Football changes chronicled in media

Every year about this time, it gets pretty thin on the sports beat.
No, seriously, there’s just not a ton going on.
Even being the massive baseball fan I am, this is the worst week of the year for me—THERE’S ZERO SPORTS GOING ON IN THE WORLD!!!
So naturally around this time, I always tend to go through and revisit football movies and shows to get me geared up for kickoff (by the way, we actually have football this month with the annual Hall of Fame preseason game on July 31).
I got to thinking and looking back through some of the best movies and there’s always a laundry list I revisit every year.
The thought I had was looking back at these movies and documentaries—even with recent releases through the last 10 years or so—shows just how much the landscape of sports have changed.
Starting with one of the all-time best sports movies ever made, Remember the Titans, chronicled the battle of segregation and racism in the 1970s in Virginia.
From there, I always have to watch We are Marshall, which visits the tragic plane crash of the 1970 Marshall Thundering Herd.
Throw in the Waterboy, Any Given Sunday, and the Replacements—there’s always something to watch to get excited about the upcoming kickoff of the new season.
A couple of shows I like re-watching are Friday Night Lights, which particularly hits home with high school football in the state of Texas, and lastly, I always have to re-watch the documentary series Last Chance U.
Spending what little down time I have, watching all these movies and shows really put into perspective just how much the game has changed.
Sports, football in particular, I feel has become a shell of what once made it so great. Oh, sure, there’s raucous crowds on Saturdays that line stadiums throughout the nation.
I personally set up three TVs and make tailgate food all day long.
Football itself isn’t going away anytime soon.
But the rise of NIL and added influx of the almighty greenback has lessened the quality of the beloved sport.
Take for example the NIL impact— the biggest brands in college football have the unfettered payrolls to buy the best players on the market.
Ohio State spent roughly $20 million last year to build its roster and that paid dividends as the Buckeyes rolled through the first-ever College Football Playoff to win the national title.
That sounds great and all, but not every school in the nation is capable of building a roster with that kind of money bankrolling the talent.
While Year 2 of the College Football Playoff is sure to bring about plenty of changes and answer more questions, it seems like current structure is built to ensure the biggest brands in football stay at the top of the standings.
But this goes beyond NIL’s impact on sports.
Look at what advertising dollars has done to the game.
You can’t look at a field without seeing a dozen different brand logos littered among the field, the players jerseys, etc.
Even the bowl game situation has gotten out of hand, with a total of 41 bowls being played this year.
That’s insane!
Speaking of bowls, they’ve become a shell of what they once were with players opting out of “meaningless games” to avoid injury and prepare for professional careers.
I say all this because to me, the game has changed.
It’s no longer a team-driven sport.
Everything has become so individualized and it’s just become a hard change to adapt to as a fan.
College fans even have a hard time staying fans of their favorite teams because of the amount of roster turnover from year-to-year.
I think football, especially at the collegiate level, is headed for a hard reset and I think it’s coming much sooner than later.
There’s going to be significant changes made to address the Wild West frenzy of what the NIL has done.
But for now, I’ll keep revisiting some of those old shows and movies to get me ready for the upcoming kickoff—even if the game has changed from what made me fall in love with the sport to begin with.
Chris Siers is sports editor of the Marshall County Post. Email him at csiers@bedfordcountypost.com.