200 Years; Sports as Spectacle

from communication center the university of texas at austin this is two hundred years in the year nineteen seventy six the american republic celebrates its two hundredth anniversary as a part of the us bicentennial program at the university of texas at austin two hundred years explores the past present and future dynamics of history's longest living democratic society this as rex we're for two hundred years this week we will be talking about the spectacle of sports in america with us from college professor brahma at the university of texas at austin the moby omar director of intercollegiate athletics for women of duty and armed robeson ut austin graduate student and teaching assistant at american studies it has been estimated that during a single two hour period on january eighteenth more americans watched the super bowl game and watched the first landing on the moon and this brings up the question are americans unique in the

world or in the history of the human race unique and they're loaf of the spectacle of sports the starwood don't know i don't i don't think that americans are unique in the love of the spectacle of sports but where americans are unique is perhaps in the amount of time money energy in organizational talent that they do vote to sports i disagree with don that the thing that fascinates me about the sports spectacle is that we we as a race that built in the spectacle nature by separating sport out from the public or anything else and actually take in and out of reality by defining boundaries and separating players from all other people would actually turn out to be spectators so we made an unusual we made it unique in a sense that you're exhibiting the perfection of human beings what could be more interesting so it's inherently i think a spectacle from the standpoint of the drama just as well i think i could pick up where really gotten to one for alicia them to

speculate that there is a game like football laden who are symbolic event and it therefore sure sure very powerful people practitioner culture the girl that much about the interception for an enormous population two hundred and three who understood given how to bring people together it's wrong and i'm really interested when he has to save the sport as has the right especially football i think it's a perfect perfect example of a mass killing me right where i hear you have power a series of players graduate and age a freshman pain or a return to taming the older players with a series of elders the coaches and what have you and they all come out and the parents and our peer group acknowledges there are sentenced to a certain rank and in telling what headley so there were definite are eight it's really you wanted to make an

anthropological analogy well today though other women can be spectators were as in greece where we had this kind of structure of the female will be put to death unthinkable i've invested a ticket to are going forward and what is needed how many women were able to work in that program maybe around the edges of something that the food television capabilities that it meant that women an actual part of the way that well not out not a participant that which is the crucial distinction there appendages of the spectacle they need to be brought in because it's television and because the audience will be larger and as women have greater and greater control over their their consumer potential things of that sort it's very important to it get them in as part of the audience but how important it is and isn't really terry bradshaw the key key manner and in fact aren't the lineman loesser and there's a

whole hierarchy he which i think done the women were attractive appendages if you look at the whole super bowl coverage there is a fashion show prior to the interview with the winds prior to be aware and more complaints about the fashion show and crew other wrong of behavior that i find her an injunction even that you think that when you're going down to delay those were the game itself and the pictures from the game delay in a symbolic of them you have a game but you have three audience that also the spectators you call because of looking at it no the ordeal they really do not carry out kind of massive drop you off yes definitely singing i'm a florida women participating in this event because a

symbolic of the culture has just didn't exactly the reason that women are finding a place in the same kind of display well i think you're right to get there there's only twenty two players and there's hundreds of thousands of spectators case a suitable million spectators but what kind of message do they get from being spectators of such an event what values are internalized from watching this and us or as a professor of drama with perhaps you should feel disappointed in in the sense that it really sport i think it's too large of the melodrama and observers there's no citizen controllers what values are we getting from football i think we all we like football we enjoy watching it and probably enjoyed playing but as a as a spectacle of our culture i think it's very disturbing facets wouldn't that i i disagree because i think it's especially effective television has has brought on a new line area to agree on a spectator when you talk about the slow motion

the view when things are starting to do by i'm putting movement in the context of music and poetry especially football to make the strength movement beauty and the spectators an additional out what were the spectator before could sit and duplicate ninth minute form national movements of the players can feel emotional feelings of players now they have an aesthetic character that is really when you look at the new un facility ones in terms of the way we see an un superdome they're usually really instant replays for the spectator at the game site that takes the best of the world you can go to the game and watch television and i would like to believe that's true and i think that there's a beautiful catcher has a certain aesthetic to witness this very pleasing but unfortunately what what happens most of the time as we're watching one fella put another fellow runners can tesla car instant replay is showing us and that's

sends me that that's baby emphasis and our spectacle now an obvious that except no matter how much you have an intellectual heart of this game that is a very demanding job i think it depends on how one in all the game a half depending on how we do that because of it as a spectator they're the very simplest level i think you'd your dish at you could see the smashing cars in revenue you derive from that was somebody or other characters giving up characters will have known the flu but turn i think that football is a very complicated event in when you get down to the justice of this kind of twenty two people making simultaneous land movement it does becomes an enormously complicated affair so it seems to me the intellectual aspects of football as for that for those who are really tried to play the game is playing a lot of books and working out the plotting of the place so the day i know i found myself

many times when there were there aren't and that's kind of track of the different kinds of late to see the bright professional football particularly because there are so many more kinds of ways of their corporate average sale money have different plans or vocal call so that in a sense that i think there are there must be thousands of people in any particular game or watching it on the floor you don't think the primary of benefit it's a good emotional catharsis the same time are omens about watching on the surface of the coliseum yes of the city of catharsis return us from the eighteen section was thank you you belong here section at the struck me that the whether anybody interest in dallas fire none of the game in the midwest are you in the west he might be for dallas

everybody nice was obviously for when that you've mentioned a lago the forgivable no syria major were scheduled at eight additional flights on er into miami and are to make the game on its objectives are actually distributed lemony the rest of the more so in a country so that the new influx of dozens of the men in his terrific they estimate of forty million dollars with a group of thirty one surprise visit on the circuit they get you don't believe in evidence one event is two or even generate as much as two hundred and fifteen and a quarter billion ms elise we see this all the time we see the pittsburgh steelers defensive from four on the cover of time magazine that's the major story for our country in a week and go

over and over again seventy five million people watched the game is a national spectacle the question is is it isn't a sign of health in our society as it is a good thing or do we need more participants less lets spectators what should be the attitude of spectators jeered spectators go home and go out and play football on the street after the game is that the emotion that that maybe they should get from watching the super bowl with it that is the thing that's very healthy but i i wonder some people suffer this is just to say that they think of the skin was quite emotional of some auditions that they cut her career at the second that don't need so that and so the number of cases that were weeping and crying away your tears and people are just exploded it's a crucial questions to other night

that contributes to help the society or it's taking away from the british finance aspect of sports is a feel is completely separate from our racial or does occasionally spend it cost eighty billion dollars a year over racial pursuits and this gear the good tennis player they are the people who are also spectators at a particular point in time i'm an avid participant and i too suspect a while i feel like there are a few people like my sister or only spectators who called me up and tears that the trading of their excessive sanderson from the rangers or what have you some are worried that i think we do both i think both are aren't necessarily the spectacle is a cultural about something that has been weathered some noise will be with this sort of disturbing thing about to volunteer for pl the apparel very quickly the structure couple of society this is a team event and you accomplish things by committees and

teams where as many other kinds of sports are individual and colored nineteenth century romanticism where a subject erik transported to say one individual birds around or make it a dump track and that did not require payments that the record one hand commanders into actual concentration and the political power to how you think the lens wants preventive wars theme about that tension rooted why i'm always amazed at the people who separate and individual team sports people and say they're inherently different any support any team sport design one on one situations you you are really the individual player if your play works it's one on one or a zero on what i think we lose sight of that sometime river lynn swann made they've made his approval rate in a deliberate washington hadn't covered to two of the three times how women are

going to have to develop some kind of game that will be symbolic in a society that democrats wouldn't choose me a position for all that what is here think at this point their eyes changes sense that women are playing the same sport that i'm in a play it's a good question and nine and i see your point where here in the mail has developed a game which depends primarily on strings been reaction time and obviously the biological differences between the sexes to win that type of the game as easily do women participating as men i guess i take very activist feminist view right now until i see that training does not produce women that can compete and spence bean reaction type reaction time games as long as are within the same sex then emigrated to suggest that there should be other kinds of games because when you look at sport in the abstract it's nothing more than propelling an asterisk they swear that nasa be able walk or one's body or whatever so it has its essence and

strength but i think it's an important point to think about is whether or not we're going to allow other trend to continue now where strength speed reaction time or emphasized over the intellectual aspects of the games that when you see an ice hockey game become on of brutality affair a strength of air as opposed to i'm emphasizing skilled coronation in play and that becomes a problem that's enhanced officials not quite getting some of them have become the age where women could fit in and a very equal when their offensive as the imagination of the sandwich though which the women one who thinks the future no i dont think battles between the sexes are going to you know i went and signed the commanders dexterity and they would lose work because of the tremendous capability of all one person that aspired to become part of and i think it's a variety of

sports we have not seen that would make the government isn't over here in terms of a display by women think fortunately quite awhile more to build up because we don't have enough athletes to put together the amount of things we need and on a professional level to make that leap worthwhile to go watch weakening put together one good women's basketball team we can't develop exterior and a basketball power the world than that in men's basketball so that's a great point because what is that suggest about the future potential growth in women's athletics it's had some limited america does best basketball and we play it i think because also it's a team game which americans excel and for the reasons that that you mention mark my words give us three years maybe four he'll say i'm stating russians signed our back pocket for the first time over the holiday season you're watching near basketball players near his the place for vets complement women now and i have never seen two woman on the same court able to dunk a basketball and i saw a woman who

is five foot ten to reverse dark knight is well true bolz weber porous sports because we have an offensive and a planned offensive the mentality that we had were so preoccupied with the beauty of the law that's on the challenge of office that were not disciplined enough to be defensive good defensive teams that killed a symbolic blow it's gonna be advantageous for some basketballs or because the basketball from around a lot more quickly than volleyball we mentioned while ago television in this obviously is an integral part of the sports scene today because it enables anyone to become a spectator you feel that it is primarily responsible for american sports success as a spectacle today i don't think so i think it's an m international spectacle it's made

all parts of the country feel part of the spectacle but doubt spectacle was here in the twenties in a time of babe ruth for example the house that ruth built earlier periods and actually one of the effects of television has been to wipe out the minor spectacles and elevate the major one so that we we don't have my family baseball in any degree where we're punishing gulf that would've been built into major coalition activities and the outgoing or they have to go well in the way that minors for swimming swimming olympic ski skiing and i see the other miners force selling of individually independent spirit no it i agree that what i was referring to was the minor leagues the sort of grassroots experience but in fact television has brought to our attention the sports which we didn't have experience with and got here in texas we have this this hockey which in part as explained by the axis of television to two people myself to

see the game of hockey think television made the spectators are more sophisticated i'm willing to use without educated we get when i focus on particular positions and reclaim particular place of interest wondered why the area had to watch second great performances which most minor leagues are why should you have to do that when you can see the best but what if you are a spectator yes but maybe this isn't the point that i feel if you're getting at is that these are local more local events that the polling is something that's localized and that you belong to you belong to something on a different level as pretty hard to belong to this national heroes where your name is sally won't have your name but he has to say butler you can go beyond our own a baseball diamond because he's very you've made it work

in the story is a good game about gamer on it was great and and it was the entertainment and many small communities throughout america was the old minor league ballgame where you know you go and pay a dollar in and see the game and that was a very important ritual in these communities and to sustain it was a very sustaining kind of thing i can see whether that begins here are like i like your idea of focusing and because i think football player moises they find a football play is a just like a stage play and has exactly the same quarters as you know that this government that has a dramatic action to devise a game that the vote could be used to be fifty sixty engine of local band was the same as you have in an estate and that consequently by making loans more available to television to another kind of focus and we do see these things for the first time when we know a

great deal more about more people not far more about gay marriage you know another set of qualities of it into a movement in art form two names for his slow motion television coverage of the sport has done more for dance and given us an appreciation of the dancers intently an la basin circuit i wonder how many people are working every seventy eighty percent don't feel contact with a contact game of our global compact cambridge england and i kept for harry connick a point where people live they established as valid quote here's a visual spectacle and never feel like to make a reproduction of wooden and displayed in the next hundred years i'm terry gross the rule of law i

think we're heading in there that direction the more and more time devoted toward the sport spectators spectacle and as we living in an ever increasingly so called the human eye society or an industrial society or however you want to call it the rules or will be taken in an ever more important role people argue for the thirty five hour thirty two hour work week we have that kind of work week has broad support is going to have to be larger and i think that the sports spectacle is here to stay and i think it probably will be more international of anything the country's instead of graffiti i don't know what that means i don't think that we can write off any game but i think what the future of employee won every game has been my plaque i think that they're gonna be symbolic and i wish every game and the tension over to individual to revert to it independent individualists romantic nineteenth century really change our

games do different things the longer a mishmash of masculine world of the twentieth century corporation team play that kind of thing and probably for quite a while but today we hope that you've taken perhaps a little different viewpoint of sport and at both as a spectator on as a participant our panelists included from college professor brahma the rest of texas at austin bunn a look beyond director of intercollegiate athletics for women of duty and armed robeson you to graduate student and teaching assistant and american studies this is rex we're for two hundred years two hundred years as part of the united states bicentennial program at the university of texas austin is a continuing series of weekly conversations about the past present and future dynamics of history's longest living democratic society two hundred years is produced by communication

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