The agony of the spoiler: Die Patriots Die?
Let’s face it: spoilers suck. And people
who spoil things are utter scum-sucking, bottom-feeding slugs who deserve to
spend an eternity in purgatory. Damn them!
This post is primarily about spoilers in
sports. Movies, TV shows…that’s a whole different ballgame, and perhaps the
subject of another post.
Whether you are into sports or not, it
doesn’t matter. I’ll still try to suffuse a bit of ‘bigger picture’ perspective
on things. But let me tell you: I have had so many sporting events over the
years spoiled, and I definitely hold grudges forever. I have a very hard time
forgiving people over spoiling things for me.
Firstly, many of you might be asking –
how can there be spoilers in sports? Aren’t most events broadcast live these
days? If I watch something live, won’t that mean avoiding spoilers?
Would that it were so easy.
Obviously, and as my good pal Jeff
repeatedly tells me, if I want to avoid spoilers and then grumbling about it,
then just watch the damn thing live!
Again, if only it were that easy.
The three sports that have been spoiled
the most for me over the years are [American] football, football/soccer and
tennis. While living in Europe, the time difference means there are a lot of
football games that come on at ungodly hours (2am, for example). Most of my
tennis-related experiences came when I was living in the US.
With major events – World Cup final,
Super Bowl – I’ll do everything it takes to watch it live. There’s too much
risk involved and over the past few years, it’s getting harder and harder to
avoid spoilers thanks to social media and the internet.
During the World Cup in 2002 in Japan
and South Korea, I was working in Boston. The time difference meant matches
came on at 2.30, 5.00 and 7.30am. Though I had a pretty intense job that
required a high level of focus and concentration, I watched as many matches
live as possible, especially the big ones. A couple of my colleagues at the
time, who hated soccer, took great joy in spoiling some of the matches, the
ones I would record to watch later that night after work. I realised quite
early in the World Cup that I would have to take drastic action – I went to my
boss and actually managed to negotiate a flexible schedule that meant I could
arrive late on some days, particularly those with the 7.30 matches. Problem
pretty much solved, though I did have a month of nasty sleep deprivation.
Big life changes
When you have a family, a demanding job
requiring concentration and alertness, or you just need to get your precious sleep,
then you have no choice but to watch things later.
In the meantime, you just have to do
whatever it takes to avoid spoilers. In my case, that means a mania bordering
on utter paranoia. There are ‘easy’ things like avoiding the internet. But it’s
amazing how many inadvertent little things end up acting as spoilers. People
think I’m crazy and overreact to things. But for paramaniacs like me, every
little thing that someone says can be interpreted as a clue which gets my mind
racing with thoughts. And even if it’s not a direct spoiler (‘Nadal won in 3
sets!’), the agonizing and overthinking still adversely effects the viewing
experience. There have been times when I’ve been a bonehead and accidentally
spoiled something. But most of the time it’s other idiots who spoil things,
most of the time not even realizing they’ve done it.
This post has been in the pipeline for
quite some time. But it was the loss of the New England Patriots a few weeks
ago and the potential end to their dynasty, which my wife inadvertently spoiled
for me while we were on holiday in Vienna, that spurred me into action.
There’s no getting around the fact that
it’s family members, those nearest and dearest to you, who tend to be some of
the most egregious spoilers. These are very often minor little spoilers that
don’t necessarily give away the result, but still act as major impediments to
my full, unadulterated enjoyment of the event. Sometimes it’s seemingly innocuous
comments that, if you read into them too closely, can often spoil things: ‘wow,
what a surprising result’; ‘it wasn’t a good game at all, it wasn’t even close’;
‘it wasn’t such a long game’. When my wife says ‘your father put something
about the game on Facebook’ I know right away that if it’s involving the
Dolphins – his team – they won. If it involves the Patriots – who he hates –
they lost. And when my wife commented another time that he hadn’t put anything
on Facebook, well…
You get the point.
(I wonder, are there others out there as
paranoid and petty as me?)
The prologue: minor spoilers that affect
the viewing experience
1 Being told that a tennis match went to
4 or 5 sets. Often the people who spoil these things know nothing about tennis
and don’t even realise how this can be a spoiler. And then when you react to
their spoilage, they incredulously deny that they’ve spoiled anything. A
further particularly nasty habit of these cretins is when they offer up a feeble
‘tennis is a stupid sport anyway’ excuse.
2 A typical American football game lasts
roughly 3 hours of real time, with commercials. When I watch the next day on
NFL Game Pass, it takes the commercials out and condenses the game to around
2:10-2:15. When the game loads, you can see in the bottom right-hand corner how
long the game was. But if it goes into overtime, it tends to be closer to
2:30-2:35. As I’m loading the game, I have to cover that part of the screen
with my hand, which then disappears when I maximise the screen. This is me at
my pettiest and most paranoid. Knowing that a game has potentially gone into
overtime affects my enjoyment of the game: right away I know it’s going to be
close. And if it’s late in the game, and one team is down by 7 and driving for
a tying score…well, then I have a good idea of what the outcome is going to be
judging from how much time is left. This is usually avoidable but then are
times when it gets spoiled (sometimes it’s the cat or the baby just bumping the
computer and I can’t help but notice the time in the corner).
The big spoilers, mainly due to idiocy.
1 ESPN showing the results of tennis
matches at the bottom of the screen while showing tape-delayed matches. In the
late 90s, early 2000s, a lot of tennis was only showed on tape delay and there
was no way to watch live. But amazingly, you might be watching a match only to
have the result of that very same match given away at the bottom of the screen.
ESPN was deluged with so many complaints that they finally put a stop to this.
But did they learn their lesson? Oh no, as we’ll see in a moment.
2 Euro 2000: ‘So Patrick was saying,
should we watch the final in an Italian bar or a French bar?’
This was again while working in Boston.
Matches were often played at noon or 2.30pm local time, and there was no way to
adjust my schedule so that I’d have the middle of the day free. One of my
favourite pubs and regular football/soccer watching haunts was The Plough and
Stars in Cambridge. They’d show the matches live, but also tape delayed that
evening, so I’d pop in after work for a couple of Guinnesses. On the day of the
semifinal between the Netherlands and Italy (France had won the previous day’s
semifinal), at a table just next to me of 2 women and a man presumably named
Patrick, one of the idiots casually mentioned in a rather loud voice their
final day viewing options. At this stage of the match, early in the 1st
half, Italy were down to 10 men and Holland were vastly outplaying the
Italians, peppering the goal with shot after shot. Watching it, I expected
Holland to win 4-0. But as soon as this nitwit gave away the result, I and
about 6 others screamed at her and threatened eternal damnfire and damnation to
rain down on her. They were fairly quiet and morose after that. Still, match
spoiled: it finished 0-0 and Italy won on penalties.
3 Wimbledon Final, 2001: Goran Ivanisevic v Pat Rafter. Because of a
rain delay on the Sunday, the final was moved to Monday. This is a day I should
have called in sick. My colleagues took great joy in offering up teasing clues
as to the outcome, including going to other colleagues’ desks and sending
emails purporting to be from them saying crap like ‘Rafter won!’ and ‘wow, it’s
now in the 5th set!’ In what turned out to be one of the most epic
finals in tennis history, I watched Ivanisevic’s victory that night after work
in a foul, grumpy mood, unable to relax and enjoy it.
4 In the regular season of any league,
you know the matchups in advance. When it comes to the playoffs in football and
the knockout rounds in soccer, someone telling you the next matchup obviously
gives away the result of the match you’ve yet to watch. Very often the person
doing this is totally oblivious as to how they’ve spoiled anything: ‘The next
match is England v Sweden’ on Saturday, while you’re in the middle of watching
England v Colombia.
5 For some of the most ridiculous
spoilers I’ve even encountered, we have to go to Euro 2016, starting from the
semifinals. Up to this point, there’s been an epic Northern Ireland victory
over Ukraine, and Wales has made a magical run to the semifinals, beating
Belgium in the quarterfinals. Next up: a semifinal versus Portugal.
Euro 2016 part 1: the lengths I go to to
watch things live
We were flying back to the US and I was
trying to time the days and flights to avoid missing matches. But in the course
of my flight booking research, I noticed that Turkish Airlines was a sponsor
and were showing matches live on their flights. And what a bonus: the best,
cheapest option for flying from Kyiv-Boston was on Turkish Airlines. That meant
we’d get to watch Wales v Portugal.
But no: there were technical problems
and the game wasn’t on.
But I had a backup plan: my dad was
DVRing it and we could watch it that night.
The plane landed, people started
standing up and gathering their belongings. Unfortunately I let my guard down
for just a second too long. Just a few rows behind us was the dictionary
definition of a douchebag, who had whipped out his phone to check the result, proclaiming
in a booming voice as he stood up: ‘oh man, Wales lost, that sucks!’
Euro 2016 part 2:
The next day was the 2nd
semifinal, Germany v France. Just a few hours after arriving in Boston, the
family all piled into the minivan for a 16 hour trek down to South Carolina.
Nice welcome to America for my poor wife – a long plane journey, a few hours to
‘relax’ while I vented and fumed over the idiot who had spoiled the Wales
match, and then an arduous journey in a minivan.
We had to wait until our arrival to
catch an encore presentation of the match on ESPN. So there we were watching it
when, during the halftime commercial break, ESPN starting showing promos for
the upcoming Euro 2016 Final: Portugal v France.
Well done, ESPN.
Euro 2016 part 3: the denouement (not
only of France)
‘Portugal won and so can you!’
Perhaps this one was my fault on many
different levels. I watched the first 90 minutes and then, when it went into
extra time level at 0-0, I inexplicably decided not to finish watching and figured
I’d watch the replay the following day when it was being re-broadcast. (can I blame
my wife for this? She wanted to go to the pool and asked if I’d go with her. I
could have said no, I suppose.)
Then, the next day I checked my email. I
actually had to check it for work-related reasons, and I can assure you that I really
had no choice, it was a fairly urgent matter.
And despite my best efforts, that’s when
I saw the spoiler: an email from an unknown address with the subject line ‘Portugal
won and so can you!’
Unbelievably, my spam filter failed to
weed this one out. It was from some outfit called the Cactus Language School,
who I’d never heard of, with some special offer for language courses. I was
incredulous! In a fit of rage, I immediately replied to them with a message
full of threats and insults, saying I was going to bring their sorry excuse of
a language school down for having the audacity to send me such a poorly thought-out
unsolicited message.
And amazingly, it actually got me into
trouble at work. Although I didn’t mention where I worked and wrote the email
purely on a personal level, those cretins somehow tracked me down and got in
touch with my boss, who called me into his office and gave me a telling off. This
was perhaps even more unbelievable than the original affront.
The present day: 2 February 2020, hours
away from Super Bowl 54
And here we are, with the Super Bowl
kicking off in just a few hours. And I’ve decided to put my paranoia into
action and really throw caution to the wind. I’m going to pass on the 1.30am
kickoff and watch it tomorrow. On the surface it might appear risky, but where I
live in Kyiv, the chances of it getting spoiled have to be pretty low, right?
Starting from my earliest memory of
watching the Super Bowl (1985), I have only missed 2 Super Bowls: from 2006,
when I was living in Lviv, and in 2009 when I had just moved to Kyrgyzstan. In
both cases, there was absolutely nowhere to watch it. In 2006, I just checked
the result right away (it was one of the worst Super Bowls ever, by most
accounts). In 2009, it was surprisingly easy not to see the result – my sister
downloaded the game and sent it on a CD, but before it arrived, I got a bit
impatient and checked the result for myself. I do think I might have managed to
avoid it for longer though.
It’s harder these days, it seems. Just
when you least expect it…
Which takes us back to Vienna. The
Titans were playing the Patriots while we were visiting. I could have watched
it live (at 2.30am) but it would have been tricky, and it would have been on my
tablet. Could have watched it the next day, but again, on my tablet? Call me
picky, but I wanted to wait until getting back to Kyiv where I could watch it
on a big screen. But this meant surviving about 5 days of not having it
spoiled.
And there I was on the Vienna
underground staring absentmindedly at the advertisements projected onto the
side of the tunnels, which usually show things like the Vienna opera or ads for
local services or what-have-you. But then suddenly, up flashed a bit of sports
news featuring none other than the New England Patriots. I immediately looked
away, having only seen the first four words of the headline: ‘Die New England
Patriots…’
Damn it!
But then…I realised that this was hardly
a spoiler at all. Had they won? Had they lost? Usually the headline would
feature the winning team, but in the case of the Patriots, it could go either
way. The more I thought about it, the more uncertain I was about whether this
was even a spoiler at all. Thank goodness for that, I could still enjoy the
game. Right?
I told my wife about this. She asked me
whether it would be such a bad thing if the Patriots lost. ‘Well, of course it
would, it’s the playoffs, they lose and they’re out.’
And the look on her face as I said this
totally gave the result away. I can’t really describe the look, but she knew,
it was clear. They had in fact lost.
I didn’t say a word at first, quickly
and abruptly trying to change the subject, forget about it, banish it from my
mind. But I couldn’t and it lingered. I was stewing on the inside. We got back
to Kyiv and I watched the game, never able to fully relax (I actually would be
the first to admit that the problem is all with me). I knew they were going to
lose. And lose they did, with the dynasty perhaps over.
After the game, I did ask my wife
whether she knew the result for sure and she dithered and dathered before
sheepishly admitting that she thought she had seen something on social media or
she suspected something. She tried to wriggle out of it, but it was all too
late.
Have I learned my lesson? Hell no. I’m
taking a chance that this Super Bowl won’t be spoiled. I’ve reached the point
where I can’t stay up all night and then suffer through the next day,
especially when I’ve got a little one to take care of. I’ll try not to venture
out, I won’t go near my computer or tablet and just hope for the best.
And if it gets spoiled…serves me right.
(‘The Chiefs won and so can you!’)
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