Q: Has any movie ever predicted the future of sports better than BASEketball did, in 1998? Ridiculous end zone celebrations, stadiums named after brands, teams jumping cities for money. I remember watching it thinking it was outlandish to name a stadium after Trojan or Tampax. Now I could see it.
-Aaron, Denver
SG: Who knew Trey Parker and Matt Stone would be the George Orwells of pro sports?
No one, because they're not. Parker and Stone were commenting on contemporary trends in professional sports. Example: if you were as true-blue a Pats fan as you claim to be, you'd remember that that from 1970-1982, they played in SCHAEFER stadium.
With regards to touchdown celebrations: team celebrations were banned 14 years before BASEketball came out, the NFL has since banned players from using props, and recently gave Wes Welker a $20,000 fine for making a snow angel after a touchdown. So yeah, those TD celebrations are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of control.
Teams leaving cities for money? That never happened before BASEketball.
I want to see which league will cave first and sell its championship game or series to a sponsor. You know it's coming.
Fuckkkkkkk. I'm going to call my friends on my NEXTEL CUP phone and warn them. Shit, I'm so depressed that I might go back to smoking WINSTON CUP cigarettes. What a BUSCH league move this would be by American sports leagues.
Would you ever have guessed we'd be saying the "Allstate Sugar Bowl"?
Only if you'd been to one of the past 50 Buick Opens.
This could be one more thing Gary Bettman screws up. We may be headed for the Levitra Stanley Cup Final.
VIAGRA!
Thank you for skewering this...considering at the time of the movie, the Sugar Bowl was already being called the "Nokia Sugar Bowl".
ReplyDeleteParker and Stone may be ahead of their time with regards to certain things, but BASEketball was not one of them. Rather, as you said, it properly satirized the state of sports at the time of its release.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone also didn't write Baseketball.
ReplyDeleteThe Zucker Brothers did.
Yet another fact Bill gets wrong here.