How odd that such a huge portion of the US worships a ton of bulked up dudes tossing a brown ball back and forth. My favorite oddities:

1. One that smacked me in the face from Paul Graham's essay was that when a CEO makes 100x the normal pay...it is an outrage. But those same people complaining are okay with all of these athletes making 128x pay.

2. They're just throwing a ball back and forth. "Oh but they're generating economic surplus!" Napoleon Bonaparte once thought that by having people dig holes in the ground he was doing the same. . . think about how better the world would be if the people in the NFL industry (athletes + overhead) spent their talents in another field??

Bastiat's "What is Not Seen" beckons this: http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss1.html

3. All of the fans say 'We won!' No asshole, "They won." Good for them, they worked hard (at game..) and did well. You, on the other hand, sat on your ass and drank a lot of beer.

4. Some cities base the majority of their culture around these ridiculous customs. Take Louisville Kentucky (and Lexington Kentucky) for example........ IT is a RELIGION here. Speaking out against these teams is borderline heresy.

5. Die hard fans quote game/player stats like their number-crunching statisticians. Amongst the groups where sports is religion, these "statisticians" are revered.