Cavs v. Lakers: Mo Williams’ Halftime Interview

Mo Williams’ halfime interview was the funniest I’ve ever seen.  He said he couldn’t decide what to do on his way up because Kobe kicked him in the face.  The replay confirmed this and once I can find the video I will post it.

It’s ALIVVEEE!!

Hello, World the Sport Monster is here.

I decided to start this blog because I am getting fed up with the sports culture in general.  Since professional sports began, fandom and the corporate culture of sports is getting more and more outrageous.  I may sound like a cranky old man but really making me angry.  I’m a 22 year old displaced Clevelander living in Chicago.  I grew up playing soccer religiously all over the country and a couple times in Europe with several teams before I tore my meniscus in high school and stopped playing.  Several surgeries didn’t correct my knee problem and I was reduced to kicking for my football team my senior year before quitting sports altogether and becoming a full-time fan.  Growing up a soccer player isn’t easy in America, especially since boys my age were all playing baseball, basketball and football and I tended to resent those sports during those years.  I couldn’t understand how they could put the “garbage Little League world series on ESPN” and not the Y-League National Championship tournament I was playing in.  However playing for the football team re-kindled by interest.  I’m a diehard Browns, Indians, Cavs and Buckeyes fan so there are a lot of people who don’t like me.  I like Manchester Utd. in the Premiership but I don’t follow them that closely.  LeBron is my favorite athlete right now but don’t worry Kobe fans I like your guy too (but not you).  So far only the Buckeyes have won a title during my fanhood and it was one of the best nights in my life.  Thats enough about me, here’s a list of just some of the things I think are ridiculous in sports.

Political Correctness – Whatever happened to speaking your mind and not caring about some mother of four in Wisconsin who got offended by your comments?  We need more people like Muhammed Ali who said what they wanted, when they wanted and backed it up by his actions.  League commissioners care more about sponsorships than they do about integrity.

Corporate Meddling – This could go on for pages, but i’ll only mention a few…Changing H-O-R-S-E to G-E-I-C-O should be a sin, David Stern.  Selig should have lost his job the second he Ok’d the Spiderman on the bases campaign.  TV timeout are the worst invention in all of sports marketing… And the league commissioners are just content to collect their big checks without a care for the integrity of the game.  The second you let those corporate assholes get their foot in the door and start dictating when and how the game is played, you lost the integrity.  There’s nothing wrong with showing commercials on TV for games, but once you decided to let them be able to stop and slow down the game, you lost.

Excessive Fines – This one is especially for you NFL.  I hate stupid nicknames but you really are the No Fun League.  Players shouldn’t have to worry about the correct sock height in the middle of the game.  There should be no hindrences to wearing arm or headbands or any type of gear that you might put on to play football.  The NFL is turning into an Orwellian society where they want to stamp out any individuality you might have in you so you can fit snugly into their bland corporate culture.  I mean just look at Goodell, he doesn’t even look like he knows how to smile.  Everytime I see him all I see is an empty suit.

ESPN – When I named this blog the Sport Monster, I was thinking of ESPN.  I went from watching Sportscenter religiously(I remember when they had the entire morning until 11 or 12 dedicated to Sportscenter and I would sometimes catch myself watching the show more than once that day) to only watching when I know the Cavs are going to be on in the first 10 minutes of the show.  Otherwise I don’t watch it at all like I used to.  Not only has the quality of the sportscasters incredibly decreased but the endless corporate nonesense completely butchered the structure of the show into a caricature of what it once was.  The people at ESPN don’t even know what show they are running half the time.  More often than not during football season Sportscenter will transform mid-show into NFL live or MLB tonight.   For whole blocks that last 20-50 minutes they will talk about one sport using that sports’ ESPN show commentators instead of the Sportscenter sportscasters.  They used to switch up the order of sports so you didn’t have to listent to mindless analysis of football for an hour just so you can see the highlights of the basketball game.  The whole point of NFL live is that its a show completely on its own, you shouldn’t stick it in the middle of Sportscenter.  There’s a reason Sportscenter became so popular and now isn’t.  People liked seeing the funny antics from the Sportscasters, the absense of corporate America and pure sports highlights.  They don’t like Budweiser Hot-seats, bland sportscasters and boring analysis.  No one wants to hear someone tell them something they already know.

ESPN has also turned into a sports tabloid and a schill for Boston and New York sports.  Why do you think specific team-oriented blogs are so popular now?  People are sick of hearing ESPN talk about the same teams over and over again.  They have turned into a tabloid because they are taking investigative “journalism” to a new low.  Placing stories prominently on the front page of their website that have multiple unnamed sources and are full of heresay, innuendo and pure speculation.

ESPN draft coverage is insanely large in its scope, too large if you ask me.  For no reason do I want to hear Chris Berman or Mel Kiper for more than 20 minutes at a time.  10 hours is ridiculous and it hurts my brain and it clogs up your network when you could be showing something that is actually interesting.  Sure the first round is interesting, but only for about an hour and the later rounds don’t need to be televised.  Also Todd McShay is stealing from you ESPN, I really can’t believe you are paying a younger, dumber Mel Kiper.

Thats all for today, but I’m positive I’ll think of more reasons why sports are making me mad.