I know they both existed, and were played in colleges, but were they widely watched and central to culture as professional institutions?
How important to the culture at large was college football at the time, rather than how much they tell us about it now? When did people start discussing who the greatest quarterback of all time was in bars? When did that become common?
They paid NBA players enough in the 70’s for Walt Frazier to have a wild coat collection, but they didn’t pay them anywhere near what they do now. Actually in the 60’s, a lot of them had to have side jobs as blue collar workers, where ordinary families would actually know the players and hang out with them in places. It was the 80’s when pro athletes started to get paid very handsomely.
Basically I’m wondering what the actual cultural importance was at the time, prior to getting access to the Unlimited Money Machine, versus what they tell us about them now that they’re able, and incentivized, to build their mythos as far back as possible.
Even Pharaoh, after a long day of building the temple at Luxor, would don a pair of Jordan’s and have at some quick 3 on 3 before calculating the next year’s crop plains flooding.
It was long before 1913.
Football and baseball were national institutions before the Federal Reserve came along.
I know they both existed, and were played in colleges, but were they widely watched and central to culture as professional institutions?
How important to the culture at large was college football at the time, rather than how much they tell us about it now? When did people start discussing who the greatest quarterback of all time was in bars? When did that become common?
They paid NBA players enough in the 70’s for Walt Frazier to have a wild coat collection, but they didn’t pay them anywhere near what they do now. Actually in the 60’s, a lot of them had to have side jobs as blue collar workers, where ordinary families would actually know the players and hang out with them in places. It was the 80’s when pro athletes started to get paid very handsomely.
Basically I’m wondering what the actual cultural importance was at the time, prior to getting access to the Unlimited Money Machine, versus what they tell us about them now that they’re able, and incentivized, to build their mythos as far back as possible.