Many fans live and die by their team's performance and record or even sometimes the players themselves. Professional sports gambling has sky rocketed as well over the last few decades, and football lends itself well to sports gambling. Gambling on the Super Bowl is approaching a billion dollar enterprise. This competitive nature Americans tend to share has allowed exponential growth of the game "Fantasy Football" has exploded in America. .
Fantasy football is played now by over 30 million Americans, and the numbers are steadily increasing. .
In the story of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain the soldiers of Bravo Company are sent around the country on a "Victory Tour " after a display of heroics was televised. At the conclusion of the tour Billy is found at the stadium of the Dallas Cowboys during one their games against the Chicago Bears, where he is forced to do a halftime show as part of their tour. Ben Fountain uses this situation as a way to display how American patriotism in its symbolic meaning like football is nothing more than a twisted awareness of reality. From the very beginning of the book Ben fountain starts to takes us into the mind of a veteran combat soldier who is currently try to comprehend the actual twisted nature of an American society he thought he once knew. In the opening chapter of the book Fountain gives the readers a quick look into how Billy sees civilian class people. "Not Spooks- they were too plump for that, their smiles to heedless of the woes of the world, and as soon as the plane was airborne those guys were partying hard. " (Fountain, pg.4) Here Billy is seen with already a outsider looking in type mentality of how other people view what the world is like.
While at the stadium the boys of Bravo Company are subjugated to various activities that promote the American image. "You have given America back its pride " (Fountain, pg.112) This is because during the time of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, Americans overall started to have a general disconnect to what was going on actually overseas.
