The undisputed, undefeated champion.
Quidditch doesn’t even make sense as a sport in the fictional universe in which it was created.
Soccer.
Cornhole pops up occasionally on ESPN:
I think part of the fascination with poker on TV is the money; especially in cash games. Most Americans, and a great number of non-Americans, I suspect, have played poker before; but probably at the $1/$2 level, where twenty bucks is a big pot. Watching a pro call a raise with a two-inch stack of hundred-dollar bills is – at least to me – simultaneously thrilling and terrifying.
Not to mention that pro poker has been pretty good about playing up the personalities of the players. You don’t have to watch more than about ten hands or so before you learn that Daniel Negreanu is cheerful and friendly, that Phil Laak is a cloudcuckoolander, that Phil Ivey is quiet and intense, that Phil Hellmuth throws a tantrum when he takes a bad beat.* You don’t have to know anything about ranges or probabilities or pot odds to follow the drama.
I’m sure these are, to some extent, personas – I’ve seen a YouTube video of some amateur players at a table with Hellmuth, and he was pleasant and friendly. But poker, like pro wrestling, has its faces and heels.
- And that if you want to become a top pro, it helps to be named “Phil”.
“Football combines the worst features of American society: violence and committee meetings.” - George F. Will
Back in the Eighties, HBO’s Not Necessarily the News had a fake ad that showed real players just standing around the diamond, scratching themselves, spitting tobacco juice and gazing vacantly into space. After about a minute of this, the MLB logo appeared and an overcaffeinated announcer said, “Baseball fever - catch it!!!”
Stupidest to televise or stupidest participants?
Back in the mid-1990’s I regularly played billiards at a local pool hall on Sunday evenings. One evening between major league seasons the management had ESPN2 on the screens and they were showing something like The Fantastic Farmhand competition with a ton of really stupid feats featured. When we came in and reserved a table, they were showing these huge fat guys pulling John Deere* tractors and I thought, “Y’know, there’s a reason they put engines in those things.”
By the third or fourth game I was lining up for a break when I glanced at the TV and saw the same huge guys on the screen with the rear wheels of those tractors. They were lifting the close edge of the wheel to get it vertical, then shoving it over to get it to fall flat# again. I stopped what I was doing, and couldn’t help but shout at the screen, “You idiots! Once it’s up, you turn it perpendicular and ROLL it! Why do you think they were invented like that twenty billion years ago? You are literally dumber than a caveman!” :eek:
My friend turned and looked at the screen, looked back at me, and noted, “Y’know, they can’t actually hear you.”
Okay. So much for demonstrating intelligence. :smack: I avoided glancing at the TV for the rest of the night.
–G!
*I’m skeptical of the value of that product placement deal.
#I realize the rules probably precluded rolling the objects, but using a wheel just made these guys look stunningly stupid. To preclude rolling, the game designers should have used something square or rectangular instead.
By “frisbee” do you mean “Ultimate Frisbee”, more properly known (to avoid getting sued) as “Ultimate”? If so, what on earth is silly about it?
Given we are nearing the season, Pumpkin Chucking (or Pumpin Chuckin for the aficionados) is the art of building massive machines costing tens of thousands of dollars to hurl a pumpkin several thousand feet. This gets televised, even though nobody can see the pumpkins getting launched or judge where they land.
It’s absolutely silly but I can’t turn away…
Curling is fascinating when you understand what is going on. A strong tactical game; I think of it as chess on ice (which also requires great skill). And there is no better sport for TV. Even the participants (those not sweeping at the time) are watching the screen to see what’s really happening. Plus they never fight and hardly ever need a referee now that the hog line has been automated. In many formats they even have the players making measurements when needed (not often).
Baseball would be vastly improved if they automated the ball/strike calls. The randomness of the umpires seriously distracts from the game. And when you watch it on TV, their ineptitude becomes evident. But the silliest I’ve ever seen on TV has to be darts.
Sorry, guys–you’re all wrong. There’s only one answer to this thread:
The stupidest sport is the TWO-man luge
Now , okay, the luge is understandable as a sport. Go sledding like a kid, but even faster. Fine, I get the idea. Looks like fun, actually.
But the frickin’ TWO-MAN luge?
HUH? Who thought up that idea?
"Hey, Joe, I’ve got a great idea!Lets tell two grown men in skin-tight suits to lay down on top of each other in public, with one guy’s junk pressed against the other guys butt crack.
But we’ll call it a sport, so that makes it okay.
They whizz down much quicker than the single guy, it’s pretty scary.
20-30 years ago I saw some weird sport on TV where people on bicycles were trying to play soccer or something. If I recall, they had to use the wheels of the bike to “kick” the soccer ball. Sounds ridiculous? It looked ridiculous. I think it might have been something Ted Turner came up with.
Have any of you been introduced to chessboxing?
mmm
It wasn’t Ultimate. That I can understand as a sport. This was stuff like distance and accuracy. It was a long time ago, and if I were guessing it was the type of events you would have if ‘Frisbee’ were in the Olympics.
Actually, the “World Punkin Chunkin Championships” has been beset with problems.
After the 2013 event, the owner of the land on which it was held withdrew his permission; combinations of not getting liability insurance and not finding a location large enough resulted in next contest not being held until 2016, during which one of the throwing machines had part of it break off and hit an employee of the TV production company in the head; as it was not certain if she would survive when it came time to air the show (she did), it was decided not to air it. The employee sued the organizers; between that and the landowner withdrawing his permission, in part over concerns of future liability, there was no event in 2017, and none is planned for 2018.
ESPN used to have a lot of off-beat stuff. I was always captivated by the World’s Strongest Man competition, where the contestants would lift heavy rocks onto posts, or tow semi trucks by hand, or pile steel plates. It was always so bizarre the things they would do.
But for stupid I’ll take your figure 8 racing and top it with one I saw on ESPN (2?) probably about the same time frame. Contestants would run their cars around a small oval track, drive one wheel on a ramp, and roll the car. Then a bunch of guys would come out, roll the car back on its wheels, and the driver would do it again! The winner would be determined by the total of both “runs”. It was so stupid, but it was fascinating. I’ve never seen it since.
I remember an early set of the Gravity Games or X Games where they had competitive bungee jumping. Of course, every jump looked the same and the event was turfed soon after.
No mention of synchronized swimming?
After Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, and Martin Short mocked it in an SNL short, it is impossible to watch this sport without hopping that someone will realize mid-performance that life indeed imitates satire.
Someone mentioned it before. I think they are very skilled.
A couple of posters did. At exactly the same time.
mmm