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by Kyle Beakley (Scribe)1 comments
148 reads
July 16, 2008
No. 10: Stanley Cup Playoffs
Sure, every hockey nerd talks about the "passion" and "pride" behind the final drive to capture the immortal Stanley Cup.
However, let's not forget that more than half the teams in league, even those with losing records, are invited to take place in the supposedly prestigious event. What's the point of playing those 82 regular-season games in the first place if a team that's 42-40 can knock out a 70-12 team with four lucky wins?
Also, I don't think Lord Stanley envisioned games between Nashville and Atlanta or Dallas and Phoenix when he donated the trophy. There are too many small-market, faceless teams present in what should be a marquee event.
Every round being best of seven is just too damn long. Cut early rounds to five or even three games so we can get the crappy teams out of the tournament and get to the good stuff already.
Besides, does anyone else find it odd that a sport played on ice ends in June?
No. 9: John Madden
Once upon a time, John Madden was a groundbreaking commentator who brought plain talk, humor, and passion to what was previously a boring and stoic job held by the likes of rock-stiff Paul Christman.
Now, color commentary is just a weekend hobby for Madden, who could make a living by simply sitting home and watching millions pour in from sales of his overblown video game franchise.
He's saluted as the god of televised sports, but Madden is really no different than the drunk, obnoxious guy sitting on the corner at your local sports bar. You know, shouting innocuous comments ("When your team scores more points than the other team, you usually have a good chance at winning the game").
Madden just criticizes plays for no apparent reason other than just to be heard ("he's gotta hang on to that ball, because otherwise he drops it and it's fourth down"), and playing favorites (particularly Brett Favre and the Oakland Raiders in Madden's case).
Oh, but John Madden is different from your local sports bum in that he has a telestrator. So, he gets to scribble on your television set like a 4-year-old armed with a 64-pack of Crayola Crayons drawing all over his parents' wall. It's called expert analysis, then he get paid umpteen million dollars by NBC.
Where's the love for Phil Simms?
#8: The SEC
Hey, I got some news for you SEC fans: from top to bottom, your little conference really isn't that much different from any other in Division I football.
Sure, there are the powerhouses like Florida, Tennessee, and Alabama, but how about cupcakes like Vandy, Mississippi State (don't give me the oh-but-they're-gonna-contend-this-year crap), and Kentucky.
The Pac-10 has the same balance of powerhouses and cupcakes as the SEC. For that matter, so does the ACC, and, to an extent, the Big 10.
Yet, somehow SEC fans think that their teams should get a special bonus each time new BCS rankings come out, just because their team is in the supposedly "toughest" conference.
Riots ensue throughout Florida if the Gators at 7-1 aren't ranked above USC at 8-0, because after all, that one loss is due to the fact that the SEC is just so tough!
Guess what SEC whiners, if you think your conference is too tough, then switch to the Big East or go independent. Otherwise, shut up and accept the fact that the SEC isn't anything special and is just a lame excuse for your team's chokes.
No. 7: ESPN
"The Worldwide Leader in Sports" has ruined the sporting experience more than any other single force in the universe.
Instead of actually showing games, ESPN's schedule consists of SportsCenter for 12 hours per day, a few hours of poker, a few hours of sportswriters screaming at each other, a few hours of replays of those sportswriters screaming at each other, and then maybe three hours of actual sports coverage, if they get around to it.
If that wasn't bad enough, ESPN destroys the few actual sporting events they show with bad announcers, cheesy graphics, constant hype, and hip-hop theme music to attract a younger audience (mind you, a younger audience with a 10 second attention span who will probably turn the game off after three minutes to either play Madden 2008. Or, of course, they can watch the highlights on one of the 15 SportsCenter replays).
Remember when families gathered around the set to watch the NBC Game of the Week?
Remember Brent Musburger shouting "You are looking live at the Los Angeles Coliseum!...", followed by Pat Summerall's soft dulcitones calling the NFL action?
Forget it. It's all down the tube thanks to the cookie-cutter world of ESPN.
No. 6: Notre Dame
How can a team which hasn't won a BCS Bowl game in 17 years be granted its own independent television contract and have a special clause for inclusion by the BCS to boot?
Simple, it's because Notre Dame has perfected its status as a pure showpiece of college football.
Notre Dame's prestige rests on bursts of success from ancient times. The aura of the Four Horsemen and The Gipper put Notre Dame on the map, and it still continues to this day (even though The Gipper would probably puke if he saw the state of Notre Dame, and for that matter, college football today).
Along with its signature golden helmets, catchy fight song, and leprechaun logo, plus mild success from Ara Parshegian in the '70s and Lou Holtz in the '80s, Notre Dame has become the NCAA equivalent of the NFL's Cowboys: a haven for frontrunners.
Notre Dame is also a favorite team of Irish-Americans, who merely by the team's nickname feel a birthright to be a Fighting Irish fan, even though they may live thousands of miles away in San Diego or Augusta, Maine.
Notre Dame is a relic of a bygone era. Its success is not only limited, but also overblown by their legion of blind fans and friendly media. It doesn't deserve an independent TV contract, a special BCS exception, or nearly half of the praise it gets from sportswriters.
No. 5: The Yankees-Red Sox Rivalry
I don't know about you, but I usually consider rivalries to be close battles between hated foes.
Let's compare records since 1918: Yankees, 23 championships. Red Sox, 2 championships.
Seem a little lopsided to you? It sure does to me: Yankees-Red Sox is a minor rivalry.
In fact, a better word for "rivalry" would be "jealousy", particularly jealousy by Boston fans towards Yankees fans for always being better than them. And, on the other hand, Yankee fans have no reason to show any animosity towards the Red Sox, other than wanting them to shut the hell up with all their whining and complaining and Bambino sob stories.
Plus, a true rivalry needs to be climatic and special. Ohio State and Michigan only play once a year. Duke and North Carolina play twice. Meanwhile, the Yanks and Sox play each other 14 times in six months.
It's a passionate rivalry in September when playoff spots are on the line, but is there anything really "rivalrous" about an April game between these two clubs, other than the fact that the media goes crazy to promote it?
Where is the real competitiveness here? There isn't any, to be quite honest: it's all artificial.
Jealous Boston fans and grumpy front running Yankee fans who want someone to yell at when they don't win a championship for all of two years create it.
Sure, there have been great moments like the Bucky Dent game, plus the 2003 and 2004 ALCS. But, other than that, the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry has been a media-created fallacy.
No. 4: Non-BCS Bowl Games
We all love the BCS Bowls, plus other New Year's Day bowls to an extent, like the Capital One Bowl and Gator Bowl.
But, does anyone really get pumped up for the New Mexico Bowl or the Humanitarian Bowl?
Is there even a point in playing these meaningless games? Stadiums are always half empty.
Reruns of "The Jeffersons" get higher TV ratings. You'd be lucky to walk around all day and even find one person on the street who can name a player on either team in some of these pathetic games.
But, the counter-argument is always: "Oh, well bowl games are for the players. They enjoy it, so shut up."
Really? So a 6-5 team, whose players are already getting a free education and the privilege to play on a national stage really need to travel to Idaho to play a hyped-up game to potentially improve their record to 7-5. Proving that they're just above mediocre?
Please. Bowl games are just big commercials in disguise (as are all sports, frankly). The game means absolutely nothing, besides another event for degenerate gamblers to bet on.
I'd rather watch a local pee wee championship game where the kids actually care about the outcome than watch the Generic Desperate-for-Ad-Space Company Bowl in Nowheresville between Troy State and Florida Atlantic.
No. 3: All-Star Games
Remember when Pete Rose ran over Ray Fosse to win the 1970 All-Star Game?
Forget it, those days are gone. Now, All-Star games are just friendly get-togethers for overpaid athletes. What should be an intense contact sport, becomes a genial game of croquet.
Who really cares to see the game's best players on one field/court/rink when they're playing for absolutely nothing (except home field advantage in the World Series for baseball, which about two percent of All-Stars will care about)?
Is it such a big thrill to see Derek Jeter and Manny Ramirez playing for the same team? It might have been neat back in 1965, but with free agency today, Manny and Derek could very well be playing on the same team next year.
Speaking of free agency, the luster of watching the game's greatest players together is gone. Watching a Red Sox-Yankees game is pretty much like watching an All-Star Game. Their players account for almost the entire field of starters.
The only fun All-Star events anymore are the Home Run Derby and the NHL Skills Competition—a unique twist that showcases the talents of top athletes.
But, just playing another game and hyping it up to the max isn't anything to write home about. I wouldn't mind if they canned the All-Star Games.
#2: The Super Bowl
Every year, the entire nation gathers around a TV set to watch the Super Bowl— which usually turns out to be one of the crappiest games of the year.
For all the hype and all the spectacle, the Super Bowl usually leaves you with the feeling of, in the immortal words of Harry Caray, "opening up a box of Cracker Jacks and not finding a prize inside."
Very rarely, we get a treat like this year's Giants-Patriots game, or Adam Vinatieri's last-second field goal in 2002, or Mike Jones making the game-saving tackle on the one-yard line.
But, for every magical Super Bowl like those above, there are twice as many horrible ones: remember the Ravens' romping of the Giants, or John Elway's destruction of Atlanta, or even worse, the absolute snore fest of the Steelers and Seahawks?
By the time you sit through the two weeks of media hype, six hours of pregame coverage, and the awful pregame concerts, you're probably expecting something spectacular. Instead, the NFL gives you either a lopsided game whose outcome is pretty much decided by the second quarter, or an overly conservative snore fest with neither team willing to pull out the fireworks.
Unless your team is playing in the big game, it's rarely worth your time, not to mention all the bucks you'll shell out on pizza and nachos.
No. 1: The Olympics
Does anyone else want to puke when NBC plays those sappy commercials: "For two weeks, the entire world will come together in Beijing."
Please. The Olympics are touted as some magical international-building event, which ends all wars thanks to the efforts of a few amateur athletes.
In reality, the Olympics are an international political playing piece, which celebrates domination by world superpowers, and serves as the ultimate global billboard for greedy multinational corporations.
And honestly, the only thing that makes the Olympics worth watching is the fact that it happens only every four years, and the USA always wins a bunch.
Have you ever sat back and really taken a look at the kinds of events that get shoved down your throat during the Olympics? I have.
Please shoot me if I have to watch one more gymnastics competition, featuring some of the creepiest-looking people on Earth twirling around bars.
Am I really expected to sit through a 1000-meter race or even worse, hurdles? Can we lose the field hockey and soccer and put on an intense sport like water polo?
And please, enough swimming and diving. How many variations can we possibly put on an already dull sport? I'll still be just as bored when watching a medley as I am when watching the butterfly stroke.
Why do we really care about these inane sports with even more inane athletes? Does anyone have a life? Are we so attached to the tube that we'll actually sit and watch people racewalk for God's sake?
It's pretty sad that The Olympics is a marquee event. It's the most overrated thing in all of sports.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...one-of-the-10-most-overrated-things-in-sports
148 reads
July 16, 2008
No. 10: Stanley Cup Playoffs
Sure, every hockey nerd talks about the "passion" and "pride" behind the final drive to capture the immortal Stanley Cup.
However, let's not forget that more than half the teams in league, even those with losing records, are invited to take place in the supposedly prestigious event. What's the point of playing those 82 regular-season games in the first place if a team that's 42-40 can knock out a 70-12 team with four lucky wins?
Also, I don't think Lord Stanley envisioned games between Nashville and Atlanta or Dallas and Phoenix when he donated the trophy. There are too many small-market, faceless teams present in what should be a marquee event.
Every round being best of seven is just too damn long. Cut early rounds to five or even three games so we can get the crappy teams out of the tournament and get to the good stuff already.
Besides, does anyone else find it odd that a sport played on ice ends in June?
No. 9: John Madden
Once upon a time, John Madden was a groundbreaking commentator who brought plain talk, humor, and passion to what was previously a boring and stoic job held by the likes of rock-stiff Paul Christman.
Now, color commentary is just a weekend hobby for Madden, who could make a living by simply sitting home and watching millions pour in from sales of his overblown video game franchise.
He's saluted as the god of televised sports, but Madden is really no different than the drunk, obnoxious guy sitting on the corner at your local sports bar. You know, shouting innocuous comments ("When your team scores more points than the other team, you usually have a good chance at winning the game").
Madden just criticizes plays for no apparent reason other than just to be heard ("he's gotta hang on to that ball, because otherwise he drops it and it's fourth down"), and playing favorites (particularly Brett Favre and the Oakland Raiders in Madden's case).
Oh, but John Madden is different from your local sports bum in that he has a telestrator. So, he gets to scribble on your television set like a 4-year-old armed with a 64-pack of Crayola Crayons drawing all over his parents' wall. It's called expert analysis, then he get paid umpteen million dollars by NBC.
Where's the love for Phil Simms?
#8: The SEC
Hey, I got some news for you SEC fans: from top to bottom, your little conference really isn't that much different from any other in Division I football.
Sure, there are the powerhouses like Florida, Tennessee, and Alabama, but how about cupcakes like Vandy, Mississippi State (don't give me the oh-but-they're-gonna-contend-this-year crap), and Kentucky.
The Pac-10 has the same balance of powerhouses and cupcakes as the SEC. For that matter, so does the ACC, and, to an extent, the Big 10.
Yet, somehow SEC fans think that their teams should get a special bonus each time new BCS rankings come out, just because their team is in the supposedly "toughest" conference.
Riots ensue throughout Florida if the Gators at 7-1 aren't ranked above USC at 8-0, because after all, that one loss is due to the fact that the SEC is just so tough!
Guess what SEC whiners, if you think your conference is too tough, then switch to the Big East or go independent. Otherwise, shut up and accept the fact that the SEC isn't anything special and is just a lame excuse for your team's chokes.
No. 7: ESPN
"The Worldwide Leader in Sports" has ruined the sporting experience more than any other single force in the universe.
Instead of actually showing games, ESPN's schedule consists of SportsCenter for 12 hours per day, a few hours of poker, a few hours of sportswriters screaming at each other, a few hours of replays of those sportswriters screaming at each other, and then maybe three hours of actual sports coverage, if they get around to it.
If that wasn't bad enough, ESPN destroys the few actual sporting events they show with bad announcers, cheesy graphics, constant hype, and hip-hop theme music to attract a younger audience (mind you, a younger audience with a 10 second attention span who will probably turn the game off after three minutes to either play Madden 2008. Or, of course, they can watch the highlights on one of the 15 SportsCenter replays).
Remember when families gathered around the set to watch the NBC Game of the Week?
Remember Brent Musburger shouting "You are looking live at the Los Angeles Coliseum!...", followed by Pat Summerall's soft dulcitones calling the NFL action?
Forget it. It's all down the tube thanks to the cookie-cutter world of ESPN.
No. 6: Notre Dame
How can a team which hasn't won a BCS Bowl game in 17 years be granted its own independent television contract and have a special clause for inclusion by the BCS to boot?
Simple, it's because Notre Dame has perfected its status as a pure showpiece of college football.
Notre Dame's prestige rests on bursts of success from ancient times. The aura of the Four Horsemen and The Gipper put Notre Dame on the map, and it still continues to this day (even though The Gipper would probably puke if he saw the state of Notre Dame, and for that matter, college football today).
Along with its signature golden helmets, catchy fight song, and leprechaun logo, plus mild success from Ara Parshegian in the '70s and Lou Holtz in the '80s, Notre Dame has become the NCAA equivalent of the NFL's Cowboys: a haven for frontrunners.
Notre Dame is also a favorite team of Irish-Americans, who merely by the team's nickname feel a birthright to be a Fighting Irish fan, even though they may live thousands of miles away in San Diego or Augusta, Maine.
Notre Dame is a relic of a bygone era. Its success is not only limited, but also overblown by their legion of blind fans and friendly media. It doesn't deserve an independent TV contract, a special BCS exception, or nearly half of the praise it gets from sportswriters.
No. 5: The Yankees-Red Sox Rivalry
I don't know about you, but I usually consider rivalries to be close battles between hated foes.
Let's compare records since 1918: Yankees, 23 championships. Red Sox, 2 championships.
Seem a little lopsided to you? It sure does to me: Yankees-Red Sox is a minor rivalry.
In fact, a better word for "rivalry" would be "jealousy", particularly jealousy by Boston fans towards Yankees fans for always being better than them. And, on the other hand, Yankee fans have no reason to show any animosity towards the Red Sox, other than wanting them to shut the hell up with all their whining and complaining and Bambino sob stories.
Plus, a true rivalry needs to be climatic and special. Ohio State and Michigan only play once a year. Duke and North Carolina play twice. Meanwhile, the Yanks and Sox play each other 14 times in six months.
It's a passionate rivalry in September when playoff spots are on the line, but is there anything really "rivalrous" about an April game between these two clubs, other than the fact that the media goes crazy to promote it?
Where is the real competitiveness here? There isn't any, to be quite honest: it's all artificial.
Jealous Boston fans and grumpy front running Yankee fans who want someone to yell at when they don't win a championship for all of two years create it.
Sure, there have been great moments like the Bucky Dent game, plus the 2003 and 2004 ALCS. But, other than that, the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry has been a media-created fallacy.
No. 4: Non-BCS Bowl Games
We all love the BCS Bowls, plus other New Year's Day bowls to an extent, like the Capital One Bowl and Gator Bowl.
But, does anyone really get pumped up for the New Mexico Bowl or the Humanitarian Bowl?
Is there even a point in playing these meaningless games? Stadiums are always half empty.
Reruns of "The Jeffersons" get higher TV ratings. You'd be lucky to walk around all day and even find one person on the street who can name a player on either team in some of these pathetic games.
But, the counter-argument is always: "Oh, well bowl games are for the players. They enjoy it, so shut up."
Really? So a 6-5 team, whose players are already getting a free education and the privilege to play on a national stage really need to travel to Idaho to play a hyped-up game to potentially improve their record to 7-5. Proving that they're just above mediocre?
Please. Bowl games are just big commercials in disguise (as are all sports, frankly). The game means absolutely nothing, besides another event for degenerate gamblers to bet on.
I'd rather watch a local pee wee championship game where the kids actually care about the outcome than watch the Generic Desperate-for-Ad-Space Company Bowl in Nowheresville between Troy State and Florida Atlantic.
No. 3: All-Star Games
Remember when Pete Rose ran over Ray Fosse to win the 1970 All-Star Game?
Forget it, those days are gone. Now, All-Star games are just friendly get-togethers for overpaid athletes. What should be an intense contact sport, becomes a genial game of croquet.
Who really cares to see the game's best players on one field/court/rink when they're playing for absolutely nothing (except home field advantage in the World Series for baseball, which about two percent of All-Stars will care about)?
Is it such a big thrill to see Derek Jeter and Manny Ramirez playing for the same team? It might have been neat back in 1965, but with free agency today, Manny and Derek could very well be playing on the same team next year.
Speaking of free agency, the luster of watching the game's greatest players together is gone. Watching a Red Sox-Yankees game is pretty much like watching an All-Star Game. Their players account for almost the entire field of starters.
The only fun All-Star events anymore are the Home Run Derby and the NHL Skills Competition—a unique twist that showcases the talents of top athletes.
But, just playing another game and hyping it up to the max isn't anything to write home about. I wouldn't mind if they canned the All-Star Games.
#2: The Super Bowl
Every year, the entire nation gathers around a TV set to watch the Super Bowl— which usually turns out to be one of the crappiest games of the year.
For all the hype and all the spectacle, the Super Bowl usually leaves you with the feeling of, in the immortal words of Harry Caray, "opening up a box of Cracker Jacks and not finding a prize inside."
Very rarely, we get a treat like this year's Giants-Patriots game, or Adam Vinatieri's last-second field goal in 2002, or Mike Jones making the game-saving tackle on the one-yard line.
But, for every magical Super Bowl like those above, there are twice as many horrible ones: remember the Ravens' romping of the Giants, or John Elway's destruction of Atlanta, or even worse, the absolute snore fest of the Steelers and Seahawks?
By the time you sit through the two weeks of media hype, six hours of pregame coverage, and the awful pregame concerts, you're probably expecting something spectacular. Instead, the NFL gives you either a lopsided game whose outcome is pretty much decided by the second quarter, or an overly conservative snore fest with neither team willing to pull out the fireworks.
Unless your team is playing in the big game, it's rarely worth your time, not to mention all the bucks you'll shell out on pizza and nachos.
No. 1: The Olympics
Does anyone else want to puke when NBC plays those sappy commercials: "For two weeks, the entire world will come together in Beijing."
Please. The Olympics are touted as some magical international-building event, which ends all wars thanks to the efforts of a few amateur athletes.
In reality, the Olympics are an international political playing piece, which celebrates domination by world superpowers, and serves as the ultimate global billboard for greedy multinational corporations.
And honestly, the only thing that makes the Olympics worth watching is the fact that it happens only every four years, and the USA always wins a bunch.
Have you ever sat back and really taken a look at the kinds of events that get shoved down your throat during the Olympics? I have.
Please shoot me if I have to watch one more gymnastics competition, featuring some of the creepiest-looking people on Earth twirling around bars.
Am I really expected to sit through a 1000-meter race or even worse, hurdles? Can we lose the field hockey and soccer and put on an intense sport like water polo?
And please, enough swimming and diving. How many variations can we possibly put on an already dull sport? I'll still be just as bored when watching a medley as I am when watching the butterfly stroke.
Why do we really care about these inane sports with even more inane athletes? Does anyone have a life? Are we so attached to the tube that we'll actually sit and watch people racewalk for God's sake?
It's pretty sad that The Olympics is a marquee event. It's the most overrated thing in all of sports.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...one-of-the-10-most-overrated-things-in-sports
