Ever wonder why they call sports "plays"? Every practice th…
Ever wonder why they call sports "plays"? Every practice they work on rehearsed defensive and offensive "plays". Quite literally a rehearsed dramatic composition. Each team learns it so uniformly that all teams are like interchangeable partners in a dance.
Replies
The team that leads this dance is selected. They don't actually perform at the highest athletic levels. That would be impossible to sustain. If a true competition were held, the participants would wear their bodies out over a short career. They entertain.
The amount of money poured into a corporate brand is too much to let these men truly compete. They understand the deal and are enriched long term by the prolonged career, even if it's totally a charade. Their bodies ultimately wear out anyway, just slower.
This is especially true for former players like Kareem or Shaq. Their bodies are at a higher risk of mechanical failure at joints. The real monster guys absolutely benefit the most because they would probably face the highest risk of a career ending injury
Corporate sponsors and Advertisers benefit by having these career superstars play lengthy "high performance" "high stakes" matches that would simply not be humanly possible. Every game is paced to maximize the reselling of airtime to corporate advertisers.
When you find out your favorite singer didn't actually sing at the show you attended, does it bother you? It's all entertainment and it has to be sustainable longterm. So long as noone acknowledges it, people can suspend disbelief and enjoy rivalries.