Fergie

Yes, we shall set them to work, but in their leisure hours we shall make their life like a child’s game, with children’s songs and innocent dance. — from the Grand Inquisitor’s speech in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov

And we shall render unto them Fergie, and they shall love us, for Fergie has sturdy legs and strong lungs and shall deliver unto them a full-force gale, off-key and off-kilter, so that halftime shall be even more awesome than the game, which shall be won by the gladiators from the ancient steel town, or the gladiators from the hamlet in suburban Siberia.

And we shall call the children “fans” and deliver unto them the gift of forgetfulness, and reduce their attention span to the length of a pop song, and to the knowledge that each fourth down shall be followed by a plague of shills, each of whom shall surrender to us vast sums for precious seconds of airtime.

And we shall strike into these shills the fear that fans shall changeth the channel if the camera doth linger for more than a blink on any one of them, or on the lame medley of pop tunes, or on the gladiators.

And we shall make of America a theme park where fans shall labor on cube farms and in food shacks, and we shall reward them with diversions that not so long ago were the province of preschoolers.

And we shall declareth new champs, and they shall speaketh like the old champs, and the fans shall pass to laughter and rejoicing, and within days shall move on to spring training.