RICHMOND, Va (WTVR)- The world’s most popular sport isn’t baseball or football or the other football.
It’s hating on referees.
We love to hate them. Especially when our team loses.
They’re been abused by everyone from league dads to top NFL coaches.
They’ve been cursed, chased, punched, kicked and threatened.
It’s so pervasive, there’s even a school program about being nice to refs.
But there’s one group of referees everyone is now loving on – the regular NFL crew that is locked out due to a labor dispute.
Never mind many fans hated these same guys in years past. Never mind their boneheaded calls that changed games and even playoffs.
Funny how the controversy may actually be boosting ratings.
And sports talk shows are absolutely burning up with this issue, with most siding with the old refs and against the fabulously wealthy and mighty NFL.
Even conservative vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan sided with the union over the wealthy corporation on this one.
Me, I’m thinking the refs should carry just as much blame. They don’t want to lose their nice pension plan over a paltry 401K option, the retirement plan most of us have, if we’re lucky enough to have a job.
The NFL is offering them a nice raise, basically a 50-grand pay bump, up to $200,000 a year and more.
Not bad for a part-time job, especially when we have 12.5 million of our brothers and sisters in this country who don’t have jobs, period.
And the referees are fighting a plan that would give more refs jobs and grade all of them, benching those who perform badly.
Imagine if players could keep on playing no matter how badly they performed.
And those who say the NFL makes enough money to take care of all of its peeps – where do you draw the line? Big pay and pension for the guys who paint the lines on the fields? The janitors cleaning the locker rooms?
No, it’s the union refs who should be worried.
Have you noticed how excited everyone is about this issue? Wives who never watched games with their husbands are now tuning in. Even the president is tweeting about it.
After all, the replacement referees are performing better in the world’s most popular sport: referee hating.
That’s my take, leave yours here for all to see.
