Today marks the start of the National Spelling Bee. Normally I wouldn't acknowledge it because I'm not planning on watching it. But, I can't escape it because I like to have ESPN on in the background for noise and they just keep running the promos for it, as if it were the Super Bowl. Let's all just agree to drop the facade, shall we? We're not tuning in to celebrate the mental brilliance of these kids or celebrate academia for the day. I know what this is, you know what this is: a chance to sit and giggle at socially-awkward and home-schooled kids. I especially find this ironic because these are the type of words that I would never have been allowed to use when I was at SportsTicker (owned by ESPN). They had the policy that if someone learned to read yesterday, then they should be able to read your recap today.
Look, it's not as if I don't appreciate good spelling. Hell, I'll correct misspelled words when responding to emails I receive (that's right, check your returned emails, kiddies). Also, I take great pleasure in hitting the spell-check button and seeing "no misspellings found." But, this is not a sport, so why the hell is it on ESPN? I understand that filling 5 networks with programming must be difficult, but you've got a ton of college sports wrapping up right now, you could have your pick of any of them to put on instead of a spelling bee. Maybe I'm the only guy who would rather watch college baseball, but I doubt that.
This is not the first time that ESPN has decided something qualifies as legitimate competition and therefore pushed it down our throat (poker, anyone?). And, I'm sure that it's merely a coincidence that they never talked about the results of the spelling bee until they signed a contract to show it on ESPN. Clearly, it gets good ratings, cause they have moved it up and will now show the finals on ABC in prime-time.
Really, though, this speaks to the awesome power of the brand that is ESPN. When they decide that something is important, god dammit, it becomes important. Sure, most of the country hates it when they take something insignificant and blow it up until it is the only aspect of the matters. But then every week we sit before game time and talk about whether or not Mangini and Belichick are friends based on their post-game handshake. Why should whether or not kids can correctly spell words with 15 letters be any different?
By the way, if you've ever wondered what it would be like to watch sports with me, this is the closest I can give you.
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