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It’s that time of year when the sports world lacks anything compelling for fans to watch. Unless you’re watching the Winter Olympics or college basketball, you might as well catch up on past seasons of “24” and “Lost” because there are no other sporting events that are worth watching right now. The NBA’s regular season is meaningless and the NHL is barely worthy of a cable broadcast. If it weren’t for college hoops, I would’ve canceled my cable after the Super Bowl until the NBA playoffs start.
What’s more unfortunate is the biggest story from the Olympics so far has been the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili. There will be countless stories that emerge from the Olympics as they continue, but a dark cloud has hovered over the opening days.
This raises a question for sports fans like you and me: What do we watch during a weekend like this past one? With such sparse options on Sunday, men all over America were able to impress their significant others by focusing all their time and attention on them for Valentine’s Day. After all, what else were they going to do, watch the Daytona 500? I’d rather watch “Gigli” for a week straight than watch a bunch of cars try to drive countless circles faster than each other.
The other option on Sunday was the NBA All-Star game. It had been preceded by the celebrity game on Friday night, and the skills competition, 3-point contest and dunk contest on Saturday night. Based on those events, expectations for the game were not high. After catching a few minutes of the game, I can honestly say LeBron would have had a more difficult time trying to score in the celebrity game against Dr. Oz than he did in the All-Star game against … well, nobody.
In a time like this, ESPN, the worldwide leader in “sports,” is just trying to fill slots, and the World Series of Poker is like ESPN’s regretful ex-girlfriend. They hate doing it, but they always go back to it when there are no other alternatives. I’ll save the “is poker a sport” debate for another day, but the short answer is absolutely, positively not.
Have no fear though, sports fans. As bad as the television options are right now, our savior will be here in about a month when March Madness begins. That should leave enough time to catch up on those “The Young and the Restless” episodes you miss every day while you pretend to have a job.
