10 Worst Reality Shows of All Time: Sports Edition

It’s hard to fathom that there was once a time when reality shows didn’t exist. To the surprise of kids these days, scripted programming and sports used to rule the television kingdom.

All of that changed slowly and painfully over the years. From Keeping Up With the Kardashians to Survivor, reality shows exploded and took over the world. Jumping in on the fun, the world of sports decided not to avoid this craze.

To be fair to reality TV as a genre, there have been some great shows to come out of this flat-screen revolution—The Contender comes to mind.

However, we’ve all seen plenty of bad TV suffocate that small portion of good. Here now are the 10 worst sports reality shows to date.

Splash

ABC jumped on the reality train when it introduced Splash to its legion of TV supporters in 2013.

Crazy or not, the concept behind Splash wasn't the worst idea. Getting a former professional diver—Greg Louganis—to teach athletes and celebrities to dive into a pool of water from great heights would have to make for great TV, right?

I mean, all of those inexperienced bodies colliding with the water had to generate a few laughs. And it did. At its best, Splash had some pretty compelling reality TV moments.

But the bulk of the show was complete nonsense. Sitting through an entire season of Louie Anderson, Ndamukong Suh, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Katherine Webb diving into the same pool of water is a process.

The scoring system was shoddy while the show itself got too repetitive to have any sort of true meaning. A downward ratings trend, per TV Series Finale, was all the network needed to end the whole Splash phenomenon after one season.

Celebrity Boxing

Before reality TV went into warp drive, Fox got in on the fun. Creating Celebrity Boxing, the broadcasting company decided to pair up random celebrities, strap headgear and gloves onto them and let each person swing at each other in the ring.

The title alone makes Celebrity Boxing one of the worst sports reality shows we've ever seen.

This particular Fox series didn't last very long. With bouts consisting of Tonya Harding vs. Paula Jones and former NBA big man Manute Bol vs. ex-Chicago Bears star William "Refrigerator" Perry, the entire program amounted to nothing more than dreary hogwash.

Watching it, you genuinely felt bad for the people Fox got to do this show. When that happens, there's nothing left to enjoy. Perhaps that's why Celebrity Boxing vanished from the airwaves so quickly.

Keyshawn Johnson: Tackling Design

Keyshawn Johnson: Tackling Design was a reality-based program that A&E produced in 2009, per IMDb. The ideology behind the show was to put former NFL wide receiver—and legendary mouthpiece—Keyshawn Johnson and his team to work as designers.

The series was such an odd decision in the first place. Why in the world would Johnson be in charge of decorating homes? Even as an ex-NFL player, his name doesn't carry an insane amount of cultural weight.

Prior to the Duck Dynasty years, A&E was searching for a reality smash. Keyshawn Johnson: Tackling Design was not that show.

Pete Rose: Hits and Mrs.

Pete Rose: Hits and Mrs. was wretched. Sorry, that doesn't even begin to do it justice.

Whoever thought of this show deserves nothing but shame and ridicule. In what world is taking poor old Pete Rose and throwing him in a reality series considered cool? This is almost as bad as his Sketchers commercial. No, I take that back. It's actually a lot worse.

A surprise to no one, it turns out that following Rose and his fiance Kiana Kim around wasn't such a great idea. The show was dull, made you feel weird inside and didn't do Rose's image any justice.

Overall, this was a complete disaster. Television carnage at its finest.

Ochocinco: The Ultimate Catch

Leaving the spotlight of the National Football League isn't easy, even when you have an outgoing personality like former Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco.

Trying to be clever with sports-themed TV shows is one thing—hence the series name, Ochocinco: The Ultimate Catch. But the creators of this show decided to take things overboard on that front. They forced Ochocinco to choose between 85 different women—his number in the NFL—in order to find "true love."

The result was nothing but drama—not the good kind—and a whole bunch of headaches. Ochocinco: The Ultimate Catch was The Bachelor gone wrong. Not even the occasional appearance by Terrell Owens could save this show.

ESPN Hollywood

What do you get when ESPN tries to become Entertainment Tonight? You get ESPN Hollywood. Hosted by Mario Lopez and Thea Andrews, the concept was to fuse pop culture with sports in a glitzy way.

Instead of getting a show that covered those terms, we got a lazy effort filled with monotonous features and corny one-liners.

From the jump, this show bombed. Its initial broadcast only drew 75,000 viewers, as Michael Hiestand of USA Today reported at the time.

Nothing could save it from being thrown to the wolves. Like most shoddy programming, ESPN Hollywood evaporated from our memories without a sound.

Victoria Beckham: Coming to America

When David Beckham came to the United States to play for the Los Angeles Galaxy in 2007, the MLS was blessed with a bundle of media coverage.

One of the most popular players on the planet was about to leave his tenure with Real Madrid and play ball in the City of Angels. Using the duo's fame as a ploy, NBC decided to give his wife, Victoria Beckham, her own show.

Dubbed Victoria Beckham: Coming to America, the show centered on the Beckham's move to the U.S.

According to Lucy Mangan of The Guardian, the show was originally supposed to be a complete series on NBC. When that fell through, the network flipped the script and made it a one-off special.

Watching the clip above, it's crystal clear why that happened. Unlike today's hit reality shows, this profile of the Beckham's move to Los Angeles was complete rubbish.

Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling

Hulk Hogan will always be a media magnet. The things he did for professional wrestling can't ever be overlooked. During his peak, he was arguably the most popular wrestler to ever throw on a pair of boots.

Nowadays, Hogan has done just about everything in order to keep his brand alive and well. In that vein, CMT gave Hogan the keys to his very own reality show. Titled Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling, the Hulkster was responsible for turning minor celebrities into professional wrestlers.

We even saw familiar faces from the Celebrity Boxing days. Danny Bonaduce, Dustin Diamond and Todd Bridges all transitioned from the boxing ring to the wrestling ring.

The show was just as terrible as you'd expect it to be. There was nothing cool or exicting about it. Seeing actors trying to become athletes overnight wasn't worth anyone's time. Luckily it only lasted one season, per IMDb.

Deion & Pilar: Prime Time Love

If you were one of the few people who actually watched Deion Sanders' reality show, Deion & Pilar: Prime Time Love, I'm sorry.

That show might be the worst reality series to ever touch the visual waves that represent TV. Lasting a mere eight episodes, per IMDb, everything about this show was uncomfortable and felt forced.

Following Deion and his wife at the time, Pilar, the series basically took place in Sanders' massive mansion. And in that mansion, nothing happened. Nothing at all.

Dream Job

Of all the shows we've discussed, ESPN's Dream Job was actually a really unique concept. Piggybacking off the hype around SportsCenter, the hierarchy in Bristol decided to create a show where people were given a chance to become on-air talent.

The problem is, despite Dream Job's best efforts, it fell on hard times mostly due to formatting issues and the fact that the judges hogged the spotlight. Bodacious personalities like Woody Paige, Stephen A. Smith and Kit Hoover were way too strong to be put on the same panel.

To be clear, the show wasn't awful. It just could have been so much better. And that's why Dream Job is jammed into this list.