Remember COVID?
I’ll be more specific. Remember the first few weeks and months of COVID where, among some admittedly much more pressing global problems caused by the pandemic, there were absolutely no sports going on?
I remember all eyes being on the virtual NFL Draft where Roger Goodell was announcing picks from his living room because it was the first major live event in sports in what seemed like forever. At that point, people had gone to the depths of Tartarus (Iliad reference. Yeah, I’ve got range) to scratch their sports watching itch, watching and gambling on bizarre (though kind of electric) events like marble racing and simulated 2K games. Dark.
The reason I bring this up is that today is one of the only days throughout a calendar year where there are no sports to watch. This always happens in the couple days surrounding the MLB All Star game. At least there’s the home run derby the day before the game (although the event seems much less fun than it used to be). After the game there is nothing. It’ll be like this today and tomorrow. The NFL, NBA, and NHL are all in offseason, the MLB is on the All Star break, I’m not sure why the MLS or any other relevant soccer isn’t on (I don’t really follow), and the WNBA once again shows its ineptitude by not having games at a time when they could be holding the sports watching market hostage and getting some eyes on their product.
I’m now going to interrupt the main point of this article to talk about that. I don’t think I’ll write a full article about it because it’s been talked about a lot before and it can be a little controversial, but I want to touch on it: The WNBA is a terrible league. This is not a misogynistic sentiment; I firmly believe there is a market for women’ sports. The nation has a strong affinity for the US Women’s National Team in soccer and I’m excited to see them hopefully dominate international play again in the upcoming women’s World Cup. Women’s tennis is also great, with the rallies often being as good and better than men’s rallies. Women’s basketball as a whole can be a good product, as evidenced by the buzz around Iowa’s Caitlin Clark’s run in the women’s March Madness tournament, capped off by the viral moment she had with LSU’s Angel Reese.
The WNBA meanwhile is hemorrhaging money every year while playing at a time of year where baseball is the only other sport to watch. They continuously fail at carving out a significant market for themselves, yet it seems as though no action is ever taken to change the direction of the league. It comes across as almost a sense of entitlement from the league that it thinks it deserves our viewership. The strategy seems to be to hope that if outlets such as ESPN and Bleacher Report shove it down sports fans’ throats enough (I have no numbers on this but they seem to post about it much more than much bigger leagues like the NHL and even maybe the MLB), people will watch. This has been going on for years, and the WNBA is still heavily reliant on the NBA subsidizing the league so it doesn’t go bankrupt. I’m sure the league has seen some increase in viewership with all this posting and attention, but it seems to create animosity towards the league more than anything (just look at the comments or replies on any WNBA post).
Maybe they should play on a smaller court or have lower rims to create a faster, action-packed game. Maybe they should change their marketing strategy and focus on more targeted audiences. Maybe they should encourage the exciting playstyle of players like the aforementioned Caitlin Clark. I don’t know what the solution is, but they should do something, because what they’re doing now isn’t working.
Back to today’s issue: the lack of sports. There was a little bit of golf and tennis action on TV today, which is great and all, but that did little to solve my hunger for sports. By the time I got off work, there was nothing. I threw on the ESPN app on my TV and there were only old college football games (not even very good ones) and low-level minor league baseball. I don’t mind those things, but they weren’t really what I was looking for.
I realized something about myself today, which I’d realized before during COVID and had since forgotten: Sports are a huge part of my life. Obviously, I knew that. I’m sitting here in my free time writing a sports blog. I played four different sports throughout my childhood. I played competitive club sports all through college. One of my favorite hobbies is reading about and watching sports and their highlights. It’s clearly a significant part of my identity. When I’m not busy, I throw sports on the TV or fire up Twitter and look up what’s happening in sports. I didn’t know what to do with myself today.
Maybe this is a wake-up call. This might be an addiction. I should pick up another hobby. I should make an earnest attempt to find love. I should see how I can become a more complete and well-rounded individual in this game we call life.
Anyway, enough of that. One more day of this then baseball will be back. NFL training camp is soon. That new Netflix series Quarterback should help me weather the storm. Sports fans stay strong. There are brighter days ahead.