The Sports Ramble is the weekly sports blog of Erik Ritland. The St. Paul, Minnesota journalist and musician is the founder of Rambling On. Learn more about us on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, or our website.
While rummaging through the Rambling On archives I came across this little piece about the over-saturation of the NFL. Originally posted September 28, 2012 in the initial Sports Ramble series.
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The debate about whether or not to build a new stadium for the Vikings seems especially stupid once the season starts. A fan base this large and dedicated generates a lot of money. That it interests so many people is a big deal, except to people who don’t care about it and selfishly assume their dislike onto everyone else. As if what they do in their free time is any less superfluous.
The enormity of football makes it pretty tiresome though. Diehards will disagree but it’s totally overkill, especially if you pay attention to sports media. The total domination of football coverage doesn’t subside all season. The baseball postseason and opening of the NBA and NHL seasons are either shoved to the side or ignored completely.
Even worse, the sports media is over-saturated with NFL coverage even throughout the off-season. Combines, OTAs, training camps, the draft…the media exploits them despite the fact that they're completely pointless. It’s always important enough to interrupt the seasons of all the other sports.
There is no remedy to this situation. As long as football is the biggest sport in America this over the top coverage won’t end anytime soon. I just hope I have the patience to continue writing about it as long as the thou-…hun-…few people who want to read my sports blogs exist.
Erik Ritland is a writer and musician from St. Paul, Minnesota. His blog and podcast Rambling On features commentary on music, sports, culture, and more. He was also Lead Staff Writer for Minnesota culture blog Curious North. Support Erik's music via his Patreon account, reach him via email, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.