14 March 2014
To thrive in the future, America has much learn from the National Football League, whose masterful use of mainstream and online media has enabled it to establish a dominant and respected presence in minds of sports fans nationwide. In this blog and elsewhere I’ve argued that what sports media have done for sports fans, civic media can profitably do for Americans: create a participatory culture that facilitates constructive citizen interaction on a massive scale, at once competitive and cooperative, that’s governed by universally accepted rules of the game.
What the American nation has to learn from NFL nation can be suggested a comparison of four maps: two of American cities and regions and two of NFL teams and their fans. I believe American cities and regions may one day cooperate even as they compete with each other somewhat as NFL teams – and leagues of NFL teams (the NFC and AFC) – compete (furiously) and cooperate (ultimately) with each other in the NFL.
Cooperation? The NFL’s 17 weekly games lead to a series of playoff games culminating in what is arguably America’s most patriotic moment: its annual Super Bowl, which this year was seen by 111 million viewers. Sports writer Pat Imig, in an entertaining post on “Why American Football is More American than the American Government”, made the patriotism point with this photo:
So let’s take a look first at two maps of America’s regions: regions, that one day might be connected by a civic media dedicated to doing for American regions what sports media have long been doing for (and with) American pro football teams:
- Serving regional interests by enabling governments and citizens within each region to shape that region’s best future,
- Serving regional and national interests by enabling regions to cooperate even as they compete, much in the same way that NFL teams cooperate in advancing the interests of the NFL. Bear in mind that the NFL itself competes and cooperates as well with other sports leagues: Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), the National Hockey League (NHL), and the Major Soccer League (MSL).
Regions? They range from simple to complex. Here first is a simple six-region map (below) used by Mrs. Finley to teach her 5th grade geography class in Scottsdale, Arizona:
Now compare the seven regions in Mrs. Finley’s map with the eleven regions, or “nations” in this one:
To see what underlies this powerful, county-by-county map, check out the brief accounts of its eleven “nations” in historian Colin Woodard’s “Call to Arms” piece appearing in the Tufts University magazine last December. Woodard sets out to show how the roots of America’s bitter and divisive national debate over gun violence following the Sandy Hook school massacre of December 2012 are rooted in – guess what – settlement patterns of colonists going back to the earliest days of American history. And he succeeds.
Woodard’s capsule histories of these eleven “nations” – ten colonizing, one native – go far in explaining why Americans today are so polarized not just on the issue of gun control but on matters of immigration, abortion, prayer in schools, and states rights as well. Reading Woodard, one may get the feeling that the differences among regions are insuperable: Americans, in other words, will always be fighting the Civil War.
But now let’s take a look at two maps of America as an NFL Nation united and energized by loyalty not only to the teams that comprise it. Here, from deadspin.com, is a map of regions by fan base:
This map of NFL nation drills down to the county level:
So where does all this lead us? Into uncharted territory, that’s for sure. A territory of possible great rewards and altogether certain risks. Sailing into these waters will be the task of our next post.
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