Fishing. Darts. Competitive Eating. Those three "sports" were either on or had commercials about upcoming broadcasts on cable television's primary sports stations last evening. The National Hockey League can't find one major player to broadcast their games, but competitive eating is on in primetime on ESPN. That can't be good.
It would be too easy, albeit accurate, to slam the NHL, Gary Bettman and former NHLPA director Bob Goodenow over this, because if darts are getting better ratings than your sport, you shouldn't be arguing over a salary cap, but let's really think about this for a minute.
Our sporting interest as a society has gone from baseball, football, basketball and hockey to fishing, darts, competitive eating and, of course, poker? Forget what this says about the NHL's inability to get a decent cable TV deal, what does this say about us as fans?
Yes, I know it's summertime and most people aren't home watching television on a Friday night in late July. Yes, I know there are only so many MLB games available to broadcast. Yes, I know the other three sports aren't playing right now. I don't care. Competitive eating? Darts? Somebody quick find me a network showing Australian Rules Football. I need an actual sport.
This was the kind of fringe stuff ESPN showed at 3:00 am in its infancy. Now, it's primetime on the sports superpower and it's competition at Fox. I am left wondering if you, my fellow sports fans, are actually more interested in competitive eating than Canadian Football? How about track and field events? Would you rather watch darts than a 100m dash?
If so, where, oh, where did we go wrong?
1 comment:
My first thought is that if ESPN is showing competitive eating, then someone must want to watch it. But really, how many people are watching this junk? It's terrible TV, not to mention its repulsiveness as an "event."
Then again, I'm amazed anyone watches poker on TV. I'm sure the obvious answer is that stuff like eating, poker, and darts costs much less to produce and broadcast, but given the choice, wouldn't most sports fans prefer to see baseball? Or just talking heads blabbing about where the Eagles could trade T.O.?
Baffling, just baffling.
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