Sports dollars better spent at home than on corporate pro teams
On Monday, I received some devastating news. It was announced that my beloved Montreal Canadiens will be incorporating a Royal Bank of Canada logo onto their iconic bleu, blanc et rouge jerseys, for the upcoming NHL season. For more than 100 years the Sainte Flanelle (Holy Sweater) has remained virtually the same, until now.
The reason for this change to the jersey is pure greed. Like most Canadian NHL teams, the Habs are among the most profitable in the league. The team’s owner, Geoff Molson, is a billionaire and a member of one of Canada’s wealthiest families. The organization does not need the extra sponsorship dollars, but is taking them anyway at the cost of tarnishing one of sport’s most sacred uniforms.
At the end of the day, major league sports are a business. And the teams we cheer for are corporations operated by the ultra-wealthy who profit from our fandom. Ignorance is bliss when it comes to sports fandom. Fans generally try to convince themselves their team is playing for some more noble cause, whether it be for city or province, past great players, traditions, the perceived “classiness” of the organization, etc.
Over the last couple decades, professional sports have been drifting further away from this feel of a noble cause and year after year is getting a more corporate sheen. From outrageous ticket and concession prices, to the constant bombardment of advertisements.
For me, placing advertisements on the jersey is the last straw for my Habs and NHL fandom. The line has been crossed where it no longer feels like I’m cheering for a team, but rather cheering for a multi-billion-dollar corporation that would be no different from cheering for massive companies like Amazon, Walmart or McDonald’s.
I know I’m not the only one who has become incredibly disillusioned with pro sports. For sports junkies turning their back on pro sports fandom, there are still ways to get your sports fix. Medicine Hat is blessed with a wide array of quality sporting events: junior, AAA and AA hockey, high school football and basketball, rodeo, Mavericks and Monarchs baseball, MHC Rattlers, motorsports, etc. Just as it’s considered good practice to support local businesses rather than large corporations, we can apply the same logic to supporting local sports.
For the disillusioned sports fan, rather than investing our time, money and energy into billion-dollar sports leagues that take their fans for granted, we can keep those resources within our community. It matters a lot more to a Cubs, Mohawks or Mavericks player when you show up to one of their games than it does to your favourite NHL player when you drop $200 on his jersey.