Yesterday was the final day of 2012 Winter X Games, and it was amazing. The experience left me inspired. Not only inspired to go out this spring and try some new flip variations, but also left me inspired to climb up on my soap box and ask why…
It was 8 pm EST and I was ready for the final sick events of Winter X, which included Snowcross Big Trick and Men’s Snowboard Half Pipe. I sat on my couch fresh pizza and cold beer in hand… The DVR was even running. When I turned on ole ESPN at 8 as scheduled, I was disappointed by a basketball game. WTF? Basketball – in the middle of X Games. To make matters worse, it was in overtime. Well how long could a 5 minute OT take – you would think 5 minutes right? NOPE… Apparently professional athletes at that level require 5 minutes of rest for every 1 minute of playing because the OT took 1/2 hour. UG – seriously… These guys can’t run back and forth for 5 straight minutes? How Lame. I have continued to dwell on this now wondering the real root to my frustration. It wasn’t just the terrible ‘entertainment’ scheduling… I mean they were going from a Dallas / San Antonio (Local) NBA game to seemingly World Wide coverage of an International Sporting event. I guess that gets delayed for a few boring layups. Why should we break out that innovation on PRIME TIME. If the online space is any indicator of overall popularity, Saun White was a TOP 10 trending topic on Twitter most of the night. I didn’t see that old NBA game hit the digispear not once… The advertisers have taken note, with Brands like North Face really cashing in. Yet the programming stations seem to not notice this trend.
I continued to reflect on the growing disparity between these 2 types of sports and came to the conclusion that 1 common element could link sports on both sides of the fence – extreme / action sports vs traditional sports. That element was PROGRESSION. In over 30 years of watching these mainstream sports, Basketball, Baseball, Football, Hockey & Golf; I realize that like modern religion & politics these sports too refuse to progress. Basketball’s huge modern day update – Nike Air & rebock Pump. Baseball has aluminum & carbon bats, but professional athletes aren’t allowed to use those. In football we have Arena Football, which has new rules that actually make the game reasonably exciting. Hockey has gotten to use aluminum & carbon sicks, which increase shot speeds a bit, much like Golf which has also embraced titanium & carbon for development of drivers. One could potentially say that the only REAL progression to these sports came through the use of stronger & stronger steroids. I am comparing these sports of coarse to those where we see whips, cliff hangers & superman; to superman back flip, cliffhanger back flip & front flip in just a few years. A group of amazing athletes has progressed a group of sports year over year – now that is exciting. So when will it happen everywhere else?
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