I Want More: The NFL's Expansion Proposition

Are we getting enough of our sports?  This is America, fer cryin’ out loud!  We need more of everything!  “American Idol” five days a week!  Three different “CSI”s and too many “Law & Order”s to count!  We need four Baldwins, three Arquettes, a Barrymore every generation, and as many Estevezes/Sheens as we can stand acting on our televisions and movie screens!  And we need our breakfast cereal to not only snap and crackle, but pop like a mutha—(Shut yo’ mouth!).  Otherwise, we’re disappointed.

So I ask you now – are we getting enough of our sports?  I say “no.”  I am all for expanding sports, chronologically, geographically, metaphysically (how that would occur, I have no idea.  I think we’d need some sort of remolecularizer) . . .

The NFL is getting closer to officially adding more games to its regular season.   The season only goes from September to December (February for some) at this point.  And by the end, their players (the ones that make it through the full season) end up walking like Frankenstein after a vasectomy.  So the league says they’ll just cram more games into the same amount of time by taking away an exhibition game or two.  They’re not even looking at going further into the winter! 

If you’re gonna add games, you gotta go all the way!  Think about it!  There would still be two weeks before pitchers and catchers report, thus taking away some attention.  Use that time!

Add a few more games, even if it means it’ll cut into baseball’s spring training.  The regulars only play a few innings in March anyway.  We could televise those innings during halftime of the added football games.  Think of it – Announcer: “We’re at halftime here at the Wells Fargo-Merrill Lynch-Washington Mutual Dome with the [heavily favored team] edging out the [Cinderella team] by a field goal.  We now direct you down to the field for our half-time show . . . the Dodgers versus the Cardinals split squad.”

The NBA playoffs last like eight months.  (What’s TNT’s motto?  “400 games in 400 days?”  Something like that.)  The NFL only has a month worth of playoff games.  What are you waiting for?  It’s not like you’re shy about expanding.

Geographically, you’re expanding to London and Toronto.  You’ve been to the European Mainland, even long enough to form a league there.  Seems like the only city you’re hesitant to visit is Los Angeles.  (Can’t say I blame you really.  I mean, the traffic’s bad enough out there.) 

If you want to challenge baseball for the moniker of “America’s Past Time,” then you must take up as much time as possible from Americans and their “busy” lives.  Baseball lasts longer than “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”  Then they add onto that with a World Baseball Classic every randomly-selected number of years.  You’ve got to have moxie to do that.  (Though I think moxie’s recently been added to the use of banned substances in baseball.  About time, too.  That stuff’s dangerous!)

If a larger percentage of our time were filled with football, it would become our national pastime. 

Plus, we need to talk about filling in those gaps that SporsCenter has to deal with.  There’s very little going on during a few days in February and nothing surrounding the MLB All-Star game in July except for the home-run contest to see whose steroids work better.  What is SportsCenter supposed to talk about during those lulls?

And SportsCenter is only on like 14 hours a day.  The rest of the time it airs shows like Outside the Lines and Pardon the Interruption.  NO! I will not pardon the interruption, thank you!  What am I supposed to do?  How can I get my news . . . (in the event I’m not near my computer and can’t twitter and am too lazy to switch the channel to ESPN News)?  I am expanding my lobby for expansion to include our all-sports channel.      

All this talk of expansion has made me thirsty.  I need a grande beverage at Starbucks.  On second thought, better make it a venti.