It’s only 2024, but a new era has begun…in sports. The problem that hit professional wrestling has now hit every other sport. The icons of modern day sports have shifted as all the recognizable faces are starting to leave, or have already left.
In the NFL, it is the first postseason since 1998 without Peyton Manning or Tom Brady in the playoffs. Aaron Rodgers spent the entire season injured and going insane. Gronk, Big Ben, J.J. Watt, the list goes on. This was a season of the NFL that felt like it had less memorable veterans in starting lineups than ever. Every game people went on social media and said that “The NFL is short for the no-fun-league,” or that “you can’t even hit anyone anymore. It’s turning into flag football!” Considering that the Pro Bowl changed into flag football and skill games recently, those haters may be right.
Now, let me be clear. Sports are not in a bad place whatsoever. Audience numbers and ratings are higher than ever, players get paid more than ever, the drama is juicier than ever, and plenty of players are going on podcasts and contributing to make sports more exciting than ever before.
The shift in sports is natural. People get old. In my life, this is the first time I can really say that the people I grew up watching are gone. If you ask someone older, they can go through eras upon eras of iconic players. My generation, however, is only really entering its second wave of players that we can think about.
In the WWE, I grew up with Stone Cold Steve Austin, Triple H, Ric Flair, Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio, and Jeff and Matt Hardy. What all of those people have in common is that we are not going to see them in the ring anymore. That list does not even account for wrestlers like Randy Orton and The Rock who could come back and make an appearance.
Take a look at the current day roster and it is not the same. The swagger that was there is gone. WWE is still entertaining, but it has become great due to a sum of its parts. There are less household names than ever, less memorable storylines than ever, but the amount of wrestling going on keeps an audience.
Then comes soccer, or to some, football. People are just chasing money. The structure of professional soccer is not evolving, it’s crumbling. Stars such as Messi, Suarez, Ronaldo, Benzema, and Neymar have all left European soccer to chase money. Do not get me wrong, it is cool to see players make more money than I can even fathom. I’d rather watch Messi playing in the Champions League final than watch him running laps around MLS players. The same goes for all of the other players who have headed to the Saudi Pro League.
Unlike wrestling, soccer has not approached a point where it is getting stale and where competition is dying. Soccer always has and always will do great, but there is always a fear that all these leagues growing will begin to lower the quality of European soccer. Players leaving European soccer improves those other leagues, but they will never reach the level of the Premier League, Bundesliga, La Liga, Ligue 1, and Serie A. And trust me, the list does not stop there. It is just scary to think about what we might be watching for the most competitive soccer in 10 to 15 years, and how different it could be from today.
Similar to soccer, college football is facing competition issues. The College Football Playoffs now has 12 teams in it going forward. The Pac-12 was consumed by the Big Ten and Big 12. This creates new matchups, at the cost of old rivalries means that teams you grew up watching will not feel the same. Add in the mess of the college transfer portal and player NIL money, and it is not hard to realize that this is not the college football we have always known. It has become harder than ever to be passionate about a sport where the coaches and players are solely focused on going wherever the money is.
Stars come and go, but the memories are tied to a generation. Haaland and Vinícius Júnior, Brock Purdy and Puka Nacua, and CM Punk and Carmelo Hayes are great, but I am going to be 50 still reminiscing about the 2011/12 Messi and 2014/15 Ronaldo, Big Ben and Antonio Brown, and John Cena and Randy Orton. Every generation has their players, and they stick with you forever.
If you show me a TikTok edit of prime Messi, that nostalgia alone will make me watch 15 more. But it’s more than basic nostalgia that keeps these players in our mind more than the current players in front of us. It’s a love for the game, and the game it was then is not the game now. Don’t lie, you miss it too.
Sports are changing off the field as well. If you want to watch an NFL game, there are a plethora of streaming services and/or channels it could be watched on. If you want to go watch a game in person, good luck. Prices for tickets to any professional sporting event are more expensive than ever. We consume media more than ever before, and it gets worse every year.
Modern-day media has killed the thrill of getting a new sports magazine or learning about big signings on television. Sports sit in our social media feeds just as much as our friends and family do. The ability to keep up with any update in any sport, at any moment, has changed how we appreciate sports. We have it good, and I hope it stays that way.
Times are not changing, they have already changed. The worst part of it all is that it is exhilarating to watch. I want to hate it so bad, but I can not. It just hurts to see stars leave, teams change, coaches get fired, and the entire fabric of sports be rearranged, but what is in front of us is undoubtedly better than what is in the rearview mirror.
Nostalgia does not blind us, it just makes us miss what we had. Sports 30 years ago were great. Sports 20 years ago were great. Sports 5 years ago were great. Tomorrow will be great, and in five years I will still be tuned in.
