The X-Games: Serious Goofing Around
Life is rife with minor disappointments. One must not dwell on them if one wishes to be happy. However, ESPN-Asia has disappointed too often to be dismissed so lightly.
ESPNStar.com had listed an eight a.m. kick-off for the 2002 season premier of Monday Night Football. (Consider the international dateline, along with ESPN-Asia, as simply one more cross to bear for dedicated ex-patriot NFL fans.) Hopes were high; plans were made; alarm clocks were set. The sacramental cheese doodles had been blessed.
But, came the appointed time, was there a telecast of ABC's NFL game? There most assuredly was not. Instead of the Pats/Steelers grudge match ushering in the Madden/Michaels era of MNF, ESPN-Asia offered X-Game qualifiers from Spain as a wholly unsuitable and unacceptable replacement. This was not a 'one-off' blunder. Hence the following diatribe:
X-Games are not games; neither are they sports.
X-Games are, essentially, just young men and boys goofing around on high-tech toys in spirited, self-congratulatory exhibitions of juvenile devil-may-care daring-do performed before other juvenile competitors, wanna-be dare-devils and lawyers specializing in wrongful-injury suits. The corporate sponsorship of these performances is nothing more than a ploy to blatantly market mock anarchic 'life-style' products (e.g. soft-drinks, wheeled toys, tattoos, ugly clothing and even uglier music) to both adolescent males and that growing number of aging 'Gen-X'ers' who cling to the delusion that having a 'life-style' is the same as 'getting a life'.
But they are not games.
Games are competitive engagements which result in winners decided by objective criteria as prescribed and defined by a set of rules. The rules of games and sports are certainly arbitrary - do not touch the ball with your hands; do not step on the line; do not walk with the ball; do not pass 'Go'; do not collect $200, etc. But the winner of a game is decided by objective quantifiers: a measurement of time, length, weight or a tally of points scored for the successful and indisputable accomplishment of a task such as putting a ball through a hoop, into a net, or over a barrier.
The winner of a game of 'Monopoly' is the one who avoids bankruptcy. A game of baseball, which contrary to popular belief has nothing do with public scratching, is decided by a final tally of 'runs' and 'outs'. A soccer match, after timed periods of stuporous shuffling, ends with the winner being the side which has put the ball into the opponents' net the greater number of times. (Usually, once.) A cricket match ends with the probate of the last will and testament of the initiating bowler, but the final number of 'runs' decides winner and loser. Unless it's tea time or the Queen shows up.
Latest Articles