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Volume XXX

The arguments between tradition and modernity are always fiery no matter the context. Whether in business, or governance, or media, or any other of the facets of our everyday lives, change is often taken like a bitter emetic trying to purge the soul out of an operation. The same holds true with sports on an even more polarized basis. Because sports are our real-life fantasy worlds where overgrown boys and girls compete for our entertainment and anticipation, any attempt to subvert rules both written and unwritten bring little but pain and ostracism for the transgressor.  

WILDFIRE IN THE BULLRING

This shunning instinct seems to hold true amongst those in the bullfighting profession concerning Joselito Ortega, a matador in Spain who recently announced that he will be carrying advertising on his cape. The simple corporate embellishment of the cape was an indiscretion which was enough to inflame the ire of the sport’s seminal figures. But the product which he decided to carry as his sponsor -- an energy drink marketed to the homosexual club scene throughout Spain with the rather blunt moniker Gay Up.  

I have never had any problem with any gay or lesbian in my encounters, but for some deep-rooted prejudices are too hard to kick. In a sport where machismo is king, the double indiscretion of desecrating the cape with advertising and (via what is being advertised) openly inviting the gay community to the arena is tantamount to sedition. For some, such as bullfighting critic Juan Belmonte of Canal Sur in Seville , the advertisement itself “is like prostituting the cape.” For others, the problem seems not so much to be the advertising itself but what is specifically being advertised.  

But no matter the product on the cape, the Pandora’s Box has been opened. “It is a matter of changing what is normal, or usual, within this world that seem so untouchable,” Ortega said after the sponsorship was announced. For a fighter who in three years has been gored seven times and is just a bull’s horn away from a premature death, there is a finite window of opportunity to reap financial rewards for his efforts. Just like a football player one hit away from permanent disability, Ortega has recognized rightly that the money will soon enough fade away along with the roar of the crowd.  

Change is always a hard thing to face, but we cannot automatically cast aside those who would fight for what they know to be in their best interests. Ortega did exactly what so many soccer teams have done over the years on their jerseys, what every sports team does in their stadiums with the billboards on every available surface and naming rights for once-venerable arenas of competition. Every sport is steeped in its traditions, but inevitably the playing field changes as new generations and innovations come along. If anything, this looks like a move long overdue for bullfighting. Back in 1973, The Free-Lance Star reported that the sport had suffered a 15-20 percent decrease in box office receipts in the past decade throughout Spain . Just when an influx of money and exposure could have opened up new media for the sport, people were turning away due to a tightening economy. The same thing happened in the late eighties, as the New York Times noted. Those, too, were difficult times. And bullfighting now suffers the same crisis again as the global financial structure teeters on wobbly foundations. So does the pattern sound familiar?  

Revenue streams are available throughout the world. The Chinese, for instance, have an insatiable lust for the bullring. They regularly view key broadcasted fights via satellite and internet in the millions, and Shanghai recently hosted its first fight. The industry still holds a formidable place in Spanish culture, but a new global era has struck sport in general, and a niche market is always there. Capitalizing on those markets is not merely reasonable but essential if a sport is to stay alive. What Ortega has done is controversial but necessary. The fact that he made the move with a company touting a drink for the gay community was risky, but a journeyman fighter has to find what he can to sustain his quest for sport. And say what you will about the violence inherent in the death of a creature, but both the bull and the man enticing him are athletes in their prime stalking one another. The bull can just as easily gore the fighter as the fighter can plunge the blade swiftly, nobly, cleanly through the animal’s neck and providing it a quick and respectful death.  

What Ortega has done cuts to the core of everything around which our lives are forced to revolve in a workaday society: finances. so too can Ortega or any other athlete expect in this day and age to live on the paycheck that will necessarily come from the promoter or the team or the event sponsor. Not every athlete gets to live the superstar life, and any sponsorship cannot be laughed off. Perhaps one day the Spanish and those for whom the reenactment and continuation of a long-upheld tradition will come to recognize Joselito Ortega as their own Curt Flood, their own Ted Lindsay, their own Billie Jean King... the guy who allowed the tradition to live on and for the athletes who partake in staring down bulls to be able to live on their efforts sensibly.  

AS ONE FADES, ANOTHER EMERGES

That payment doesn’t last forever, after all. Just ask Kimi Raikkonen, the 2007 Formula 1 world champion who finds himself without a team at the end of the year. Not even thirty years old, Raikkonen has had sputtering results with the Scuderi Ferrari team and has been cast aside in favor of the man he unseated after a two-year run atop the standings in 2007, Spanish driver Fernando Alonso. Beginning in the 2010 season, Alonso will be driving with his fourth team in an eight-year career. Raikkonen, who had been committed to the Ferrari team for his entire career, now finds himself a 29-year-old free agent.  

But at least he’s had the chance to profit from doing what he loves. Raikkonen, after all, is the world’s second-richest athlete behind only Tiger Woods. He could retire at thirty and live an enchanted life free from worry. Everyone would love to get paid for their efforts like Raikkonen has been during his outstanding career. The love for something develops naturally, unforced by such desires; but if aptitude allows, the desire to test oneself on a larger and larger scale becomes inevitable. But first that flame of fun-filled passion for a sport -- as recreation and as competition -- must be fanned. And I’ve stumbled on to a sport with which I was only peripherally familiar until recently.  

I was sitting outside at work smoking a cigarette with one of the students who performs the grunt work that makes catering go. He and I were discussing the various things I’ve been writing lately, and we began to get into the different sports about which I report. And that’s when he told me that he and several other members of the community were starting a hurling team here in Eugene .  

Now I’ve seen hurling once or twice, way back in the day when I was a teenager and we had just acquired a satellite dish for our house. Late-night wanderings through the high channels on the dial yielded the sport to me, piped in from somewhere in Ireland . A continent away, I was sitting there chasing insomnia with a bowl of cereal and this weird new sport that was zipping across my television. I couldn’t quite understand it, but it looked vaguely like hockey to me and vaguely like soccer, so I kept watching.  

A couple other times I managed to be up in the wee hours of the night and flipping across the right channels. But I hadn’t thought about hurling for over a decade when he introduced this little bit of fascinating news to me. You see, if you give me any sport which offers me the opportunity to follow it at close range, I’ll jump at the opportunity. Consider this the tip of the iceberg as far as my voyage into the land of hurleys and sliotars goes... I’m currently working on another piece for the local media here in Eugene on the team’s development, and all you non-traditional sports fans out there will be kept apprised on the development of the new team here as the sport takes off slowly throughout the country.    

Because any sport can take off like wildfire. If, for instance, I had said a decade ago that Americans would take an active interest in the UEFA Champions League, I would have been branded a lunatic and been led in shackles to my padded cell. Yet the action has reached a fever pitch and it seems that more and more of the students who I work with in the catering kitchen at the University of Oregon have a horse in the race. I’ve been rooting for Inter Milan for well over a decade now, and their performance has been anything but inspiring to this point. But with Barcelona looming on the horizon, I’m reminded of another Inter squad a decade ago that started with lackluster performances in the first two games of the group phase but turned it on when a Spanish powerhouse came to the San Siro. Facing off against Real Madrid, the Nerazzurri saw super-sub Roberto Baggio pot two key goals to put the home side ahead for good 3-1.  

Unfortunately, Inter couldn’t make anything lasting happen in the competition, and their European record has been dismal since. For my sake, I have to hope that this year will be different. I have to hope that the English stranglehold will be broken so that all these Arsenal-, Manchester United-, Liverpool- and Chelsea-supporting kids quiet down for a moment and allow me a moment of satisfaction. Winning Serie A is certainly a blessing in and of itself -- just ask my own favorite English team, Newcastle United, who would love to even be contending for a domestic crown after being relegated last season from the Premier League.  

But I can get along all the same with a fan of a rival, as long as they are knowledgeable. And even if we don’t agree on who is the best team in Europe , at least there’s one thing we can all agree on... the Ducks are playing some phenomenal American football right now. After all, a non-traditional sports fan in America still has to pursue some red, white and blue pastimes from time to time. I’d better get some rest now, though... just two days to go in a 15-day work week, and a ticket to Oregon-Washington State has fallen into my possession through an act of providence for Saturday’s night game at Autzen.  

So I get to enjoy a real weekend for a change, football on Saturday and a chance to check out hurling on Sunday? I don’t know if anything could possibly be better for a guy who has an insatiable lust for any and every sport you can send my way...

Submitted 10/1/09

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