Here We Go Again

"Throughout history, humans have invented sporting and gaming activities as a means to socialize, to display skills and prowess, and to entertain or offer excitement." So say those wacky pundits at the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Here's what they say about music: "an art that, in one guise or another, permeates every human society. It is used for such varied social purposes as ritual, worship, coordination of movement, communication, and entertainment."

And dance: "One of the oldest art forms, dance is found in every culture and is performed for purposes ranging from the ceremonial, liturgical, and magical to the theatrical, social, and simply aesthetic."

According to most researchers, competitions of athletic prowess - what we call "sports" - are at least as old as community life. In other words, as soon as we stood erect and starting huddling by the river, we started playing games together. In the 6th century B.C., Pythagoras wrote of a mystical sound produced by the movement of the stars and planets, one of the earliest recorded references to music. Prehistoric cave paintings that date back 20,000 years depict human figures that appear to be dancing; we know for a fact that the Greeks and the Romans knew how to shake their groove things.

Sport, music, and dance are bound by a common thread, easily identified by the cursory definitions above: socialization and entertainment. We do these things together, because we enjoy them.

In the modern age, sport has become an enormous global business. Professional athletes, on average, earn exponentially more money than most musicians or dancers could ever dream of. Even college athletes generate massive amounts of revenue for their schools and the venues that compete to host their contests. For this reason - and this reason alone, in my opinion - "sports" are viewed as somehow less noble, less culturally stimulating, and less relevant than other forms of entertainment. Practitioners and supporters of sport are often ridiculed (read: resented) by those who believe it to be an embarassing waste of time and money.

I'm repeating myself, having covered this in detail on the blog. It comes up again because Orlando Sentinel columnist Mike Thomas still doesn't buy it.

On Tuesday, officials from Florida Citrus Sports made their pitch to the Orange County Commission for a piece of the tourism pie - a chunk of the revenue expected to be generated from a proposed increase in the county's hotel tax, which has been earmarked for a performing arts center, a new arena for the Magic, and a refurbishment of the Citrus Bowl. Last week, the arts community made a similar presentation in favor of the first of these three venues, one that Thomas called "a professional presentation by serious folks, a who's-who list of the area's top business people."

One can only wonder how newly named FCS executive director Steve Hogan reacted to that characterization. Is he not serious? What about Chuck Rohe? Not serious enough? Not a top businessperson?

Thomas also points out that last week, the performing arts center supporters "presented detailed studies on construction costs, operating costs, revenue sources, attendance, usage, design and so on." Again, and FCS didn't? Do you think for a nanosecond that the Magic, who get their shot before the commission next week, won't have that information handy? After the public beating they took over this same topic a few years ago? Does Mike Thomas believe that anyone who works in sports is a bonafide yahoo?

We'll have to keep wondering, because Thomas didn't bother to listen to the Florida Citrus Sports presentation before writing his column. His piece ran Tuesday morning, several hours before FCS went on stage. I'm sure he'll save his cleverest venom for the Magic's presentation, which he will also skip.

Oh, wait, there it is, at the bottom - "We have embarked on this bold venture to become a cutting-edge 21st-century city but still can't break our hayseed 1960s mentality."

Got it. Sports people ARE yahoos. That settles it. After all, "...we get the [Orlando Mayor] Buddy Dyer talking points about quality of life and a world-class community when the Citrus Bowl has nothing to do with either. The performing-arts center does."

Says who?

One more time: it's all entertainment, folks. None of these venues are "necessary." None of them. What they are, is desired. You may not care for sports - you may find it all tawdry, or juvenile, or overblown - but sports venues are no less desirable to a community than performing arts centers. And furthermore, they have just as much potential as economic engines, if not more so. That's supply and demand. People watch sports. They buy tickets. We do these things, together, because we enjoy them. Sorry if that offends you, Mike.

As part of its mission to completely miss the point, the Sentinel's news story on the FCS presentation quoted Timothy Chapin, associate professor of urban and regional planning at Florida State, thusly:

"People know Orlando is there...It isn't like they are hurting for tourists."

And then: "Chapin and others point out that the total attendance of the three bowl games - about 150,000 - is considerably less than 1 percent of the 51 million tourists who annually visit Central Florida."

This may come as an utter shock to Professor Chapin, but most Central Floridians - those of us who live here, work here, send our kids to school here, pay taxes here, commute here, and vacation elsewhere - do not base our lives on tourists. Let the carpetbagging hoteliers build monuments to tourists. I have no problem with that. Go nuts. I don't want a performing arts center, a new gym, or a stadium that's been structurally updated at least once since 1937 (go look it up) for tourists. I want those things for me. Because I live here, and they don't.

In fact, Thomas himself has argued against leaning too heavily on the tourism dollar; diversification of the economy, he has written, is necessary to build a truly "world-class community."

His answer is biotech - NOW we're talking "excitement" - and performing arts centers. One of my answers is improved sports venues. We're both right.

Difference is, Mike doesn't like sports. So I must be a yahoo. Thankfully, neither one of us is in charge.