Why Everyone Should Dread The Start of The Little League World Series

If you didn't already know, the 61st annual Little League World Series will start August 15th and go through the 24th, and it will be played in Williamsport, PA.

And I'm really dreading it.

ESPN will go way overboard with coverage of it.  They will even go so far as to fill prime-time TV slots with coverage of the LLWS.  It's ridiculous. 

I complained in another article that there had to be something better than NFL preseason games to put on ESPN at eight at night.  Watching the LLWS is worse.  I'd rather watch NFL preseason football than 13-year-olds playing baseball any day.  I think you—along with most other sports fans—would agree with me.

But ESPN's coverage of the LLWS goes further than just poor TV ratings and drab action.

It places incredible pressure on the kids to succeed, and kids can buckle under pressure very easily.  Looking good on TV is just another unnecessary thing for the kids to worry about.  It probably makes the game less fun for them.  And isn't that the whole reason most kids play sports—to have fun?

Also the games are put-you-to-sleep-within-five-minutes boring.  Major League Baseball games are boring enough for casual fans, the only type of fan who would watch one of these games—the hardcore baseball fanatics are watching their favorite MLB team every night.  But Little League baseball games?  Come on, I'm surprised LLWS games get any viewers. 

Who wants to watch 13-year old kids play baseball on a diamond a fraction of the size of major-league fields?  Not me. 

Despite the fact that these kids are the best baseball players in the world in their age group, they're still only just barely teenagers.  They're not yet good enough or seasoned enough to show on national TV.  They might be good for TV ten years down the road, but not right now.  Even though they've been playing baseball for years already, they haven't been playing long enough to be good enough to show on TV.

It's painful to watch these young kids on ESPN when things just won't go right for them, and you can tell that they're really down on themselves for screwing up on national television.  Not only is it a chore to watch the LLWS, it's simply agonizing at times.

Lastly, the amount of advertising ESPN pours into this tournament is incredibly annoying and gets old extremely fast.  I only needed to see one commercial on ESPN advertising the LLWS before I got royally sick of it.  Since then I've been forced to see the ad many more times, because ESPN has gone way off the deep end and is running the ad at the start of every commercial break.   It's so utterly repetitive and dull.  ESPN tried to make them cute, but they're just irritating.   

We all have good reason to dread this year's Little League World Series, don't we?