Sports on TV

Lately there has been some great action in the sports world. Baseball has elected, and more enjoyably denied, players to the Hall of Fame, the NFL is a month away from crowning a champion, and NBA players are entertaining us with their shooting- not just on the court either! (By the way, I think a fair punishment for Gilbert Arenas is to make him wear these uniforms:

) So why, with so many events showcasing million dollar men with face-melting speed and chemically-enhanced power, is ESPN and FoxSports still boring us with Poker and NASCAR?

I'm not going to debate whether these are sports or not. This isn't vocabulary class. I don't care. The fact is, they will make you drowsy. In 37 states you cannot, by law, watch Poker and operate heavy machinery at the same time. Same goes for the other events/sports that sometimes slip in, like darts, bowling, ice skating, track and field (I mean, come on), and I'm sure there's a few others I'm missing here, but that doesn't mean they don't suck and I don't loathe them, it's just that I can't recollect them at present.

I've heard it argued that sure, poker doesn't require a conditioned body, but it takes fatiguing mental focus. Well, so does accounting. Maybe we should film a CPA and watch him for a few hours on ESPN. The World Series of Accounting- a new Olympic sport by that logic. For that matter, getting high and playing Pac-Man on your Sega is a sport. So many corners, so many ghosts, so little brain power.

What people want to see, I've come to realize, are giant people smashing into each other, or if not that, at least throwing something really hard at others. So there it is right there; that's the recipe you have to follow if you intend to entertain me, Poker. It's simple. Maybe every time you want to draw a card, you have to get it from Brock Lesnar.

Maybe, NASCAR, instead of driving in a circle for seven mind-numbing hours you can do ANYTHING else. ANYTHING! Even post-game press conferences, complete with coach meltdowns and star player tantrums, are more interesting than NASCAR. Watching Bob Ross paint is infinitely more interesting than NASCAR. The greatest NASCAR movie of all-time, Talladega Nights, ended in a foot race! That's how you do it. But first take some steroids or something, because Will Ferrell and Borat didn't exactly light up the radar gun with their speed.

In conclusion, here's a simple test so ESPN knows what is acceptable to put on TV. If the "athletes" you are showcasing would get fired for bringing a gun to work, then that's not a sport. Case closed.