On selling our bodies, our monuments, and our sports to the highest bidder

Posted on June 24, 2003 in Crosstalk Culture

I own one team shirt. All the shirts that I own that have corporate messages or names written on them were given to me. I do not pay to advertise someone else’s product.

Brian Kane remarked on the sell-out of the Chicago Bears to Bank One. Rob of ConNiPtioN, following in the track of David Sedaris, reproaches those who wear clothing bearing the insignia or name of private industry.

First, about the Bears: I don’t have much of a problem with that because at least they got money for the deal. If fans don’t want this happening, they should start insisting that sports franchises follow the Green Bay model where a nonprofit corporation headed by local civic leaders owns and runs the team. They should stop demanding luxury boxes in the stadiums and they should stop encouraging the bidding wars that bring in athletes at astronomical salaries.

Second, about the advertising on the shirts: I’m with Rob. Give me a shirt and I might wear it. But never, ever, pay for a shirt. The corporations should be paying me for the privilege of using my torso as advertising space. They get away with this because there are people out there who will buy.

What I say for Nike shirts also goes for sports teams. They, too, are a business. If the Angels or the Ducks want me to wear a shirt, they should give it to me. My wearing the shirt spreads their name among the unknowing. It lends support to the notion that buying an Angels or a Ducks ticket is a thing worth doing. So why do this for free?

There’s a deeper concern that I have here: what are we saying by enlisting in a sports shirt wearing herd? Joining up with the fans of a particular team is relatively benign and it often crosses political, ethnic and racist boundaries, uniting people who might not otherwise speak to one another. (But then, when the game is finished, they go back to not speaking to each other. And who is uniting them? George W. Bush was an owner. I need say no more.)

I’d rather have people supporting games, but there’s a little too much of jingoism in the whole fashion statement that team shirts represent for my comfort. When I see the teal at Sharks games, for example, it’s a imagistic blast not unlike seeing legions of black shirts, red shirts, and brown shirts — the marching colors of Nazis, Communists, and Fascists. Individualism gets squashed, except when it amounts to an extreme statement for the whole, which makes it anti-individual and very pro-conformity.

If we wear shirts for corporations or teams, therefore, I think we must do so consciously: we must demand a standard of behavior for those organizations — teams that are owned by the municipality or a nonprofit corporation rather than individuals or private cartels. If they don’t conform, then we should not wear their “speciality items”. What we scream about most in sports is what has gone oh so wrong with the American ideal of a “free” marketplace: in one swift scrimmage, we’ve seen both our sense of community and our sense of individualism get sacked. The best rebellion is to hold out, to demand change and restoration of those values which held that our public and quasi-public institutions serve the People. Neither our community organizations nor our bodies should function as monuments for the wealthy few or as billboards servicing private gain.