At each of the Premier League games I watched over the weekend, there was a brief pregame ceremony involving a moment of silence, and, in some places, a solitary bugler. It was very moving, even considering the fact that most of the players aren’t British.
The NFL games featured far more bombast and military imagery. Why the difference?
Three reasons. First, the NFL needs to brand itself as a bastion of patriotism after the kneeling episodes of the last few years. Second, we Americans don’t do dignified restraint anywhere near as well as the British, because that isn’t who we are. I think the most important difference, however, is that the two world wars impacted everyone in the UK, so there is no reason for anyone in particular to make a display of his feelings. Americans have short memories, and our most recent wars have been fought by volunteers representing a largely disengaged nation. We compensate for that with empty pageantry that probably isn’t even welcomed by most members of the military, because it has nothing to do with their wartime experiences.