Why Won’t the American Sports Fan Fight Back?

American sports fans have been mistreated for decades and they do nothing about it.

In other countries, fans understand the power of their collective voice and they use it. Soccer fans in Germany pushed back successfully against the Bundesliga moving around game times for television. The doomed European Super League met its fate because soccer fans across the continent rose up as one to express their extreme displeasure.

Things reached a dramatic new boiling point on the fabled grounds of Old Trafford when Manchester United fans broke into the stadium before a big game against Liverpool and took over the pitch. The game was postponed as fans made it abundantly clear they were fed up with the Glazer family’s ownership of the club for the past decade and a half.

As an American sports fan, I could only watch in wonder and amazement. I watched in wonder because those fans had the guts and the gall to not just push back against ownership, but put those feelings into action. I watched in amazement because American sports fans don’t do anything except accept fate.

I’ll spare you the “back in my day” recounting of what sports were like for me growing up, because I don’t think I’m that old, even in the back-half of my 30’s. I can’t speak to the 1960’s or 1970’s, only the 1990’s, yet even those days…