10 Worst Sports Talk Debates

July is often the slowest season in sports and sports talk. The British Open is fun, but even with the advent of hi-def, it still looks like it was filmed in the 1970’s.

The baseball All-Star game was once great. Wimbledon and the Tour De France are European treats, but most people don’t follow tennis or cycling and lack great debate topics.

Which Williams sister is better would be discussed for about one minute before everyone stopped caring. The NBA and NHL grab at straws with free agency, and the NFL doesn’t really ramp up until August.

This is the season where hosts and blogs and papers try to do anything to create stimulating sports talk, and below we have the topics that are often discussed as having merit when in reality they have zero meaning.

10. Women should be paid the same amount of money men are in tennis.

The "equal pay for equal work" concept is one that is often difficult to measure in workplaces; however when work is equal, men and women definitely should have the same earning opportunities.

One small problem with the debate in tennis, men and women don’t work equal amounts. This debate grew during the height of popularity of women’s tennis, however now once again the men’s game gains more publicity because of the Federer-Nadal rivalry.

Federer and Nadal have played multiple epic five-set matches in the last few years, something even the greatest woman’s tennis player never does.

If the tennis women want equal pay, play three out of five sets. At that point, I would agree completely. Until then, they get less because they should get less.

9. Baseball, because of teams like the Yankees and Red Sox, create little hope for most teams in April.

Football probably has the most parity of any sport from top to bottom, but baseball is a close second.

Tampa Bay, Colorado, Detroit, and Houston have made the World Series the last 4 years. Teams like Pittsburgh fail because they have terrible ownership and leadership.

They can definitely compete if they had a vision. The Angels, The White Sox, The Red Sox, The Phillies and the Diamondbacks have all either ended incredibly long droughts or won their first title this decade.

If you want a sport that has little hope for most teams at the beginning of the season, look at basketball.

The Heat, The Lakers, The Celtics, The Pistons, The Rockets, The Bulls, The Spurs and The Sixers. Those are the eight franchises that have won NBA titles in the last 30 years. During the last 30 years in baseball, 19 franchises have won titles.

8. Is Brett Favre going to the Vikings?

At this point in their careers, Sage Rosenfels is a better quarterback than Brett Favre. Favre was awful the second half of last season, and is just hanging on for more publicity and glory at this point.

Nothing says he has to stay retired, then again nothing says I have to care about his decision.

Brett Favre won one title, 13 years ago. Talk about Phillip Rivers or Drew Brees or Tom Brady or relevant quarterbacks.

7. The US performance in the FIFA championship is the turning point in growing popularity in this country.

No it’s not. Mind you, the Spain win was excellent, and they played lights out in the first half against Brazil. Of course they choked massively in the second half, allowing four goals (one should have counted), and finished second.

Second is a strong performance, but look at the record. They only made the semifinals because of luck.

They finished the FIFA tournament with a record of 2-4. It’s not like they showed they can compete consistently against the best teams in the world.

They can do it for 135 minutes. My guess would be that the Spain game was the fluke, and the performance in the qualifying round and the second half against Brazil is closer to what they are: a decent team who isn’t good enough and a team most Americans can care less about.

Soccer isn’t taking off. We like our sports with funny beer commercials and more opportunities to score. The Spain goalie made zero saves in the US victory. I bet he at least makes one the next time they play the US.

6. Tiger Woods is the best athlete in the world.

I think Tiger Woods is an amazing performer, and when he is on his performance makes for some of the most compelling television.

However, Tiger is definitely not the best athlete in the world, mostly because golf is not a sport.

Previously, I was on the side of golf being a sport, and then I studied a bit of the language of the sport and changed my opinion.

Golfers shape shots, they pull sticks out of a bag and the focus of the game is based on the landscaping with great detail in designing courses.

Players don’t run, and there is no defense by other players or a clock dictating time. Golf is more of an art form than a sport.

Tiger is a more physically fit Bob Ross. Tiger might be able to do other sports incredibly well, but as long as he plays golf, the nature of the game means he never shows the athleticism that LeBron James or Ed Reed or Manny Pacquiao or Usain Bolt show.

I seriously doubt that Kenny Perry could put up 30 against the Magic.

5. College football is better than the NFL.

I can add college basketball is better than the NBA to this debate also. I may like college basketball more than the NBA, but it’s not better.

College football has horrible pacing, one-dimensional offenses, often wretched defenses and with the exception of a few teams, very thin rosters, talent wise.

College football games do have a more fun atmosphere, and often better crowds, but the quality of the game doesn’t compare.

College football can have 4-5 gems a week in terms of exciting games, mostly because they have 50-60 games a week.

For every 45-42 classic, there are three or four 66-0 USC victories or Florida beating up Generic U to get an easy victory.

Fans may have more of a connection to college football because they went to a school or they don’t have an NFL team in their city, which can make Saturdays more meaningful. It doesn’t make it better.

4. College Football is great because every game in the regular season matters.

Yes, ask Utah if every game matters. Ask Texas the same question. Two years ago, Ohio State lost their last game at home, and LSU lost their last regular season game at home, and they both played for the national title.

The Championship system is a scam, and titles are determined by votes and computer and when teams lose and how much teams run up the score.

Oklahoma only made the title game last year because they ran up the score on every team to gain points. Every game doesn’t matter; in fact certain important games don’t matter at all.

Texas beats Oklahoma by 10 points on a neutral field, in the end that game meant nothing.

Florida lost at home, but they did it early enough in the season to not matter. College football fans should keep telling themselves that the sport is great because every game is important. Just like the South should have won the Civil War after all.

3. Did you see the ESPYs?

No, no we didn’t. The ESPYs had one poignant moment 16 years ago, and that’s all I remember. The ESPYs is television filler for a network during the summer when they absolutely don’t want to show sports.

Who won best women’s basketball player? I have to know now. I’m not even sure that past ESPY winners remember that they won the award.

The only way I would watch the ESPYs is if I was guaranteed either an embarrassing fall on stage, random nudity, or a drunken tirade by a player or presenter. Pac Man Jones or Artie Lange should host.

2. It’s too expensive for my family to go to a game.

Then don’t go. Enough people are going to games still to justify the high prices. If people stop going, teams will run promotions with discounts, or lower ticket prices.

I bought season tickets to the NBA last year for half price, and the team I bought them for turned out to be pretty good.

If food at the game is too expensive, eat before you go, or in some cases, bring your own food.

Baseball is a good example. It’s not much more expensive to go to most major league parks than it is a movie, yet fans don’t complain about how much Michael Bay is making off of a mediocre product.

Kids don’t need to sit in the fancy Yankee Stadium $2500 box seats. The cheap seats will do just fine since it’s all about the experience and the atmosphere.

1. I can’t believe it came out that (insert name) was guilty of using steroids.

After all of the steroid news, how does it shock anyone that somebody may have or still uses steroids? I heard on sports talk shows a discussion about the Sammy Sosa positive steroids test. This should have lasted three seconds.

Sammy Sosa tested positive for steroids in 2003, he hit home runs like a machine and used a corked bat. End of discussion.

Manny Ramirez using steroids was such a shock because he seems like such a normal character and no Latin players ever have used performance enhancing drugs.

The steroid talk is selective at best, giving free passes to definite users while vilifying people like Barry Bonds mostly because he’s a jerk.

Tons of people in baseball cheated, the league did nothing to stop them, and it’s the American way of bending the rules to get ahead.