this post was submitted on 17 May 2025
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
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- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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Does anyone else feel like these national leagues have become just as disconnected from reality as any other hyper capitalist enterprise?
I want more hometown sports. I daydream about leagues funded by local communities, starring local talent, with smaller local crowds. Is there anyone else out there who would give much more of a shit if things were a little more close to home, reality-wise? Am I alone?
Guys getting paid literally hundreds of millions to play a sport is unrelatable. A local star making $300k and being a part of the community feels better to me. Seems like we should be able to afford a lot of those for the money we are spending.
I know next to nothing about sports or the business around them, but I know I remember summer nights with cheap hotdogs and minor league ball that seem to have evaporated as the wealthy accumulated. 🤷♂️
With pros, it's just whichever fucker can get paid enough to bring them here. I don't give a shit about their playing. I only watch because it's someone I know, so I can go congratulate them later. Otherwise, I'd much rather be playing the damn game. The highest I'll go is high school level sports. Those kids are still a part of my community. I know their parents, I probably know them.
Maybe, maaaaaybe, I'd watch other local adults play, but only if they're my friends. It would be much better to just have more participation in adult leagues within the community. I'd play a thousand times against others in my area, getting my ass kicked if the good fellas join together, before I'd watch a game with people I don't know.
That's just a byproduct of how popular and in demand sports are for people to consume.
And here's the kicker. For their worth, athletes are still underpaid for what they bring in the owners.
But that's by definition true of any employee under capitalism, isn't it?
Or are you saying that the percentage of the value they bring their owners that they see in pay is significantly lower than it is for other types of workers?
It's significantly lower than other types of workers.
There are less than 1700 players in the NFL for all the teams. The NFLs revenue for last year was 24 billion dollars.
Total salaries for the NFL is like 5.x billion dollars, and in addition to that, the players are the sole revenue generating force in the league.
So yeah, even at their insane salaries they're still underpaid!
Is any of the broadcast stuff done by them, or is 100% of that done by other companies?
Refs are absolutely essential to a sporting league. As are coaches. Other positions are certainly important, but I think those I've named are essential enough to the direct revenue generation to merit a mention
Total total salaries, or total player salaries? Because if it's the former, that can only make your claim stronger. If it's the latter, well, it's hard to say. One would have to figure out roughly how much they make to see the NFL's overall salary costs and compare it to other businesses.
That said, the stats you've given mean about 20% of revenue goes to salary. This random website which happens to be the first to come up when I search for "what percentage of business's revenue are spent on salary" suggests 20% is pretty much par for the course. That would seem to imply that footballers in the NFL are being ripped off roughly equal to the average worker, depending on the factors in the previous paragraph.
Are people going to watch the refs? They sure as hell aren't getting paid the big bucks, most of them do it part time.
Coaches make money, but again, it's a fraction of total revenue.
I find it funny you're literally attacking 'the workers' in this case, just because it's athletes and not traditional workers.
I find it funny that you can take my attempt to engage in good-faith conversation and twist it in such a lazy and poorly-informed way.
And by "funny", I mean disappointing. Be better.
Yeah; I've had that thought a lot the last few years. Especially where the team is based around people from the area so your team are actually representative of who you're cheering for.
I'm not remotely social enough to make the connections to start anything like that, though.
There are still lots of minor leagues and they still serve cheap hotdogs tbh
The western new york community is just a large scale hometown community. Prolly where Buffalo got the name city of neighbors. I get what you are saying but I dont watch many national sports coverage media, im just looking for a source for news breaks from people like Rappaport, amd Schefter. As for publications i generally stick to The Athletic and our local WGR550. Im definitely not interested in watching any of the ESPN shows for the same reasons I bathing you outlined.