The (Football) Star-Mangled Banner
(An Anthem With Offensive Lines)
Oh, say, have you seen how your ratings have dropped?
Seems your viewers don’t find grownup tantrums too charming.
(A decline, as you know, never caused by T-Bow,
Whose religious displays you found strange and alarming.)
It’s confusing to you,
But believe me, it’s true,
That contempt for your nation
Can hurt revenue;
And the Star-Spangled Banner, a gap has revealed –
‘Tween the poor, in the stands, and the rich on the field.
You’ve had scandals before, ultimately ignored—
Your game was an escape from societal schism.
Patriots deflated balls? That was nothing at all—
But when overpaid stars deflate patriotism—
The fans no longer care
How much cheerleaders bare;
You can’t scold them for that,
For they’re simply not there.
And the Star-Spangled Banner forlornly rings out
O’er your stadiums as the spoiled athletes pout.
O, thus be it ever, when free men shall stand—
But the self-enslaved kneel, in grievance’s constrainment—
And instead of football, I watch your ratings fall—
Please forgive me, but to me, that’s REAL entertainment.
If at last you despair,
Or are forced off the air,
And the madness has passed,
Football will still be there,
And “The Star-Spangled Banner,” respected by all,
Sound o’er fields where grown men, are still paid…to play ball.
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