Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Radio Sports FAIL

Tonight at dinner, one of my friends remarked that the rented car he was riding in on a recent roadtrip had satellite radio, and he was amused by the fact that there was a channel devoted to, of all things, NASCAR. We were all trying to imagine auto racing on radio, which just didn't sound too exciting: "He's turning left! And he's turning left again! And again!!"

From there, we got on a tangent about the other sports that don't lend themselves to radio. Here's the list we came up with:
  • Golf

  • Bowling

  • Fencing

  • Cricket (though, admittedly, this might be somewhat like baseball, and I listen to baseball on radio all the time)

  • The Tour de France (though I offered that Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen might be able to pull this off)

  • Cheerleading (yes, some people consider it a sport, and after watching an episode of Sport Science on TV last week showing that the impact of a cheerleader dropping to the ground from a high stunt is greater than someone being tackled by an NFL player, I'm inclined to agree)
UPDATE: I forgot to include boxing and tennis, both of which came up in our discussion.

We also noted that "mime" would be a terrible thing to experience on radio, even if it's not a sport (and even if it had play-by-play: "He's making a little box!").

So what did we forget? Any other sports that would translate badly to radio? Post them in the comments.

2 comments:

James said...

I know it's been a while since I've chimed in...

Being in Australia, obviously Cricket is held in high regard. It's usually always on the TV when you're at home.

However, if you have to be in your car for whatever reason, then the cricket is most definitely going to be what you tune into on your radio.

In fact, it's actually quite common for people to have the TV on, but on mute. And then the radio on to listen to the commentary (sometimes we don't think too highly of our TV commentators).

Kev said...

OK, so my comparison to baseball was pretty apt, then. (Going back at least 50 years here in the States, it's a common story to hear about kids sneaking a radio to bed and falling asleep listening to the game. I did this myself--minus the sneaking part--a few years ago on Opening Night.)

I wasn't the one in my group of friends who came up with cricket, and as I said, it occurred to me later that the similarity to baseball would carry over to listening to it on the radio.

And BTW, it's very common over here to turn down the TV and listen to the radio when watching (American) football games, especially if the national network broadcast crew doesn't like your team very much and your local radio crew is very good.

So, James, is there a sport common in Australia that we could add to our list? (If memory serves, the boomerang was invented over there, and boomerang toss seems like it would lose a lot without the visuals.)

Thanks for chiming in! Hope all is well with marriage, new house, etc.