Women's Basketball Sucks

Women’s basketball is played on a high school level, at best. None of the players can dunk, nobody goes up strong to the hoop, and nobody knows how to shoot. Even though a lot of women’s players can drain threes, none of them have a pretty shot. They all shoot from the chest, which is how kids that get cut from JV teams shoot. There’s a girl in my school going to play basketball at Harvard next year. There’s no way I could take her because I’m a big white oafish stiff , but my gay friend Kevin, who started on JV this year, could beat her one on one. If they were playing to 21, the spread would be Kevin -7, and I’d still take him.

I have no idea why ESPN continues to force us to watch this crap. The night of the women’s NCAA Title game, there were NINE Major League Baseball games, many of which were night games. Are you telling me that they couldn’t have put one of those games on ESPN or ESPN 2 instead of dedicating TWO channels to women’s basketball? Here’s stuff I’d rather watch than women’s basketball:
Arena Football
Professional Rodeo
Drag Racing
Nascar
Figure skating
Paint Drying

That being said, I stand by my opinion that the only sports that should be on ESPN are Major League Baseball, the NFL, the NBA, the NHL, college hoops, college football, and college baseball. Sports Center has become oversensationalized journalistic crap. Watch out for Fox Sports; if uncle Rupert launches a national sports channel on the above premise and can get rights to air games nationally, watch out, they may present a major challenge to ESPN.

Bud Selig is Retarded

Major league baseball should get rid of territorial restrictions and blackouts. It only makes sense. If I want to consume a companies product (watch a game) and am willing to pay, why shouldn’t I be able to do it on whichever medium I choose wherever I want to? If I want to watch a Yankee game on my computer, I should be able to on MLB.tv even though I live 45 minutes from Yankee Stadium and the game is on YES. What if I’m at work, school, or have anal parents that yell at me if I watch TV? Blackouts are also the most pointless thing ever. Why? I’m in Iowa right now (please kill me) and this is technically Cardinals/Royals/Cubs/White Sox “territory.” What does that mean? If I order MLB.tv or Extra Innings (If I can) I can’t watch any of those teams. Why? Because the games of those teams are supposedly going to be on my local cable package. Guess what, the only channels that carry those teams that are on basic cable here are Fox Sports Net St. Louis (or North, or Midwest, whatever the name is) and WGN. So if you’re a Cubs or White Sox fan, you can only see half of your team’s game, and if you’re a Royals fan, you can’t watch any of your team’s game, no matter how much you pay. Congratulations MLB for completely fucking up. Actually, its probably best not to encourage people to become Royals or Cubs fans. Stop “protecting” local cable network, and let people watch the games. People tend to become baseball fans by watching baseball games.

Getting rid of territorial rights would help in more than just eliminating blackouts. Let teams move wherever they want. We have so many teams in crap markets that can only be supported by government funded stadiums, and the Yankees and Mets drew over 7 million people combined last year. Why not let David Glass or Jeffery Loria move their teams to New Jersey or Brooklyn? Put teams in the cities that have the most fans, and that’s New York. We have FOUR sports networks dedicated to New York sports, two of which are empty during the summer. Jim (or James, whoever doesn’t own the Indians,) Dolan wanted to buy the Yankees a few years ago and put them on MSG, his network. Is there any doubt that Dolan wouldn’t buy a team if he could move them to Brooklyn/New Jersey without having to pay $500 million in “territory” fees. Hell, Boston could probably support another team. If there were say, four teams instead of two in New York, George Steinbrenner would have a tough time raising ticket prices and hiring usher that think they’re in the secret service. As a baseball fan, imagine if instead of just going to a Mets game when the Yankees aren’t playing, I had a choice between the Mets and a team in Brooklyn and a team in New Jersey. What game would I go to? I would go to the game that was the most fun, which would be a combination of the best match up and the best ballpark experience. Right now my third options outside of the Mets and Yankees are the Bridgeport Bluefish, the New Britain Rock Cats, the Staten Island Yankees, the Brooklyn Cyclones, and the Newark Bears. I want to see a New Jersey Marlins or Brooklyn Athletics game, NOW.

This would also solve the big market small market problem. The big market teams would have more competition for local TV viewers, and the small market teams could just pick up and move to a big market if they thought they weren’t making enough money.

Also, local governments should stop supporting crappy baseball. Today, whenever a team can’t draw, they blame their crappy stadium. Look at Minnesota, they have a crappy stadium, but people still show up because they have a good team. Then the team owners say that in order to be competitive, they need a new stadium. Then in twenty years, the stadium is out of date, and the team wants a new stadium. These cities also need to stop building stadiums for crappy teams. If teams actually had to be solvant on their own, they might start running themselves well and field more competitive teams. Because of these beautiful new stadiums, there are more baseball fans than there would be otherwise, which annoys the hell out of me when I have to drop $50 on a ticket and get crammed into a stadium with 50,000 people.

The only way Baseball would let teams move freely was if they could no longer get free stadiums. What does that mean? In order to truly improve baseball, first we need to get rid of all the socialists in local governments. Yea, like that’s ever gonna happen.