Last Updated on: 25th September 2013, 03:42 pm
So I didn’t have a very good weekend. I had some plans fall through on Friday night, weather was shit on Saturday and to top it all off, the Eagles couldn’t get it done in the big game last night.
Anyway there’s something that’s been bothering me of late, and it’s small and petty, but bothersome nonetheless. I’m getting really tired of turning on TSN, ESPN or Sportsnet and seeing Poker.
Now I understand that it’s become a huge television trend and everyone’s getting in to watching it and you have to support what the public wants to see. but how can you justify having it on a sports network? Last I checked it wasn’t a sport. If you really feel the need to put it on tv, and clearly someone does, then you need to find a different network to put it on. It’s not a sport.
There’s other things on these networks that have been on for longer that I didn’t agree with. Things like Darts and billiards have been littering the sports tv landscape for a long time but you can at least make a better arguement for them. For both of those games you need a physical skill. In my opinion, sport is a combination of physical skill, physical exertion, and mental focus. Billiards and Darts require a physical skill and a mental focus but I don’t see them over-exerting themselves physically and taking huge risk of injury. (Although you could argue that anyone playing a game where sharp metal objects are being thrown is at risk of an injury, but I think you all know what I mean)
Last time I saw poker being played, there was no physical skills required and no exhausting physical exertion. Does it take a great mental skill and knowledge of the game? Sure it does. But that doesn’t make it a sport and if your network is going to be called The Sports Network or SportsNet than you need to get that shit off your line-up.
Just because there’s no hockey, football, basketball or baseball on does not mean you need to resort to card games for your programming. How about some amature sports getting some much much needed exposure? What about more downhill skiing? What about more X-Games stuff. It’s growing just as quickly as poker. How about more golf? I hate golf but at least it’s another fast growing sport.
Just keep to what your’e supposed to be doing as a sportsnetwork…. or at least show some Go Fish.