A Jews Perspective on Professional Sports

The following article crossed my desk this morning.
http://matzav.com/the-lockout-mussar-lesson-greedy-vs-whiney

I must say that I did not completely favor the commentary in this article and here is the commentary that I personally offer in this regard:

To the writer of this article:
I beseech that you change your perspective.
You are correct that the Jewish life is really not lived at the arena of course. But that said, you should be a citizen of our Great Nation and acnowledge the important and crucial role that sports do play in our national life. That said, this is a trying issue as the players do indeed make up the bulk of the show, but that said I do agree that there must be a limit to the needs that any one man has in his day. But that said, given their emotional and physical commitment, these people do indeed deserve to be compensated in a good fashion. But that does not mean that the owners and others who put on this production should be short changed either.
But to claim hedonism here, let it be what it is. Each person lives his or her life differently. I do not know that I would go so far as to describe a professional athlete as hedonistic, though I could indeed use the term “prima-donna” to its capacity in their cases some of the time.
So if you want to call them “whiney”, thats all good and fine. I would assert that they are prima donnas of the ballclubs and that they really do have their role in all of our lives as Citizens of America, though if I am not thinking of them on a daily basis, I will not be placating their need to be superstars in our culture.
So be sure that we as American Jews have a special interest in sports. True we dont watch many of the games when we are involved in study and other higher activities, but once in a while its a nice feature that rest assured, your Creator provides for our society. I will be watching some football this year and I will of course watch the crucial game 6 of the NBA championships. Maybe a few innings of baseball too, but that said, I am grateful that our Creator has provided for sports fun for all of our people.