Does this sound familiar? You head down from the warm comforts of your room to the local TV lounge to watch the big game, say Lakers versus the Bulls. Unfortunately, when you open the door, you're greeted by twenty people watching Friends. To add insult to injury, they're watching a repeat. Now you like the show as much as the next guy, but it's THE BIG GAME!
While nothing will make up for missing the game, more and more Dartmouth students (and college students in general) have been turning to the great sports fan savior, also known as ESPN. This institution has saved us from total sports cluelessness, and given solace to Friends' victims.
Now, usage of this medium varies from fan to fan. For some, it's the occasional Sportscenter, with scores and highlights, before one heads off to tool or go to bed. Those more addicted to this channel may check out their Internet site, Sportszone, to get info when Sportscenter is just not on.
Then there are those whose daily schedule revolves around ESPN. You have lunch not with friends but with the anchors of Sportscenter in Food Court. You rush through dinner so you can catch the evening show, and if you can get control of the TV, watch one of the late shows. You have Sportszone bookmarked as your homepage, check into the site once a day, and maybe (God help you) you've even subscribed.
Unfortunately, ESPN is the only life preserver for us fans in the sports desert known as Hanover. Where else could we go? The D? You're lucky to get a paragraph from the associated press, if anything. The Sports Weekly? Not a chance.
Hail to ESPN! Without it, we sports fans would be a rapidly dying breed. I'll have to pause here, I've got to check out Sportszone.
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One Sunday afternoon last year, a friend caught me watching a Nascar race on TV. He asked me, "What's the point of the sport? They just go around and around. Whoever has the fastest car and doesn't crash wins. How stupid."
Well, this "stupid" sport is expanding faster than any sport, and its next target is you. Nascar has come a long way from being a purely Southern hick's (excuse the term) sport. Even as close as Loudon racetrack in NH, 80,000 people, yes 80,000, gathered to watch not the Celtics, nor the Bruins, but Nascar.
Already, new tracks are being built in California and Las Vegas, among other places. Fortune 500 companies are lining up to sponsor teams and races. Even Busch Grand National, the little sister to Nascar, has grown to the point where it's an event of its own, and not simply a training ground for Nascar.
Already, the networks are competing for coverage, from ABC and CBS to ESPN and USA.
Yes, Nascar's growing and it's out to get you. You sure can't avoid it. Maybe you'll even learn to like it.
