Thursday, July 22, 2010

Sports Center

As surely as people who say they understood Inception are lying, Sports Center in July is slow, boring and repetitive. It's like watching a Matthew McConaughey romantic comedy:

"I'm just a super relaxed dude who doesn't want to settle down."
"Well, alright alright, look at this pretty girl. She might just tame this free bird."
"I'm going to take my shirt off and do something romantic that doesn't go as planned but turns out super cute anyway."
"Girls want to be with me, and guys want to break my femur."

And to prove that Sports Center is largely a waste of time in July, I'll give you the programming formula used to write every episode this month.

The Lead-
Today's top story is the latest scandal in sports. Choose between a player being arrested for something, Brett Favre saying something to anybody, or college sports being ruined by players getting paid by agents. Just show anything that isn't a baseball highlight to trick viewers into committing to the show.

Highlights-
The highlight reels in July do not vary from day-to-day as one might suspect. In some form or another you will see this:

-One baseball team shutout another baseball team. Anchor will comment something about getting the pitcher in fantasy baseball. (Side note, can we agree that fantasy baseball players are the Dungeon and Dragon kids of sports? Don't get me wrong, fantasy football players are the comic book nerds. But fantasy baseball? You're just trying to get beat up.)

-The next baseball game goes into extra innings and one of the players drove in a winning run and was the hero. (I think that if a baseball game goes into extra innings all the fans should be reimbursed for their tickets, food and beverages. They didn't pay to watch 11 innings! They should not be forced to watch a game for 4 hours! It's inhumane.)

-The rest of the baseball highlights can be summed up as followed: someone made a diving catch, there was a double play, a home run was hit, a manager got thrown out cause he was bored, a third baseman threw the ball to first for an out. I changed the channel. And the final score was 2-1 (yet, baseball fans complain about soccer being low scoring).

-Speaking of soccer! We'll show clips from two modest, unknown soccer teams because there is a chance you're into soccer still as the World Cup was this year. ("Yea, but that was over a month ago". False. Less than two weeks. Americans just tuned out June 26th after Ghana embarrassed us.)

Top Stories-
Onto things that aren't highlights, but will fill some time before the Top Plays.

-Brett Favre announced today that he is feeling old, but he loves football. Then he smiled and winked at reporters, who then gushed and laughed at his jokes. 5 minutes were spent covering this. No news was reported.

-An NBA player announced they wanted a trade. Other versions of this include A) A retired player decided he wants to play for the Heat so he can win a title, B) we remind you that LeBron, Wade and Bosh are, indeed, playing for the Heat, or C) we show clips of a retired Hall-of-Famer saying they'd never do what LeBron did (Mostly cause they didn't think of it first)

Top Plays-
10) Remember that diving catch we showed earlier? HERE IT IS AGAIN!
9) *Anchor calls this one niner instead of nine to be funny* Surprise! It's a clip of something that isn't a sport! Something like snail racing, mud pit belly flopping, or turd chucking. Just. Great. Television. (No, seriously. This is my favorite part of the episode.)
8) Check out this sweet double play!
7) Look at this outfielder make this sliding catch! It's not a diving catch so we ranked it higher.
6) Remember that game that was a shutout? Here are some of the pitches!
5) Wanna see ANOTHER diving catch?! We don't care. Just watch it.
4) Here are some shots of the a European crowd doing weird stuff in the stands. It's not a "play" necessarily, but it makes the Top 10.
3) ESPN does too love soccer! Here's the goal we showed you from the highlight package earlier!
2) Annnnnnd, boom goes the dynamite! The #2 play is the game winning run from earlier. Did we mention it was a sac-fly?
1) Boo ya! A clip from summer league basketball, a high school game, or CFL football. Sports people care about.

Then the show repeats.

So, if you ever miss an episode of Sports Center this summer just come back here and get your fill of the recap! I promise you the results will never change. Like when an athlete goes to a strip club, someone is getting shot.

What'd I miss?

1 comment:

  1. Having watched SportsCenter today, this is 100% accurate. I would rather watch infant competitive eating than hear about anything ever that they talked about today. I literally can not believe that the top plays just rinse and repeat every day. It's always just baseball highlights and they all look the same. In fact, when the same player (some guy I don't care about, maybe a short stop?) makes the top plays 3 days in a row you know two things:

    1) Baseball plays WAY too many games
    2) SportCenter is grasping for something to show us

    I can only watch 1 highlight of a baseball player doing their job slightly above average before they all start to blend together and I go comatose. Especially when it's 300 pound guys who just swing until the ball goes over the wall because they use their fat stomach to provide leverage.

    The worst part is when they tease me with NFL stuff. One quick thing saying "Quarterbacks need to play well in order for their team to do good." Well duh if Mark Sanchez continues to develop the Jets will have a shot. If any quarterback has an amazing year, their team will have a shot. But I still watch these NFL things because even mindless drivel about the NFL is better than the most profound comments regarding baseball.

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