Why are sports so popular? Why do millions of people around the world play sports? Why do even more people watch sports?

The idea of people giving their all in a competition to see who is better at that particular competition has captivated people for centuries. Nowadays, sports are a multibillion-dollar industry, and that comes with a lot of changes and sacrifices – not all of which are for the best.

I love watching clips of routine tackles and normal hits from old football games and trying to see which ones would be allowed today. With each clip I try to guess what kind of suspension or fine the player would get if he did that today.

The NFL is so soft these days. Pass rushers have to gently lay the quarterback to the ground in order to sack them without getting flagged for ‘roughing’ the passer. If a defender so much as grazes the wide receiver, you bet they’re gonna call pass interference on it.

I get that you wanna protect the players and football is very dangerous, but they signed up for it. Now we have all these divas begging for penalties the moment something doesn’t quite go their way.

Also, let it be known I don’t buy into the whole ‘NFL is rigged’ talk, but you can’t tell me that the refs don’t have too much control over the game. I mean if they have money on one team, they can just throw a flag and make something up.

I’m not gonna get into the whole Taylor Swift discussion, but it frustrates me how much the NFL leaned in on it, and it wasn’t just during the games either. They were clearly using that situation as a way to make money and gain views.

Speaking of penalties, how about the NBA? I get that you can’t exactly wrestle each other in basketball, but I don’t wanna watch people demanding a foul because of slight contact. Just accept that you missed the shot and get on defense.

Wait, you can’t play proper defense because once you play slightly aggressive now all of a sudden you’re the one fouling. All it takes is a little bit of acting and you’ve got two free-throws.

And don’t even get me started on my precious baseball. MLB sold out big time.

Since baseball came into existence, it has had points in my book for being the only sport without any time constraints. There was never a game-clock, a shot-clock or a play-clock, and I thought that was cool.

Then they saw ratings start to slip and decided to throw all of that away by adding the pitch-clock. Keep in mind they did this right after they banned pitchers from using ‘sticky stuff,’ which has been used for decades, in addition to the rumors of ‘juiced balls.’

All of this has put the pitchers in such a lopsided position where they’re more likely to get pummeled, so teams can score more.

I don’t care if a pitcher’s duel is boring, if the pitcher is better than the other team, he deserves to carve them up. And don’t get me wrong, I love watching my team crush an opposing pitcher, but I hate watching my pitchers get rocked.

All around the various sports, there’s evidence that the leagues and the people in charge have lost sight of what sports are supposed to be about. It’s about competition, they are competitors. What they’ve done is they’ve put some of the competitors at disadvantages so they can make more money, and I seriously don’t like the way they’re trending.