Tommie Frazier: When Huskers Win, Business Is Good
First off, watch the video above so you understand what the springboard for this article was. It's important.
So, Tommie brought up an interesting point when I interviewed him for the film. Something that many people don't think about, I certainly didn't until I watched my movie sells fluctuate week to week depending on the game's outcome. (I also talked to the head of the chamber of commerce about it to see if these thoughts were true, and they were.)
When Huskers are doing well, businesses make more money. That's the bottom line. Literally and figuratively. This definitely affects why so many people have such high emotions after games. Obviously sports do that to people but also bar owners, waiters -- anybody who relies on fans being happy to make money is totally affected by the outcomes or even the perceived outcomes of games.
For example, let's say we win but "not by enough." Fewer patrons at restaurants. We lose an 11 a.m. kick off? Even worse.
This is a lot to put on the shoulders of players and coaches, and even the administration of the program. I'm not really sure it's fair or even healthy (but that's a different discussion altogether). When I was 18, more than one girl in the room at the same time put my mind in a hormone tornado. There's no way I was carrying the burden of a whole town on my back. Not even a town the size of Hallam. Or Princeton, for that matter. (I could maybe swing a Shickley, but who couldn't?)
Part of me thinks that as a town, we may have put too many eggs in one basket.
But it's also not that easy either.
After living in Chicago and Los Angeles for 15 years, I've come to realize there aren't as many baskets to put eggs into back home. Not that Nebraska doesn't have a flourishing economy in its own right, but Lincoln -- a town of over a quarter-million people -- has only so many things to get behind not only for entertainment but as a career also.
Honestly I don't even know what my point is anymore. I guess it's weird that we care so much but also understandable. It means more to us. Plus Herbie looks like our grandpas. (Not this new handsome one, but the old disheveled Herbie). There's definitely levels to this.
And while we're on the subject of things that matter, I'd like to take this time to remind everybody that Iowa corn tastes bad and I wouldn't even feed it to cattle.
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