Greetings, readers.
It’s been a long while since you last read anything from me. With school and whatnot, I’ve been quite busy. But I’m back, and today we’ll discuss a very important issue: Five sporting events that the media should not get all worked up about. Here are the five most overhyped events in sports:
5) The NBA Draft
Sure, the selection meetings of every professional sports league are mildly overhyped. But why did I single out the NBA for this list? Because, past the first ten picks of the first round, players rarely do anything substantial. I don’t care how much “wingspan” or “length” the center your team drafted in the second round has; if your general manager is planning on building a team around him, you’re in for a whole lotta losing.
4) College Football’s First AP Poll
The Arkansas Razorbacks were ranked eighth in the nation. Bobby Petrino took his bike for a spin. One thing led to another, and Arkansas was 3-4 (without a prayer of cracking the Top 25).
Fact is, you can’t tell much of anything about a team until they take the field for the first time. The teams ranked one and two at season’s beginning are rarely there on New Year’s weekend, no matter how many analysts project them to be there out of fear of making an “outlandish” pick that backfires.
On that note, props to ESPN’s Dari Nowkhah for picking West Virginia to reach the National Championship game. Despite their pummeling at Texas Tech’s hands, I love it when analysts think outside the box.
3) MLB’s Opening Day
I understand the happiness when a league returns to play after a long absence. What I don’t understand are the droves of baseball analysts that seek to answer every question about a team after one game. Seriously, when a season is so long, can’t we give teams time to grow before we predict their demise?
“Derek Jeter really struggled today. Are the Yankees in trouble?”
No, the Yankees are not in trouble. Why? Because there are 119 games left in the season! Trying to predict a baseball team’s success after one game in a 120-game schedule is like asking your girlfriend if she could see you two being married five minutes into your first date. Chill out, y’all.
2) The NFL Preseason
Yes, I’m a football junkie. Yes, I watch every preseason game I can. Yes, the NFL Preseason is overhyped.
The Detroit Lions’ historic 0-16 2008 season was preceded by a 4-0 preseason, thus showing that exhibition games can only tell you so much. This year, if we went by preseason numbers, the Cardinals shouldn’t have won any games (they started 4-0 before remembering that their offensive line was made of balsa wood and duct tape), Blaine Gabbert should have been the next Mark Brunell (all Jags fans know how that’s going), and the Jets offense should have been a disaster (oh, wait…).
And, the most overhyped sporting event is…
1) College Basketball’s “Midnight Madness”
For those unfamiliar, here’s the opening sentence of the Wikipedia article for the event:
Midnight Madness is an annual event that celebrates the first day in mid-October that theNational Collegiate Athletic Association(NCAA) permits formal basketball practices each college basketballseason(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Madness_(basketball)).
Yep, people get excited to watch practice. Not a game. Not a game. We talkin’ ’bout practice, man!
Obvious Allen Iverson reference aside, I can’t believe people really rejoice over this. ESPN even has an entire segment dedicated to it. Why? If you thought preseason games couldn’t tell you anything, what useful information can you get out of scrimmaging against your own team?
So, what do you think is the most overhyped sporting event out there?
Reblogged this on But at the end of the day… and commented:
Truth right here. I get very excited about Opening Day in the MLB but I never overanalyze anything after one day. I have better sense than that.
Thanks for the reblog! And for not over-analyzing the success or failure of your favorite team after one game. I know analysts have to talk about something other than where they’re eating after they tape the show, but some of their early prognostications are entirely outlandish.