Coming in at Number 5: The United States Professional Poolplayers Association
That's right, the ever popular basement game has made its way onto the big time, sort of. The United States Professional Poolplayers Association was founded in 2002 by professional pool players and has been a regular filler on ESPN 2's afternoon lineup. I will give pool this, it is a very cerebral game that involves a lot of strategy as far as where the ball needs to go. It is not barbarically as simple as to close your eyes and just hit the cue ball and hope that something good happens. But in terms of athletic ability, there is virtually none involved in playing a game of pool. The motion of shooting is not stressful on the body, and the number of games that can be played in a day by one player is far greater than any sport. So pool can continue it's filler time on ESPN 2, I'd rather watch that than the Real Housewives of Anywhere anytime.
The shot is up at number 4: Major League" Darts
Yes, there is actually a "Major League" for the game of Darts, and ESPN televised the World Series of Darts during the year 2006, in prime time. While we The tournament went for an agonizing eight days with one hour a day of tournament coverage. In addition to the tournament, ESPN also invested the air time in watching the qualifying rounds to get into the tournament. I personally have never played a game of darts that lasted longer than ten minutes, and to watch an hour of other people playing darts is just too much. And the ratings showed the impact darts has on the sporting world. The world series of darts with .43 ratings on the first night before having the rest of the event get buried on ESPN 2's afternoon's lineup. So the big boys learned form their mistakes and have taken sent this non sport down to the minors.
The number 3 non sport: World Series of Poker.
Arguably the most fun bro pastime, the World Series of Poker has enjoyed the most successful career on ESPN. Poker has some differences that distinguish itself from the top two on this list. There is a solid amount of strategy involved in playing cards. But since the actual event primarily features a large number of guys sitting down and trash talking each other, it gets real old real fast. The most athletic moments in the tournament are when the winners jump up and down to celebrate winning a hand. And the announcers in the World Series of Poker are sub par at best. They do not seem to touch on any of the strategies involved in the game itself. These announcers would rather tell you everything that the audience at home can already see and piece together themselves. Poker is one of those things that is more fun to do, and insanely boring to watch other people do.
Now we start to get a little ridiculous; at Number 2: Major League Eating
I kid you all not. There is possible in many different countries of the world to be a PROFESSIONAL EATER. That sounds like a great career choice. Try explaining that one to your parents when you get out of college. Let us start with the fact that there is ZERO ATHLETIC ABILITY INVOLVED IN THESE COMPETITIONS. No matter how much you try and argue, there is no way that eating can be considered athletic. Plus we see people from different countries stuffing themselves with food that can be sent in care packages to countries that need it. So what if Joey Chesnut can eat 68 hot dogs in ten minutes? There is a world record for rolling an orange with your nose, but you don't see that being played as a professional sport. Yet somehow, the grotesque event has gained popularity. I don't know how, or why and I do not want to know. But since eating is not a sport, it has no business on ESPN.
But none of these can touch number 1: The International Spelling Bee
Now before I rip into this horrid excuse for a sport, I must say that these kids work extremely hard to learn words that I did not even have to learn for the SATs. They are all smart young kids that have a skill that other people can see. But that being said, this has absolutely no excuse for being on ESPN EVERY YEAR since 1994. There is 0.000000 amount athletic ability involved in the day. All that we see on TV that are not the spelling of words are these poor kids putting way too much pressure on themselves; for after a kid looses in the early rounds, they go to the break room and end up crying their eyes out. Even if there were some kind of angle that the spelling can be considered intellectual, it still has no business on the network that proclaims itself the world wide leader in sports. It IS the worst example of a non sport somehow getting airtime on the ever popular ESPN.
There could be games from underrated sports like Rugby, Soccer (in the US), Lacrosse, Tennis, softball or even the X Games. But nope, somebody somewhere would rather watch these non sports than see real sports on T.V.
