Partisan Sports Fan Not Focused On What’s Best For Both Teams

Roger Carlson is like millions of other middle-class sports fans. He enjoys a good plate of wings, a cold beer, and keeps up to date with the news. But, unlike other sports fanatics around the country, Carlson senses a bitter partisan divide in our athletic rhetoric and proudly boasts that when it comes to in-game performance and the standings, he isn’t focused on what’s best for both teams, creating what some sports officials call a battle for the soul of the league.

“When it comes to broadcast coverage, give me a break. ESPN, Fox Sports, NBA League Pass are biased toward all the coastal teams. They only care about the winners. They don’t care about giving both teams equal treatment, so why should I?” Carlson said, pointing to what he called “appalling bias” in the YES Network’s pregame coverage of the New Jersey Nets. “And then you have the elite Nets fans sit in their ivory towers in the Barclays Center and look down at the way we play in Indiana.”

Carlson suggests this bitterness extends to gameplay too, pointing to several examples during the Nets-Pacers game. 

“Look at the way the Nets are attacking the Pacers’ way of life. They’ll score points and then not allow Indiana to score back. Pacers fans all cheer when the Nets score because we love the game. We’re all fans of basketball. I hate to say it, but they just don’t care about the millions of Pacer fans in the Midwest.”

Carlson points to Oklahoma City and Cleveland as other examples of markets that just don’t get the same amount of coverage.

“They built rosters the right way with the hometown team values, but then they draft and develop a star player who just leaves and plays with whomever he wants, wherever he wants. It’s not what the founding fathers of the National Basketball Association had in mind when they drafted the league constitution.”

And it’s only getting worse. Carlson said his neighbors, lifelong Pacer fans, have begun to distance themselves from the franchise and adapt the moniker of “Never Pacers,” a term Carlson despises and attributes to ESPN’s sensational coverage on teams from Los Angeles and Miami for years.

“In a more unified league, I’d ask Adam Silver to step in. However, the sad reality is that he’s part of the conspiracy to manufacture super teams and place them in coastal cities,” Carlson said, adding that he plans to file a lawsuit soon, which he hopes will work its way up to the Supreme Basketball Court, which features six Pacer Justices. To do so, Carlson must seek new council after recently parting ways with Rudolph Giuliani.