Sports

Nothing on? Think again

Australia’s lack of SportsCenter driving sports fan crazy

Posted on March 27, 2011, at 9:57 p.m.

I guess it was naïve for me to hope the nine channels in my Australian apartment would include ESPN.

The only football I see is on channel one, and trust me, there is no Tom Brady nor Peyton Manning. Before, SportsCenter was something I woke up with and in most cases fell asleep to. The only time I ever got frustrated was when I would get excited for some fresh highlights on a lazy Saturday, run to the bathroom, miss the one clip I wanted to see and end up watching SportsCenter 15 more times to make sure I didn’t miss another beat.

Sports fans, we have all been there. Given the choice of seeing my dog from home or a HDTV with ESPN on it all day, I’m choosing the latter without hesitation.

SportsCenter is what men do. It’s all the highlights and analysis of sports anyone could hope for presented with sexiness and visual appeal. It’s not quite the same when you have to watch a 15-second Subway ad just to see 30 seconds of Miami Heat highlights.

As a die-hard Boston Celtics fan, it pains me to say I have watched zero Celtic games, and to watch the best postseason in sports — March Madness — I was setting my alarm clock for 7 a.m. to run down to the common room in hopes Australia’s ESPN was showing tournament coverage instead of tennis.

Americans may have a reputation of thinking we are better than everyone else, but it is hard for me to say our sports coverage isn’t.

People complain about replays making baseball games longer. An average cricket match lasts about 13 hours. I wonder when they will incorporate replay?

Sports are all about what you are used to, but no country gives more love to sports overall than the United States. I spent one weekend without my laptop and the next time I checked ESPN.com, the Celtics’ Kendrick Perkins had been traded and I felt like a family member had fallen ill. It was something I would have discussed with my friends or thought about until my brain hurt; instead, I was left running around hoping someone knew what NBA stood for.

All I ask is that if you’re watching SportsCenter enough to memorize the top-10, don’t get mad and say nothing is on. You won’t realize how much you miss it until you don’t have it.

Besides, it could always be worse. You could be watching a 13-hour cricket match.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 27th, 2011, 9:57 pm. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.