 Every
year American viewers are overloaded with award shows for everything
from music to video games, which is why I personally think we could do
without the ESPYs. ESPN's award show for athletes is kind of redundant
when you realize that most sports already give out awards of their own
called championships and compared to them winning an
ESPY is like winning an MTV movie award. Sure it's nice to be
recognized by the fans, but which award do you think Tom Brady wants
resting on his mantle, the ESPY for the NFL's Best Player or the Super
Bowl MVP trophy? I can hear his acceptance speech now, "You know, even
though we choked in the Super Bowl and blew the chance for a perfect
season, this ESPY makes all that hard work worth it." It's nice, but
as I've said before, in the real world the only things that matter are
championships.
Of
course, no ESPY conversation would be complete without mentioning the
horrifying awkwardness of a red-carpet filled with sports stars. It's like a parade of 12‑button suits and muscular women wobbling around on six-inch heels. Seriously,
next year couldn't we recruit some drag queens from Off Broadway to
teach the WNBA stars how to walk in heels? Not that I'm giving the men
a free pass either - the outfits they wear are usually so bad they
either look like an extra in an R. Kelly video or a miserable 5th grader on class picture day. Personally,
I think next year ESPN should just embrace the brutality of the scene
and get Joan Rivers and Alexis Arquette to do the red carpet
commentary.
The ESPYs aren't all bad though. For
instance, the one thing that ESPN does have going for it is its taste
in hosts. Last year, Lebron James did an excellent job hosting the
event, even busting out a down-right hilarious impression of Bobby
Brown's My Prerogative. If you
ask me, they should run with this idea and even go as far as hiring the
writers from Saturday Night Live to write up a bunch of skits involving
Justin Timberlake and some of the superstar athletes. For instance,
they could dress Shaquille O'Neal in drag and have him and Justin
Timberlake re-enact Janet Jackson's famous "wardrobe malfunction." I
don't know about you, but I'd sit through three hours of insipid and
unnecessary sports awards to see that skit.
If
I were in charge of the ESPYs the first thing I would do is ditch all
of the awards already given out in the regular season, like Best NFL
Player or Best Female Tennis Player, and add a couple of categories the
fans would really love, like: Worst Contract in
Pro Sports- Barry Zito, or Biggest Choke of 2007 - New England
Patriots, or my personal favorite - Biggest Jerk in Professional Sports. Couldn't you just see Jamie Foxx tearing open the envelope: "And the ESPY for Jerk in 2007 goes to... Roger Clemens!" Then
Roger could come up, thank everybody that voted for him, thank God for
giving him such low morals and once again blame the whole thing on his
wife and Andy Pettite.
More
than likely ESPN will eventually come around and start adding more
skits and musical guests to liven up the ESPY's, but unfortunately most
of the awards will always be unnecessary and boring, leaving their
viewers with an option to either sit and suffer or channel-surf for
three hours one Sunday every year. As for me, this Sunday I'm going to skip the ESPY's and just catch the highlights on the internet. If you are smart, you'll do the same.
Got a question or comment, email me and I might post it in one of my columns.
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Sports Junkie 
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