Orwell was referring to the game of soccer of course, but one could easily be forgiven for assuming that he was actually anticipating the gladiatorial spectacle that is today's American football. After all, the quote is from Orwell's dystopian novel 1984 that predicted a future of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance, and public manipulation, all of which have come to pass. And, speaking of public manipulation, the three-headed hydra of NFL executives, lawyers, and team owners have no peer in that department. Politicians are woefully ill-equipped to negotiate deals with the NFL, as evidenced by the incredibly stupid stadium deals municipalities routinely enter into with teams.
The League is now a mere five days away from playing the greatest single game on the American sports landscape, which is of course the Superbowl. The buildup to the big game began weeks ago, and with the announcement yesterday that pop star Lady Gaga will sing the National Anthem, all of the pieces are in place. A few discordant notes are floating around, but nothing that will detract from the shock and awe of Superbowl Sunday.
Even as the playoffs that would determine the two teams that would face off in the Superbowl were still unfolding, the St. Louis Rams announced that they would be breaking their lease and moving back to Los Angeles, the city that they abandoned two decades ago. The lease that the Rams signed with the city of St. Louis contains something called a state-of-the-art clause. What that essentially means is that the team can break their lease if the stadium in which they play is not maintained to insure that it remains in the "first tier" of NFL stadiums. In practical terms, that would have required the city of St. Louis to spend $700 million to upgrade a stadium that only cost $280 million to build 17 years ago.
The city of St. Louis is struggling economically, and could surely find better uses for the money it would have cost to keep the Rams. Still, they scrambled to come up with plan that would have satisfied the ownership in the form of a new $1.1 billion stadium proposal. The Rams' dismissed it out of hand, while giving the distinct impression that nothing St. Louis did would be enough to convince them to stay. The decision to move the team back to LA had very likely already been arrived at, and all that remained was to get the NFL to bless the relocation. And it was foregone conclusion that they would indeed receive that blessing.
The League is now a mere five days away from playing the greatest single game on the American sports landscape, which is of course the Superbowl. The buildup to the big game began weeks ago, and with the announcement yesterday that pop star Lady Gaga will sing the National Anthem, all of the pieces are in place. A few discordant notes are floating around, but nothing that will detract from the shock and awe of Superbowl Sunday.
Even as the playoffs that would determine the two teams that would face off in the Superbowl were still unfolding, the St. Louis Rams announced that they would be breaking their lease and moving back to Los Angeles, the city that they abandoned two decades ago. The lease that the Rams signed with the city of St. Louis contains something called a state-of-the-art clause. What that essentially means is that the team can break their lease if the stadium in which they play is not maintained to insure that it remains in the "first tier" of NFL stadiums. In practical terms, that would have required the city of St. Louis to spend $700 million to upgrade a stadium that only cost $280 million to build 17 years ago.
The city of St. Louis is struggling economically, and could surely find better uses for the money it would have cost to keep the Rams. Still, they scrambled to come up with plan that would have satisfied the ownership in the form of a new $1.1 billion stadium proposal. The Rams' dismissed it out of hand, while giving the distinct impression that nothing St. Louis did would be enough to convince them to stay. The decision to move the team back to LA had very likely already been arrived at, and all that remained was to get the NFL to bless the relocation. And it was foregone conclusion that they would indeed receive that blessing.
