American professional sports need genuine passion
I realized this at the Clippers game I went to about a week ago. As I saw the cheerleaders getting onto the floor timeout after timeout and putting on a “show” for the fans. Even when the game is going on, the fans are relatively quiet and I even had a girl sitting in front of me starting to get irritated at my yelling and such. It’s a sports game, not a movie! is what I what I wanted to tell her.
I follow the English Premier League and have been for quite a number of years now (Dating back to the mid 90′s is how far my memory goes) and they don’t have any cheerleaders nor big screens telling them to make some noise. They have genuine passion for the game and come up with songs and chants and do not stop yelling for the whole game. If you turn off the commentary, you will hear the roar of the crowd, not silence (like most American sports) I am sure there are exceptions to this rule and I think that I am only picking at the NBA and NHL as I have only attended those matches. Even the MLS is fairly quiet but you do get fans singing and chanting.
Is there no passion for the game? Is it mere entertainment for us? Is it a cultural thing? What do you think?
I went to a NFL game last year & it wasn’t quiet. There were some suspenseful moments where we were looking on waiting to see what would happen, but for the most part there was cheering & booing (for the other team & bad ref calls). Haven’t been to any of the other sports you mentioned, so no clue.
As far as the cheerleader thing, I’ve always seen them as pointless. Fans don’t need someone to tell them to cheer, they do it automatically. That’s my take on it at least.
I agree with Anahid. The only purpose of cheerleaders is to provide eye-candy so the men don’t get bored of the game between plays.
As far as the noise produced at sporting events in various cultures… I have no idea. I haven’t been exposed to many American sports, much less those of other countries.
Yeah, I always wonder if cheerleaders actually like what they are doing. Like the whole idea of having thousands of men be staring at you as you are dressed openly and dancing for them seems quite weird to me.
I understand when they try to get the fans involved with games and stuff at half time, that’s cool. But for example, when I went to a hockey game, cheerleaders dresses in mini-skirts and open shirts were skating on the ice with shovels in order to pick up extra ice. I was like come on, that’s a little too much.
It does make you wonder, doesn’t it? It also makes you wonder what must be going on in a woman’s head for her to want to do that for a living. Maybe it’s similar to what a woman must be thinking in order to become a prostitute.
Just some thoughts, lol. I don’t want to get too provocative on someone else’s blog.