An Outside View: Is it a sport?

My job is to write sports but figuring out what is or isn’t a sport is becoming increasingly difficult for my feeble mind. I guess I’m a little narrow minded but I always thought that a sport had some sort of connection with athletics. Am I wrong to think sports require at least some physical skill? The brain trust at the nation’s largest all-sports network apparently doesn’t think so. It was late one night, or should I say early one morning, and for some reason I found myself in front of the television doing some channel surfing. As I usually do, I flipped to ESPN expecting to see a repeat of “Sports Center” so I could catch up on the day’s scores and highlights. Instead, I found The World Series of Poker. The thrill a minute game of chance wasn’t exactly my cup of tea so I switched to ESPN2 and what did I see? It was a battle royal called the Scripps Howard Spelling Bee. No lie! On one channel, there sat a bunch of balding men with steely eyes and cigars hanging from their mouths trying to figure out if their three of a kind would beat two pairs. On the other, there were nerdy kids who had probably never set foot on an athletic field trying to spell o-l-i-g-o-p-s-o-n-y. I’m not knocking the brainy kids so please no cards or letters. After all, they got on national TV. Besides, I can’t even tell you what oligopsony means. Still, are poker and spelling bees really sports? Then again, if ice dancing and curling can be Olympic sports, then why not poker? I checked with my old friend Daniel Webster who says that a sport is “a competitive game or pastime that involves physical exertion or skill.” Bingo! There you have it. Even Daniel agrees with me. I don’t think that being able to pick up two cards or push a stack of chips into the middle of the table exactly qualifies as physical skill. The only physical exertion required of the spelling bee contestants was to walk to the microphone and back to their seats again. Yet, there it was on my favorite all-sports network. I would have felt better about it if they had done a little celebration dance after spelling a word correctly or taunted their opponents. What’s sports without a little intimidation? Instead, I got, “Would you please use the word in a sentence?” or “Can you please tell me the language of origin?” Can you imagine Warren Sapp saying “please?” It gets worse. ESPN2 broadcast a chess match. It was no ordinary chess match. It was between a man and a computer. I can’t describe the tension in the air when the computer using synthetic speech said, “Bishop to Queen 4?” And just when I thought I had seen it all, ESPN airs the International Scrabble Championships. Talk about some stud athletes! I can’t help but wonder what’s next? Monopoly or Chutes and Ladders? It seems ESPN is passing all sorts of stuff off as legitimate sports. One Sunday afternoon, I found myself actually watching a car show. But DJ and Jeff were no where in sight. These fancy cars just sat there and looked good. The “Fast and Furious” look was amazing but I didn’t see the sport in it. And when did police work become a sport? The other day, ESPN2 aired competition between various police departments. Participants ran an obstacle course, handcuffed a criminal, and shot a few bad guys. Rodney King may disagree but I never thought our police officers saw that sort of stuff as a sport. Not wanting to be outdone by all of the other networks, ESPN is now trying its hand at reality TV. Now I always considered sports to be the ultimate reality TV but ESPN wasn’t satisfied with real reality. They had to come up with a whimsical show called “Totally Hooked.” It is about a bunch of babes in bikinis living on a yacht and traveling to all sorts of exotic ports. There may be a little bit of fishing but the show will never be confused with “The American Sportsman.” As for the gals in bikinis, well, I had better not go there. And now ESPN brings us “Dream Job”. It’s “American Idol” with no off key singing and no Simon. You have a bunch of Chris Berman wannabes vying for their chance to someday anchor Sports Center. The show may be better suited for Comedy Central. ESPN has even ventured into the business of airing movies and dramatic series. First, there was “The Junction Boys,” a movie about Bear Bryant. Then there was the Bobby Knight story called “A Season on the Brink”, not to be confused with “One Flew Over the Coo Coo’s Nest”. Now, there is a series called “Playmakers.” Don’t get me wrong. These are all great shows. But if I want to watch a movie, I’m paying big bucks for HBO. By the way, is there any such thing as animal sports? I have a bit of a beef with Daniel in that his definition did not specifically say anything about human beings. I guess he figured that we are smart enough to know that he meant people. But apparently our friends at ESPN aren’t so smart. They are even airing doggie sports. That’s right, you can tune in and watch Fido and Spot leap off of a dock into the water and folks measuring to see which canine jumped the farthest. I’m sure you get my point. You don’t see CNN doing variety shows or the Weather Channel showing sitcoms. You’ll never see Madonna on CMT and you won’t find newsmagazines on The Game Show Network. Then you shouldn’t see things that aren’t really sports on an all-sports network. And now, a little confession. I got hooked on that darn poker tournament. There is something to be said for watching an underdog that they figured was “dead money” beat the pros at their own game and pocket a couple of million bucks. It was interesting and a bit exciting but it still ain’t a sport. Maybe there should be a Poker Network.