Sexy For All The Wrong Reasons

                Cue the cheesy soap opera organ. :When we last left our famous and informative blogger, he was about to tell us why football is so popular. What does he know that so few people know? Why is football so popular despite its shady background? How will this blog affect how people view sports? All this and more will be revealed in this episode of "Thoughts from the chair!" Dun dun dun!!!!!!!!: OK, enough of that nonsense. Last time I wrote, I explained that the NFL is way too popular of a sport. Why though? Why is pro football the most popular sport in the world with college football being arguably second and the NBA being third? The reason may shock and surprise some but not others. The reason is that all 3 sports mentioned above are all sexy sports. Sexy in the sense that all 3 have dirty laundry attached to them. From Plaxico Burress shooting himself in the leg, to recruiting scandals in College Football, to rappers spewing abrasive lyrics and it being accepted and condoned in the NBA. This dirty laundry stems  from another somewhat morbid truth that needs to be  addressed. This truth may not be heard by many. I may be severely scolded for even suggesting the idea of the truth. That truth is deep down inside we Americans love bad news. I realize it's extremely difficult to digest, but once you really think about it, you'll know it to be true. Do people honestly believe that there's not a correlation between the popularity in sports and the controversies that elude the most popular sports in America? A great example of my theory would be hockey. During its season, if you're lucky, you will see one to two highlights of Hockey games on SportsCenter. Some people may believe that this is because hockey is boring. After all, who in their right mind would want to watch grown men run up and down on ice for 3 hours give or take? However, I take the lack of popularity of hockey from a different angle. Here's a question to ponder regarding my view. When is the last time you heard of a scandal in the NHL? When was the last time you heard or read a hockey player getting shot? When is the last time you heard of a hockey player having multiple kids with multiple women? The fact is that you don't hear of anything like that. The biggest scandals in hockey are comprised of DUI's and that's about it. Now I'm not saying awful things don't happen in hockey. That would probably be far from accurate. What I am saying though is that if these things do happen in that sport, teams are able to police themselves and keep things in house. That's more than I can say about the other 4 most popular sports. Baseball, football, basketball and college football all have scandals. These scandals fuel the media and their popularity in American culture. Based on these truths, if this is where American sports are headed, I'll be glad to join my Canadian brothers and move to Canada. Not a bad idea, eh?     

Popularity should not equal obsession

 

Hi everyone. I'm back from vacation and have a lot of things on my mind, so let's get right to it:

                While I was on vacation, the NFL lockout ended. Oh joy. Can you sense my sarcasm there? I sure hope so because those 2 words were filled with sarcasm. Now I realize that the National Football League is the number one sport in the United States. I for one feel it shouldn't be that way. I think there's a thin line between popularity and obsession and the media is on the brink of crossing that line if it hasn't already done so. Case in point is Mike and Mike in the Morning. While getting ready to leave for the day, I tuned into their show just to see what was going on in the sports world. The lockout was just about to end. Due to these events, Mike and Mike had Adam Schefter on their show. Now they were supposed to have C.C Sabathia on at that time but due to technical difficulties, that didn't happen. That's OK though because Mike Greenberg proclaimed "This is a football day." Really? Did he just say that? You just admitted that because football has some activity, no other sport matters. I don't get irritated too often, but this subject really gets to me. Another point that proved how obsessed America is with football happened the day after the Major League Baseball All-Star game. Now the day after the game, you would think the results and highlights would be the top story, right? Wrong. Turns out that a Steelers defensive player ran his mouth to a national men's magazine ranting and raving about commissioner Roger Goodell among other things. Which story made the top headlines? That's right, the NFL story. The last example I will make about our obsession with football happened the day that the owners agreed to the collective bargaining agreement. I admit that was a big story. ESPN apparently thought it was a bigger story when they covered it FOR 3 STRAIGHT HOURS! Obsessed, are we? I believe so. Covering that story for one hour would have been fine. Covering it for 3 hours makes me truly believe that we as a nation have a problem. A problem that, due to the new collective bargaining agreement, will not be cured for the next ten years. Furthermore, you all may think I'm joking, but if a MLB team won the World Series and on that same day, Peyton Manning threw for 8 touchdown passes, I really don't know what would be the top story. Why is this? Why is football taking over as the most popular sport in America? Tune in next time to find out the real reason.