Chuck Klosterman

Because what we consciously say we want from entertainment and what we unconsciously want, I believe, are very different things.

And...

The the way football works and that it has these little brief, you know, four to seven second windows of hyper kinetic violent action and then these breaks in between that allow us to sort of have the cerebral relationship to what happened and what might happen in, you know,

This is almost the ideal experience for something to be popular on television, particularly over time, because the intensity and the complexity of any given football play can create the sensation that you're watching something super dynamic, like almost as though it's happening too fast, especially live.

late in the game when a team's in a two-man offense or something it almost feels like there's too much to absorb but really it is those breaks that allow us to have like a cerebral relationship to this game that i think most people almost refuse to even uh like recognize like they would never say this why they love football they would say like i love the houston texans or or it's like i just like they'll sit in my couch and have a few beers and relax but what

nothing is really that way.

And I think that the reason football works so well on television, better than any other television product, is kind of a profound thing.

And I think it involves psychology and sociology of understanding the meaning of football.

But it's not a blood sport.

I don't believe that people who love football very – I mean, there's a fraction of people, I'm sure, who do.

But for the most part, they don't want to ever see guys get hurt.

There used to be that thing, you know, on ESPN where they were like – Jacked up.

Exactly, you know.

But even that, it wasn't like you didn't... They weren't going to show one of those if a guy got paralyzed, right?

It was the idea, like, football... What people like about it is the game.

It is the strategy.

It is sort of, like, the atmosphere and all these things.

But those things...

would matter less if it wasn't, there wasn't the possibility of real injury.

I mean, like, it's like, we don't, no one wants to see someone die on the football field, but the fact that it is possible does raise the stakes.