- by the third quarter most Sundays -- he, his wife, Julie, and their daughter Nicole repair to the RV to watch more football -- preferably a 'skins game -- while the parking lot clears out.

If the Bucs are on the road, Rick is ready at home. He's got a dish on the roof; inside, all the sports channels are locked into remote-control memory. He merrily zaps from one geosynchronous orbit to the next without getting out of his La-Z-Boy. Rick's Super Bowl parties are remembered as much for his video toys as his pouting if Washington gets creamed.

Rick was the first person to whom I posed the question: Why do men love football?

"I think it's because we're not allowed, in this female-dominated society, to act out our aggressions," he said. "Plus, I like the colors of my team."

I knew this book was going to be fun.

Why Men Love Football was written to counter the explosion of self-absorbed "Iron Belly" men's literature that suggests real men get in touch with their feelings only by walking into some remote woods, strapping on a drum and getting buck naked with a bunch of sweaty, overweight executives who left their manhood locked up in a corporate vault.

Horseshit.

Real men adorn themselves in NFL-licensed tribal colors, drive to the nearest stadium, multi-video sports bar or just park themselves on the couch. They chant -- Deee-fence! -- elbow to bent elbow with a bunch of sweaty, overweight guys who pack their manhood in their Fruit of the Looms. They know the enemy isn't within; it's the rude dog out-of-towners down on the field.

This book shares the real-life experiences of men and football, drawn from dozens of interviews in every corner of the United States, plus expert testimony by a nonpareil team of nationally recognized sport psychiatrists, psychologists and sociologists who provide color and play-by-play analysis.

While the fans -- who hang their emotions on the sleeves of the team they follow -- share intimate details of their football lives, the experts look at the individual and his motivation. They also discuss how sport reflects what goes on in our society.

"Some people say I'm too involved in football," attorney Peter Hendricks says. "Better than being addicted to the racetrack, wouldn't you say?"

Over and over I asked the question: Why do men love football?

"I think it is a metaphor for society," says Dr. D. Stanley Eitzen, a professor of sociology at Colorado State University. "Let's say you are an anthropologist and you want to go into some society and you don't understand it. You could look at the games people play as a shorthand way to understand that society. Who is playing them and who is not? Who is on the sidelines? Who is in charge? What kind of behavior are they doing? Is it violent? Is the emphasis on strategy rather than physical skills strength? Is this a male- or female-oriented society? You could see what happens at the event. Do they have a patriotic thing at the beginning or is there a prayer?"

Dr. Allen L. Sack, a professor of sociology and coordinator of the sports management program at the University of New Haven (Conn.) who played defensive end for Notre Dame during its 1966 championship season, also took the challenge.

"You find out why they think they watch football," he said. "Then you can talk to us to find out why they really do and try to decide whether we are simply arrogant and out of touch or whether we have something to contribute."

One more time: Why do men love football?

"I've never been asked that question before," Chicago Bear Report managing editor Larry Mayer said. "Except by my wife."