If I could get rid of one thing in sports...

Holy crap. I'd never heard of that. Just awful.

 

About as chapped as some of us were about the prospects of UNC-Boone. Never.

I'll sometimes write it UNC----------------Chapel Hill (not in the paper, of course). One hyphen for each member school.

 

This moronic idea regurgated by clueless idiots that every time a team loses -- either they choked or they got outcoached....... :

 

Or it was the fault of the officials.

 

Ok, I know we've had threads about this in the past but......

SLOW GOLF.

Check that.

SLOW FUCKING GOLF.

And SLOW FUCKING GOLFERS.

You don't need to line up every single putt as if it is a 20-footer at Augusta on 18 to force a playoff. Step up and hit the fucking ball.

You don't need to mark every ball on every green and then after every putt mark it again.

You don't need to stand over your ball for five minutes taking practice swings and adjusting your feet and shuffling back and forth to and from the ball to try and get a read on the slope of the fairway and the wind.

You don't need to replace your head covers after every drive and/or putt only to take them off the next hole.

Play ready golf, as in, whoever is ready to hit, hit.

Take your cell phone and either turn it off or throw it in the fucking lake. If you can't play a round without talking on it, you are too busy to play so go the fuck back to the office.

You don't have to wait until the guys who are 300 yards away on the green are off the green to hit -- you ain't getting it close, hit the fucking ball.

 

I can think of several. You may not think they are acceptable excuses, but they most certainly exist in the minds of those who must make money off these events. With few exceptions, TV sports has been about entertainment first, journalism second. If you can't accept that as fact, then you will be banging your head against the wall on this subject forever.

Ratings: If regular programming will get much higher ratings than live sporting event, you show live sporting event on tape delay. That's why you will not see a 7 a.m. tennis match preempt "Today" on NBC. And why you make sure the ONLY time people can watch a women's gold-medal figure skating final is in prime time (regardless of whether the event ended in Japan 13 hours ago). You don't take a 20-rating event and show it at 9 a.m.

Mass appeal: If live sporting event is being held at 4 a.m. Pacific time, you do not show it live at 4 a.m. to those on the West Coast (unless you plan on repeating it at a time when more can/will watch).

Contracts: Networks have deals with all kinds of leagues and teams and events. If Fox Sports Net holds the rights to a tennis tournament that is being played the same time that Fox Sports Florida is airing a Tampa Bay Lightning game, then Fox Sports Florida likely will show the tennis match a few hours later on tape.

Overlapping events: Some sports do not have a clock (or can go quadruple overtime even with a clock). When one event runs long, network may decide to show second event in its entirety . . . but tape-delayed.


And don't delude yourselves into thinking only the NBCs of the world do this. ESPN will show a taped Andy Roddick or Serena Williams match over a live one involving Nikolay Davykenko vs. David Nalbandian or Svetlana Kuznetsova vs. Samantha Stosur. Ratings. Ratings. Ratings. U-S-A. U-S-A. U-S-A. And if they are planning on showing a taped Roddick match later in their coverage window, their scroll of scores will mysteriously exclude the already-completed Roddick match.

 

I'll go obscure here:

The rule that gives a defense two points for returning a PAT in college football.

Dumbest rule ever.

 

I'll go even more obscure....

The 55-foot time-out in the NBA, the one which gives the offense the ball beyond half-court after a made basket if they call a time-out, even though the ball should be inbounded under the basket and the team should have to advance it forward.

 

That's not really obscure. People have debated that for a while.

 

Somebody once asked me why it wasn't six points, same as a touchdown. I explained that because the most the offensive team can score on the play is two points, the most the defense can score is two.
That still didn't make sense to them.

 

I agree with the guy who said "Pro wrestling promoters pushing their sons (in-law) down everyone's throats"

That really pisses me off.

 

Pro wrestling isn't sports. It's a soap opera for men. Acting, nothing more.

Oh, and I'd get rid of the Yankees, the Red Sox and the Red Wings, because their fans drive me batshit.