New School Now Rules Where Old School Used To

I'm bradley and it's my job to keep you from being the sucker at the table. 

This one's gonna make you take a deep breath. It did for me. But if you examine when the four major sports actually began to become organized sports, you're talking 19th century.

Baseball, football, hockey, basketball. All 19th century creations. And, though there were some tweaks here and there in each sport, most stayed pretty much the same.  

What the hell has all this to do with you? Simple. It explains a lot about the current landscape and where sports are going, both as a competitive product and as a business.

Relax, I'm not going to bore you with statistics. But it's plain to see - women's sports are the new driving force behind the sports industry. Women's basketball, professional hockey, soccer,  softball, and no - I'm NOT going to include the X League formerly known as the Lingerie Football Leisure as legitimate women's football. However, do NOT discount the surge in flag football, as an up and coming new generation of contact free, safe football with the full financial blessing of the NFL .

As old school fans, we balk every time there's a change to our games. Younger fans are bored with baseball, so new rules are created to speed the game up. Or,  the Savannah Bananas come into being, take baseball and mash it up into something where rules are, ahem, optional at best. Football is minimizing its physical nature, so that critical injuries don't turn young fans away - even though big hits are what everyone comes to see. Even hockey made a few concessions a few years ago to opening up the game, and now, you could go 10 minutes of nonstop action without a timeout or whistle - no other major sport can claim that. 

The sports we knew are changing and adapting. They have to. It's like watching your favorite supermodel get older, looking less and less like the one from that old Sports Illustrated cover you still have tucked away in your office somewhere.  Same with sports - laughing at the idea of Professional Women's Hockey? Don't laugh too hard - young girls dig the empowerment. Ditto the WNBA - critics like me scream it couldn't survive without NBA financing. Probably true for now - but not forever. And women's soccer, while not competitive with men, still draws crowds and new fans to the game. 

They all get it - there's a new generation of eyeballs and wallets out there. And they better spend time adapting - or they'll end up like the guy who insisted on selling buggy whips, when that horseless carriage thing was taking over the streets.

It may take time - and I can't address the idea that sports might not just price themselves out of existence. I don't know what a ticket to a WNBA or women's hockey league game costs - there may a time, sooner rather than later, when the average sports fan feels 50 bucks is over the top for two hours of entertainment. 

But for now, the sports we grew up with, are being changed more and more, like the story you tell your girl about how you were really working late instead of being out at a sports bar with the guys. We may throw a hissy fit or two about it, but once you're done complaining, you have to accept times change, and the games we love change with them. 

There was a time the forward pass was illegal in football. There was once no jump shot or 24 second clock in basketball. Baseball only played day games until night  games became viable. Things change - we just don't like it very much when they do. 

So if you love old school, jump on You Tube and find dozens of games, highlights and documentaries of times that were.  Or just sneak out that old Sports Illustrated cover and gaze at it, then remember what it was like when the sports world catered to you, when YOU were the eyeballs and wallets they were after.

I'm bradley and I'm here to keep you from being the sucker at the table.