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\n Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: Getty Images\n <\/p>\n
Some of the questions Chuck Klosterman asks in his new book Football<\/a> are questions you would expect a Chuck Klosterman book about football to ask: Why are Americans so obsessed with the sport? What does it say about our larger culture? Why is Creed\u2019s Thanksgiving 2001 halftime show a seminal moment in our nation\u2019s history? But one of the most surprising, and winning, aspects of the book is how wonky it is, how obsessive about actual gameplay \u2014 formations, strategies, historical figures. Klosterman is sometimes portrayed \u2014 I\u2019d argue incorrectly \u2014 as a distant, almost glib observer of the American cultural condition. But it\u2019s clear that he loves the sport of football in all its excesses and minutiae, and the result is a book that\u2019s unexpectedly emotional and achingly sincere.<\/p>\n Still, there\u2019s plenty of Klosterman\u2019s signature insights and madman logic here, and the book is, like all his other work, consistently hilarious: His wry, seemingly alien sense of humor has always been his secret weapon. I spoke with Klosterman about his argument that football\u2019s dominance has an end date, whether college football is better than the NFL, and how scared he is that men don\u2019t seem to read books anymore.<\/p>\n In the book, you touch on a long-standing theory of mine, which is that one reason football is so popular is that anyone can watch it and feel like an expert, despite having no idea what\u2019s actually going on. But you\u2019re wonkier about football than the average fan. Do you think that makes you a better or happier fan, or the opposite? A lot of people, myself included<\/a>, argued for years that football is in existential peril, and almost everyone, again myself included<\/a>, has given up on that argument. That\u2019s why it\u2019s fascinating to see you suggest that football\u2019s hegemony has an end date. To oversimplify a bit, you think that\u2019s largely because of its overreliance on a television- and streaming business plan that won\u2019t last forever, and that as fewer fans actually let their own kids play the sport, it will become increasingly disconnected from their day-to-day experience. Do you think people our age will see that turn, or will we die wondering if it ever comes? What is particularly tricky is that it\u2019s increasingly difficult to have a good grasp of what the speed of acceleration of culture will be. In the last half of the 20th century, we often talked about the idea of accelerated culture. That was a common thing \u2014 it was the subtitle of Generation X<\/a>. It\u2019s less clear now. In some ways it does feel like the culture is stagnating, but the technological aspects seem to be changing faster than we can even absorb. It kind of creates this weird asymmetry where in many ways the culture of the United States seems sort of stuck, almost broken, and yet all the kind of machinery around it keeps moving. That makes it very difficult to know. It\u2019s very difficult for people to think about football as something that could be in trouble because everything else about it makes it seem as if it is absolutely untouchable. But nothing is.<\/p>\n You say it\u2019s not too big to fail \u2014 it\u2019s too big to stop. It almost feels like no other sport could ever get this big again. Do you think football would be in a different place if Damar Hamlin<\/a> had died? Let\u2019s talk college football, which I write about a lot<\/a>. You suggest most people love it more than the NFL. Do you? A lot of people really struggle with the NIL stuff, and the transfer portal, though I believe conference expansion \u2014 and eventual sloughing off of teams that don\u2019t get TV ratings \u2014 is the larger issue. My theory<\/a> is that college football will eventually become a 32-team minor league, but until then it\u2019s still fun. The gameday experience feels the same to me even if the roster changes completely.<\/a> As a consumer, not really. I\u2019m not a student. The connection was already an illusion. I\u2019ll watch the team no matter who\u2019s on it. You make the argument in the book that you can only truly understand football if you gamble \u2014 that there\u2019s an internal game going on within the actual game that is impossible to get without paying attention to odds. I have season tickets to Georgia football, and I attend about ten games a season. But I feel like almost every conversation about football revolves around people \u2014 including reporters and the people most connected to the sport \u2014 watching it on television. What\u2019s the last football game you attended in person? I appreciate your arguments even when I think they\u2019re wrong. This has always been true with your books, but now I think most writers care more about people agreeing with them than people reading their book. Do you think that\u2019s changed since the beginning of your career? In a way, writing books does still allow that, because the kind of person who is reading online is generally reading something for free. They\u2019re not that invested with it to begin with. You have gotten into a conversation with someone you just randomly came across and will never see again, so you might not be as willing to really invest time into what they told you. But when someone buys a book, they know what they\u2019re reading isn\u2019t something they can really respond to, something that isn\u2019t created for that purpose. It\u2019s a weird one-way relationship. I think that makes it a little more acceptable to just soak in the argument. But there are fewer people who are interested in that now, which is probably why it\u2019s so hard to sell books, especially to guys. The audience for that world has gotten a lot smaller. It\u2019s not because they don\u2019t read anymore. They read all day! They\u2019re reading on their phone and they\u2019re reading what\u2019s on their computer and they\u2019re reading constantly. They\u2019re just not reading books.<\/p>\n This interview has been edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s probably just a reflection of my personality and interests. When you\u2019re a senior in high school, you have those, like, albums or yearbooks or whatever, and there\u2019s one page where you have to say what you hope you\u2019ll be doing in the future. My fantasy was to be an offensive coordinator in the SEC. What I think is very funny is that even in my greatest fantasy, I did not have the head job.<\/p>\n
\ufeffI think there\u2019s going to be this inevitable economic issue involving cable and streaming television, which will be accentuated by cultural and social issues underneath. They\u2019re able to sort of stave off and fight off as long as the NFL is still in this completely dominant financial position. But if that were to shift, the size of the league makes it paradoxically fragile. Will people our age experience that? I\u2019m 53. I suppose I could live another 40 to 50 years. We will probably be right on the cusp of this.<\/p>\n
\ufeffThe only possible replacement would be soccer becoming a fully global monoculture that includes America. But that doesn\u2019t seem likely.<\/p>\n
\ufeffIf it had been understood as an incredibly rare cardiac event, which is what it was, football probably would\u2019ve survived it. But if someone were to die from direct head trauma, things would change. The rarity of Hamlin\u2019s situation pushed the debate in one direction. You probably remember \u2014 it was weird how 12 hours after it happened, it seemed like we didn\u2019t know what was happening, but then as soon as it turned out, \u201cOh, he\u2019s going to live and the reason this happened was crazy,\u201d and then he came back, and everyone was just good about it. It\u2019s just almost like that event has disappeared.<\/p>\n
\ufeffI don\u2019t want to suggest I\u2019m watching one more than the other, because I\u2019m watching them both all the time. But in terms of what I feel invested in or what I care about, I do care about college sports more, even though everything about society is sort of forcing me to see that as an antiquated notion. It is much more enjoyable to me to have a conversation about college sports than pro sports. But I think the sport is in some trouble. I do not think this is an uncommon thought.<\/p>\n
\ufeffBut doesn\u2019t the loss of long-term relationships with players take something away?<\/p>\n
\ufeffWhat I find so charming is the historical element and the regional element and the diversity of offenses from conference to conference \u2014 the idea that a player from the West Coast is a different kind of quarterback than you might get from Florida or Texas. Regardless of how recruiting became national, teams were still fundamentally built from the area they come from. That\u2019s what will disappear. I also know that when the talent is distributed equally, there will be a spike in interest; obviously people in Indiana are having an experience with college football they\u2019ve never really had before. But what will happen is that you won\u2019t be able to succeed by doing something strategically or ideologically different. Everyone will start to play the same way as in the NFL. There might be outliers at the very front and the very back, but for the most part they\u2019ll be playing in a very similar style. I don\u2019t like that. I know now there\u2019s almost this pressure that you\u2019re supposed to look at things like Name, Image, and Likeness and be like, \u201cWell, it\u2019s morally just,\u201d but I think you can\u2019t impose those kinds of ethical ideas under everything in the same way. I do think it makes college football, as an experience, worse.<\/p>\n
\ufeffOnly in Las Vegas, with physical money. A lot of problems would disappear if that were still required. Gambling enriches football conversationally, but socially it\u2019s bad. It\u2019s hard to imagine that online gambling and phone gambling are good for society. The only argument you can make for it is that people should be able to do what they want. That\u2019s a good argument for a lot of things, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s probably good for the world. That said, I\u2019m endlessly fascinated by how accurate Vegas is. I\u2019m just fascinated by the effectiveness and the quality of line creation.When the season starts and two teams haven\u2019t played at all, and one team is a 48-point favorite, somehow the game almost always comes down to a 47-, 48-, or 49-point differential. It just doesn\u2019t seem possible to me. Yet it happens so many years in a row that I just have to accept that they\u2019re right.<\/p>\n
\ufeffIt\u2019s been a while. Oregon\u2013Oregon State years ago. A North Dakota high-school game three years ago. If I go now, it\u2019s more for the cultural experience than the game itself. I covered the Super Bowl for ESPN when the Seahawks played the Steelers and it was in Detroit. I spent the whole week covering the world around the game, all that kind of cultural stuff you got to write about because we treat the Super Bowl as this American holiday that has all these festivities tied to it. You\u2019re almost compelled or pushed to write about how overheated and crazy it is; there\u2019s a story about how insane the Super Bowl has become. But I go to the game and it\u2019s odd, because once the kickoff happens and a thousand cameras go off and you see all the little flashbulbs \u2026 then it\u2019s just a high-stakes football game. It doesn\u2019t seem in any way radically different from a game in Week Four.<\/p>\n
\ufeffYes. What has changed about the way people consume literature is the same thing that has happened with the way people consume news, which is that now, the goal is to find information that supports your preexisting bias. That became clear after the 2000 election when all the news networks suddenly realized that people actually prefer a lack of objectivity. It\u2019s not the greatest compliment, but it\u2019s a very good compliment when someone says something like, \u201cThis is the best argument that I don\u2019t agree with at all. I just read something that is very persuasive about an idea that to me still seems completely incorrect, but I can\u2019t help but concede that you have made a convincing point for something that I\u2019m just not ready to emotionally or intellectually accept.\u201d<\/p>\n