The Golden State Warriors had a fantastic season, winning the most regular season games ever. They barely defeated the Thunder in the seventh game of the Western Conference finals, but then blew out the promising Cavaliers in the first two games of the finals. So, what are the featured articles on the ESPN website? One was Magic Johnson's claims his Laker teams could beat the Warriors. Prior to that, I have seen similar claims from Scottie Pippen about the Bulls. Is this news? Who cares? I guess I am writing about it on a blog no one reads, but what passes for news anymore? We have always heard these speculative things: Is Tiger better than Jack? Could Martina handle Serena? It begs the question: are sports so boring that thinking about possibilities is far more interesting than the events themselves? How many pregame hours were spent talking about the Super Bowl this year? The game itself was an afterthought to the pundits' opinions. Both were pretty boring to me. Today, while the fascinating NCAA track and field championships were underway, there were several articles on ESPN.com about college football rankings, some called the "way too early" ones. No articles about the remarkable performances by the fine student athletes on the track were on the main page.
We still watch lots of live sports, but outside the Super Bowl and NFL primetime games, audiences are scant. I have a terrible time watching live events: too many commercials, too many interviews and taped segments, too much talking and not enough action. I prefer this era to my childhood when we hoped against hope there would be some track on the Wide World of Sports, or that someone would show the Bislett Games. Still, at some point one has to wonder what it is all about. The athletes think it is all about them, but TV makes it seem like it is all about TV. Somewhere in the middle is me taking a nap.