For most of the history of American football, behemoth arenas, both domed and open to the elements, referred back to the civic venues of the Romans. Try as it might, the cool blue glass of the U. S. Bank Stadium cannot obscure these origins. It cannot hide the fact that corporate survival and football are both blood sports. Football is gladiatorial combat with a lower immediate kill rate, though not an inconsiderable one, and with grave longer-term neurological dangers. Veterans of foreign wars and domestic pigskin battles were arrayed and honored in Minneapolis, but none of the maimed, or coffined, or fully-addled were. As for the populace itself, its members may not get fed to the lions anymore, but they can still be bled by the powerful.
And manipulated by their minions.
-- David Yearsley
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