Alarming violence

This writer has been increasingly horrified by the volume of violent basketball content on local social media. What is even more alarming is that this type of short-form video pulls in millions of views. It won’t be long until the violence escalates, or some impressionable youngsters start replicating the phenomenon, hoping for fleeting fame.

We’ve seen non-basketball personalities become famous by playing in their bare feet, running with the ball, elbowing defenders, throwing forearms. When they score, the crowd cheers lustily. There’s a Canadian basketball player who goes around challenging locals one on one, disrespecting them verbally, getting physical, even bouncing the basketball on their heads. Yet, when his aggression is reciprocated, he can’t take it, and loses his composure. Still others smoke or drink while playing. And it has become common practice to hack a driving player, and swing your elbows madly after getting a rebound. It’s your own lookout if you get hit.

Even worse, there are often no referees, or the referees are complicit in these farces. Worst of all, the spectators throng the court, egging the players on, recording the nonsense, shouting in their ears, all within breathing distance. How long will it be before someone in the crowd itself reacts and takes a swing at the participants, and the unrestrained mob swoops in and leaves someone injured, or worse?

We all enjoy the game as a pastime, but this? This is not basketball. It’s a disaster waiting to happen. One over-enthusiastic viewer gets carried away, and all hell will break loose. When the damage is done, everyone will scatter and hide in the anonymity of the crowd. Where are the barangay officials and tanods who are tasked with maintaining safety and security?

This is totally different from exhibition games organized by local government units. There are referees, and spectators are kept out of the playing court. There is structure. Even our friends who are little people play exhibitions against regular folk for entertainment, but they play the game seriously. Many foreign players suit up as imports in local leagues all over the country, but they are treated with a respectful distance.

The question is who will step in to regulate these artificial events before they get out of hand? The participants are not professionals or potential national athletes. They are mostly people off the street, some of whom desperately crave attention, and others who are, frankly, not all there mentally. They don’t realize that the rabid people who watch them and spread the videos will abandon them when danger presents itself. Again, who will stop the escalation?

You can call it entertainment for the masses, but what is it teaching the youth? We all know what will happen next. When the audience gets satiated, things have to get rougher to keep the eyeballs. Somebody is going to seriously get hurt. Then what? Everybody wrings their hands as if they were not part of the problem.

I repeat: this is not basketball.

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