The
recent NFL Draft
had somewhere in the neighborhood of 8.3 million viewers watching a guy in a suit read a selection of note cards that were handed to him every ten minutes. 8.3 million!!! They weren’t even interesting note cards; not Bible verse, not the secret to making a great flan, nor even tips on whining your way out of parking tickets.
I think that should show you just how popular football is in this country. (Just like other countries except they’re actually watching soccer and not football.)
USA Today recently posted a poll with its insightful polling procedures listing the most popular sport in America from a sampling of some 2,200+ Macedonian immigrants. No surprise, the NFL’s version of football was numero uno.
This makes perfect sense when you think about it. Americans are saying, “We love being able to gamble on things, but are only able to focus once a week. The rest of the time, we must earn the money we plan to gamble.”
But Americans also like to have something that will hold our attention daily in between football games, preferably something with an inverse amount of excitement, something akin to snow on television.
[AUTHOR’S NOTE: I realize that I am dating myself by referencing a phenomenon that is obsolete now that satellite television exists, but also believe we should never forget the traumatic hardship we once had to endure.]
Hence Major League Baseball is No. 2, albeit far behind. Americans are saying, "We want to root for something while we’re sleeping." Following baseball is like having the television on in another room. You kind of hear what’s going on, and then every so often, a commercial comes on extra loud and forces to walk into the room to see what all the fuss is about.
There really is no off-season for baseball. It’s like seasons in Southern California. The changes in the climate are subtle, but for the most part, spring training, the regular season, the postseason and the hot stove season all look alike.
Add to that, the constant rumors swirling around players regarding steroid use and it becomes akin to a soap opera that runs original episodes every day, yet each of them is identical to a previous one. (I mean, how many times can Victor and Nikki get married on “Young and the Restless” before one of them says, “Y’know what, I don’t think this is gonna work.”?)
Earning the bronze medal, in third place is college football. If high school football was televised, I’m sure it would rank next, provided there were hits that spun players around and acrobatic, one-handed catches in the end zone were made.
College football is still at the level where players from the inner city don’t get paid, are not allowed to interact with boosters, yet somehow manage to afford Lexus SUVs. Make no mistake, college lacrosse players are still hitchhiking to class, or worse, taking the public transit system. Hence, proof of college football’s clout.
In fact, this sport would probably leapfrog baseball to the No. 2 spot if anyone who is not a lunatic ranting over the phone to a sports talk radio show host could come up with a logical, fair way to run the playoff system. Well, what difference does it make? I stopped watching college football once Syracuse discontinued its football team.
(Oh, there are people dressed in uniforms playing every week, but believe me, they discontinued it years ago.)
Although it’s nice to see two bodies careening toward each other on a pass pattern across the middle, often this sort of collision doesn’t produce the type of force many Americans desire in their visual pleasure centers. That’s when they’ll turn to auto racing, which is the No. 4 most popular sport in this country, mainly due to the more cataclysmic disasters waiting to happen. (Though it’s possible the number is so high because Americans think they are actually watching the nightly traffic report to see how their commutes will be, and not auto racing.)
And as a result of the process of elimination, pro basketball, once revered as the fastest growing sport and a new global juggernaut has settled in at No. 5 or, as the poll described it, “dead last” (of those mentioned). It seems Americans have some integrity. And though they don’t necessarily mind records and championships being decided by chemically-altered, artificially-talented players as has been the case in baseball, they certainly do not want the officials corruptly choosing the winners as has come to be realized in the wake of the Tim Donaghy scandal. There is a line we will not cross!
Who does Dick Bavetta want to win this game? ... The Lakers again? Okee doke. Done. (Read Donaghy's book. It’s fascinating to see how some championships have been decided.)
And when none of these sports are on, Americans watch playoff hockey, not knowing exactly how these teams got to the playoffs, just that they are there.
Soccer is important too, due mainly to the immigration of foreigners and the spawning of their offspring.
Don’t even try to figure out where women’s basketball lies on the scale. They interrupt men’s basketball to give us news about the women’s draft. Why do they do that? If we wanted to know, we’d be watching the women’s draft. We’re not, so get off our television screen.
Well, let that be a lesson to you basketball, and tennis, and golf, when the draft of another sport is beating your viewership, it’s time to start including some high-octane collisions just to keep eyeballs on your product. Maybe some drugs and fights, but that’s something you should take up with the Marketing and Ethics department.
