This. Until the games stop being so lucrative, there's no reason to care.
It's unlikely viewership drops for football or March Madness.
Until we just give up on watching there's no reason for them to care. And I don't know about you guys but it's hard for me to just quit watching on Saturdays and I'll likely be right back in the Spring watching Fingers videos anxiously.
I don't know. I can feel a growing disinterest creeping in these days. I'm not much interested in supporting people who are here today and gone the next. People who aren't part of Tennessee, or want to be a part of Tennessee, but are just there for a cup of coffee. Part of why I don't care at all for pro sports. I know they're just there for the paycheck. Especially the NBA and the NFL. I know at the end of the day, they're all going home rich and satisfied whether or not they win or lose.
I know other people aren't that way. I realize that. I just don't understand it though. When it was cheering on kids who came to Knoxville, who became part of the town, who bled even just a little orange, that's where I've always been. That's what I supported. It's harder to find or feel that anymore.
My close circle of lifelong Tennessee fan friends, all of us in our thirties, forties, and fifties? We all sound about the same when we talk about this. We joke about the "end is coming," but we also know it's not quite a joke. We've made it a point over the last few years to go to away games we wanted to, see stadiums we always wanted to see, because we want to do it now, before things change for good.
And I'm not asking people to act differently, either. I'm not demanding it change, because I know it won't. I just don't think I'm going to invest as heavily once it becomes the mini-pro whatever it's been changing into.
