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PARENTS in the United States love watching their kids play sport. But like many things in this country, a pleasant weekend activity has become totally ridiculous.As I've mentioned before, college sport is a huge industry. A college I attended briefly in Georgia has a stadium that holds 90,000 people and it's filled for every home game. College sport is a prime-time television event, and the football and basketball championships always earn big ratings.
But it gets worse. I turned on the TV last week to watch the AFL Grand Final on ESPN2 a cable channel available in about 90 million homes. It shows the Australian Open tennis too, so it's a big deal.
I tuned in early, and watched the end of live coverage of a high- school football game. Yes, I said high school. Live. On national television.
But it's not just games that parents are obsessed with there's statistics too. We're a nation obsessed with polls, and rankings.
There's a national high school sports ranking and the Los Angeles Times publishes a weekly list of the top 25 local high school football teams. But they rarely actually play each other to achieve this ranking they're put on the list by local sports journalists and football coaches. If you're wondering why anyone would need a list of top high school football teams, as judged by opinionated insiders, you'd be agreeing with me.
But it gets worse. I took my twin toddlers to our local park last Saturday a small place next to an old railway cutting at the top of my street. Along with slides and swings, there's a sloped open area, the site of a little soccer tournament.
A bunch of five-year-olds, all wearing their soccer uniforms, were running in a giant mob, trying to kick a goal, but struggling with the cross-field slope. It was something you'd see on any Canberra oval, minus the slope.
Yet this event came with its own commentator. Some guy with a microphone, portable speaker/ amplifier, and a whistle was giving blow-by-blow commentary of the event. He knew every child's name so at times it sounded like a strange horse-race call. The only name I remember was Winston, who kicked just about every goal.
Now I'm all for positive reinforcement, but this is ridiculous.
Who benefits from this kind of coverage? Presumably the only people watching are parents, who only really care about their own kid (let's be honest). No one chooses to pop down to watch five-year-old soccer featuring unknown children. So who would watch high-school football on national television? Call me old-fashioned, but sport played by children should be for these children and their families.
And you thought Australia was sports-mad.
Tim is a writer, TV producer and proud former Canberra resident who has lived in Los Angeles since 1997.
