Watching Football Becomes a Couples Activity

The Street Hustle

Here’s an interesting statistic for you: over 43% of the NFL’s fan base is female. 

It appears that a growing segment of the female population of the United States is now beginning to enjoy going watching what is now the game in the United States, American football. 

This is a far cry from the screams of various girlfriends every time I would go to watch the Lions lose.  It mattered not that I would invite them to join me, offer to buy brunch before the game or take them to a place with a great brunch and the game on.  Maybe it’s just that shopping seemed more fun than watching the degeneration of the American culture to our basest fascist instincts in the form of a game we teach our children to play.  Now, football Sundays are a spectator sport for couples at the local sports bar.

If I were more of a conspiracy theory freak, I’d think we were coming into some grand plan along the lines of Lysistrata.  Instead of withholding sex American women are invading the last bastion of male bonding under the guide of togetherness.  The screams of ‘kill’ grunting, scratching, cheap beer and wings will soon be replaced with white wine and polite commentator speak.  And all of us who watch the broadcasts of our favorite teams know how much we hate those idiots.  Perhaps the idea is get us to stay at home on Sunday, order the NFL ticket and network from the local cable company.  Thus, making the whole day a respectable family affair.

My friend and fellow Lion sufferer Tom did just that after he got married.  We ran into each other on Tuesday.  We hadn’t seen each other in four years so we caught up in the hustle and bustle of the just pre-Thanksgiving rush.  I assumed he didn’t come around to our little bar that always allowed us to see the Lions be competitive for thirty seconds because he and Rachel had moved to Brooklyn.  “I just get the game at home,” he told me in confidence.  “It makes her happy to know where I am when I’m having a few beers on a Sunday afternoon.”

I am told the secret to a good marriage is compromise.  If both partners are willing to do so, the marriage has a chance to thrive.  To that end, an intrepid inventor at Micro Matic has come up with a product guaranteed to be the marriage saver of the 21^st Century: a combination beer tap and LCD television.  Now, football crazed couples can drink their favorite light beers while watching the game Time Magazine once called ‘A Game for Real Men.’  

Now if we can only get our significant others to prance around in the little cheerleader outfits instead of screaming at us to fix the gutters.