NDCR: Pop-Culture Update
Take me out to the Ball Game: The 90’s Sports Wars
While the Third World War left a mark in all areas of culture, it made a profound impact on American sports, both professionally and recreationally. The destruction, rebuilding, and increased interaction with the various allied cultures profoundly changed American entertainment and exercise. As the US went into a post-war sports craze, thanks to the rise of Cable TV and the Virgin Group Sports Network, the construction of numerous public athletic facilities post-war, and a general movement towards healthy living, various sports battled it out for the hearts and minds of the American public.
As in all wars, the sheer destruction made the most marked impact on some sports. Hockey, already waning after unsuccessful NHL expansions and poor US Olympic performance, dropped off the map in the United States because of the war. During the war, ice rinks had to be shut down to preserve badly needed water. In the US, all NHL teams besides the North Stars of hockey-crazed Minnesota had to shut down completely and all youth teams disappeared. Immediately post war most couldn’t afford hockey and didn’t have a personal relationship with the sport. Meanwhile, Canadians began to identify with it increasingly as “their” national game. Restarted NHL teams in New York, Boston, etc. failed to draw enough attendance in the abbreviated 1991 season, resulting in high losses for the NHL. At a junior level, the sports high entry costs and association with the “Ruskies” killed any chances of it returning. By the end of the 92-93 season, the NHL decided that it would remain small and solely Canadian besides the previously mentioned North Stars.
NHL Regular Season Standings 1992
1. Toronto Maple Leafs
2. Montreal Canadiens
3. Vancouver Canucks
4. Quebec City Nordiques
5. Winnipeg Jets
6. Edmonton Oilers
7. Hamilton Tigers
8. Minnesota North Stars
9. Calgary Oilers
10. Ottawa Senators
However, the vast destruction also lead to the emergence of other sports in the American Consciousness. As Soviet tanks barreled towards Paris, a group of investors, including Donald Trump, decided to move the tournament to Milwaukee (a city that grew greatly thanks to war industry) which had already hosted one of the biggest non-Grand Slam events in tennis for the last decade, the Miller Lite Clay-Courts. The American Clay Court Championships rapid successes was thanks in part to a bold business maneuver by The Donald. Throughout the rest of the war, and later even post-war, the entire tournament was broadcast for free to Allied Army, Navy, and Air Force units across the globe. Many permanent tennis fans were created in mess halls across the world. While the French Open would return in 1994, the Official Fifth Grand Slam became a permanent addition to the sports calendar. It would become famous for being “the people’s grand slam”. When Wisconsin-born Bobby Smith made a miracle run in 1990 (tour players being exempted from service for propaganda purposes), the stadium shook from the cheers of the Midwestern crowd. The tournament designed a new special green clay surface engineered to favor booming serves and long, physical points, taking the best parts of traditional hard court and clay court. While the US Open in New York was technically the premier tournament in the United States, in the Midwest, Mountain West, and West Coast, the “Brewer’s Bash”, more than anything else, made people fall in love with the game.
However, the war also helped the sport grow on a smaller level. During and after the war, many small-town schools and communities had too few you and too little money to have football teams, and as a result, many small towns, in search of a “good natured” and “not terribly violent” game to play with few kids, found tennis. The sport’s rural growth was compounded by the sport’s existing popularity among Asian-Americans, who brought the view of the sport as a sign of reach the middle class and sophistication with them from Asia. As Asian-Americans avoided the bombing by moving to the countryside, the took their existing love of the game with them, and helped make a primarily Californian, Texan, and Floridian sport take root in the great plains. However, creation, not just destruction, would help tennis grow.
The pre-war military buildup and emergency war construction resulted in the appearance of numerous new airfields and hangers (for strategic bombers and interceptors alike) all across the rural and suburban regions of America, especially in the West and Mid-West. These long concrete strips, both in the open air and indoors needed a new purpose. President Rumsfeld, on recommendation from George HW Bush and in coordination with the newly gender-merged Pro Tennis Circuit (which replaced the gender-divided ATP/WTA structure in 1990 and now headed by legendary Governor Agnew) used public funds to rebuild runways into public outdoor courts and hangers into indoor facilities, thus reclaiming the space. Needless to say, congressional democrats were more than happy to spend on infrastructure funds. Private donations organized by, and directly from, the PTC, provided cheap and modern instruction across the country in these new facilities. In addition, rapid carbon fiber technology improvements, thanks to the war, resulted in the innovative and cheap carbon-fiber rackets that made the game more accessible to beginners and less dependent on the serve and volley.
What in part helped set up the “sports wars”, our focus, was Tennis’ odd marriage with the Republican Party. Tennis already had deep history within the Republican Party. Spiro Agnew, the 1st head of the PTC, famously integrated all of Maryland’s “tennis facilities” 1967 as part of a “work-around” bill to get some crusty segregationists to “accidentally” vote for the integration of all private and public parks. Rumors had spread that he’d made a couple Maryland Representatives vote his way after beating them on the court. In all, it was natural that the party of individualism and post-war rebirth would gravitate towards the sport. Not to mention that Republican core constituencies: Asian-Americans, African-Americans and non-southern rural whites, all grew to be as passionate about the game as Republican politics.
Next in “Take Me Out to the Ballgame: The 90’s sports wars”: Football and Futbol
[A/N: There is no "miracle on ice" ITL, which seriously inhibits Hockey's growth even before WWIII]
(Hint: Ion Iliescu will appear)
