DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Do you consider the Browns "entertainment"?

I was thinking about this today while talking with a co-worker ...

I don't.

And I don't mean in the sense that we have boring games, or that we lose all the time.

I consider all other NFL football to be 'entertainment'. When I tune into, say Atlanta vs. New Orleans, I usually find myself entertained. I can watch an NFL game with clarity and enjoy it.

I don't really have that option with the Browns. Take, The Drive, for instance. Probably one of the greater feats of an NFL quarterback in modern history, right? How great to be able to say that you saw that happen, or The Shot, or The Fumble, or any transcendent sports moment that happens to come against your team? You can't truly enjoy it, can you? You aren't entertained.

Isn't it a bit odd to say 'I'm a big football fan', and then be absolutely disgusted and upset when one of the more exciting things to ever happen in football happens?

I don't know how I'd describe my relationship with the Browns, but I don't think I can call it 'entertainment'. I'm often angry, upset, nervous, stressed, etc.

What would you call it, if not "entertainment"?

I consider it entertainment.

I'm only 25 years old, so the Browns have been a dumpster fire for as long as I can remember.

At this point, I've become numb to how bad we are, and just enjoy it on the off chance we start winning some games.

I don't let it ruin my week anymore.

Honestly, I don't know what I would call the Browns - or watching them. I do plan my Sundays (occasional sunday night or monday night) around them during the season. I DO get loud. I tend to come down from the high (if they win), or come up from the low (if they lose) within a few hours.

Other football, I don't watch much.

Are the Browns "entertainment"? I guess I would say no. Entertainment is, for me, .......heck, it isn't watching tv. I guess the Browns are something I feel vested in.

Watching "the fumble" at my brothers basement apartment - I hit my head on the ceiling when Byner scored! Only to see that he did everything right, other than have the football in his hands......

On the other hand - entertainment certainly involves anticipation. And I do anticipate watching the Browns games......

I'm beginning to look at it as same entertainment as the three stooges, Marx brothers, or keystone cops.

when you do not care how much the Sunday ticket costs so you can watch the Browns, get mad on bye weeks because the Browns are not on, when they are playing their last game of the year and the record is 4-11 and you watch the whole game with your gear on, and then start thinking about free agency and the draft as soon as the game is over, then hope that summer gets over so the season starts, I think it is a little more than entertainment.

Good question. Initially, I thought that "entertainment" indicates that some type of pleasure is involved, and hellnaw....watching the Browns isn't entertainment. Then, after looking at the official definition, which is:

something affording pleasure, diversion, or amusement, especially a performance of some kind

As a diversion from the stressors of daily life, I guess it is technically entertainment.

Yes, they are definitely in the entertainment industry.

That's as far as I'll go in classifying it

The national football is league is entertainment, the browns are a team in the nfl. Is this some sort of tongue in cheek thread where people justify watching an underperforming team?

Unless we have a bunch of emo people as browns fans

It is entertainment.
Wiki

The drivers that make people fans, and in particular sports fans, have been studied by psychologists, such as Dan Wann at Murray State University. They attribute people becoming fans to the following factors:[7] One element is entertainment, because sports spectatorship is a form of leisure. Sports is also a form of escapism, and being a fan gives one an excuse to yell at something, an activity that may be constrained in other areas of one's life. Fan activities give participants a combination of euphoria and stress (about the potential for their team to lose) for which they coin the name "eustress". Fans experience euphoria during moments when play is going well for their team, and stress when play is going against their team. This tension between the two emotions generates an unusual sense of pleasure or heightened sensations.

//me//

There is an attachment component, where it is "our" team. Which makes the watching for entertainment aspect get blurred by loyalty.

I personally think I am addicted due to a sense of loyalty and an enjoyment of stress. I don't particularly mind if I am stressed out while watching my team fail, it is like anticipating a success and kind of nice. In fact I tend to hate it when we take the lead early, gives me a feeling we are going to blow it.

So if you are a browns fan, but don't find yourself entertained, it is probably a sense of loyalty/identity that keeps you around.

I consider the Browns a way of life

Sure, just like I consider having a root canal entertainment.




Sure, it's entertainment, be it much more personal than say going to a movie.

5 things in life I have to have to live..

1. Family
2. God
3. Hunting
4. Fishing
5. Browns / Indians

Entertainment....I think not

Yes it's entertainment. Try as some may to make it more than that, it's entertainment. It's other people performing so we can sit and watch... considering what's happening to the Browns on the field most weekends, perhaps its voyeurism...

Look, I often wonder how people can watch and get so invested in a participant on Survivor or Dancing with the Stars but in reality, it's the same entertainment/emotion that causes us to get so worked up with the Browns... only we don't see it that way because Survivor contestants come and go each year and most of us have been Browns fans for a long time... but in the end it is the same base emotion or feeling....

And the fact that it's "entertainment" doesn't mean it always has to be ENTERTAINING... sometimes, like a horror movie, rock climbing, or a very bad concert, you can go for the entertainment yet get stressed, nervous, or disgusted... entertainment doesn't always have to leave you happy.

So the Browns are entertainment, they have just been pretty bad entertainment for a long time.

Funny,.,., Really funny.

Entertainment is supposed to be enjoyable at some level,.

I love football so I guess from that standpoint yes. But the Browns have been anything but entertaining in the last 14 seasons.

Quote:

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Entertainment is supposed to be enjoyable at some level,.

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That was my POV initially. If you look at the definition I posted, it can also just be a diversion. The Browns are definitely that.

JC

Yeah... a Tragedy

Or a comedy

Like Dante's Inferno

With all the rules changes it's not all that far from "sports entertainment" now....

Entertainment? Yes, from a purely objective point of view.

Way of life? Yes, in the same manner a dysfunctional family is a 'way' of life.

Entertaining? Not lately. Unfortunately.

It's an emotional connection for me as I'm sure it is for many on here.

To Heldawg's point, can it be entertaining if you have an emotional connection to it?

I'm not sure, but even if they were winning I think I would have a hard time labeling it as 'entertaining'. I think when I'm being entertained I'm in a constant state of relaxation and enjoyment.

I don't think you can say that about something you are emotionally attached to.

In my experience, there is the sense of anticipation at the start of each season/game.

There's the inevitable surprise (like the first time we all saw a "Hillis Hurdle," and said simultaneously said, "WOW!!!"

There's the vested interest in seeing some one like Josh Cribbs take a punt or kickoff, and knowing that if the cards fall just right, we'll see something amazing and memorable (coast-to-coast v. Steelers.... who doesn't have EVERY inch of that runback committed to memory?)

The suspense of a 4th & 1 at the 50, with the team down by 4, early in the 3rd qtr... a potential momentum-changing play.

A 2-minute drill to TIE the game with 2:41 on the clock.

3 MNF shocker "upsets" in 3 consecutive years over the reigning SB champs.

The hundreds of side-stories that play out within the 60 minutes that a game is played (will Joe Haden shut down his assignment for an entire game/ will Joe T keep the QB upright? Will we get even one sack today? Will a QB pressure produce a turnover?) Side-stories that are little "dramas within the Big Drama"... how 'fractal' do you wish to take your fandom?

_____________________

Yeah, you betcha- as bad as the team has been, it's entertainment. Granted, the losing isn't easy to swallow, but when I'm watching a Browns game:

1. I'm not a cellist.
2. Work around the house can wait.
3. I can focus upon something other than Daily Life's constant concerns.
4. l can forget that I'm a "Middle-Aged Man," and transport myself into the screen (or onto the field) like I did when I was a little kid.
5. I can share an experience (for better or worse) with tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of like-motivated people the world over.

If that ain't 'entertainment,' then I'm in the wrong biz, too.


For me, this thing that I do for a paycheck is a calling- and a way of life. For a small number of folks who attend my gigs, it's just as important. But for the most part, I never fool myself into thinking that this thing I take so seriously is anything more than a pastime or pleasant (I hope) diversion for 99% of the folks who come.

I'm "entertainment" for them; the Browns are "entertainment" for me....

...at least, by my definition of the word-