Freddie P's Blog

March 19, 2008 @ 09:43

This time of year reminds of the good old days when my morning routine included writing a sports comment on the Edge and Mojo.

Every March I would become mildly aggravated by the NCAA Basketball tournament because I found the sudden interest to be disingenuous and no different than playing a government lottery.

Pool sheets would come out at most workplaces and everybody would be making their picks for a sport that virtually nobody paid attention to during the regular season.

There would be this storm of sudden devotion to something that wouldn't have gained a lick of attention if wagering wasn't involved. And that was played out by most of the people I knew who were involved in NC-double A pools because after making their picks they didn't bother to watch any of the games.

It's a lot like the NFL. A lot of people don't realize that back in the 1970's the NFL was actually struggling. The CFL was just as strong, as a matter of a fact, there was several incidences of CFL teams outbidding NFL teams for players.

But then along came the NFL office pool and everything changed dramatically, it became the strongest league in professional sport, again with a large following that never even bothers to watch their games. They just follow their pool sheets.

Hey, each to their own and whatever turns your crank, but I'm not a big fan of gambling in its most basic form, so having sporting events become bigger than they should be, only because of wagering, isn't something that's going to suck me in.

I won't be watching.