“Pandem-oasis in a sports desert.”
The sports scene has become a virtual desert. No competitions, no audiences — no soup for you.
ESPN plays reruns of old games that people may or may not care about. They drum up intriguing, yet only half-satisfying programs like “The Last Dance,” chronicling Michael Jordan’s final season with the Bulls.
I caught “The Tournament of the Americas” or something like that the other night. USA vs Canada in a dodgeball championship whose mediocre athletes were dead ringers for those in the movie of the same name. Entertaining for about a half hour.
But the NFL Draft is something a little different. Not sports per se, but a draw like nothing else in the past two months. It blew away previous drafts for television audiences, for the simple reason there is nothing else on. For a moment we could all immerse ourselves in something happening real time (as opposed to reruns) and connected to the sport and teams that so many of us love. There was plenty of drama and surprise and hand-wringing, but fundamentally it was a temporary lifeline, an oasis we could enjoy for a moment in the vast desert of silent sports.
Was it any better than previous years? Probably not. As Eddie Murphy once said, “if you’re starving and someone throws you a cracker, you’d be like: ‘That’s the best damn cracker I ever ate in my life!'”
More from The Woody Paige Sports Network:
- Woody Paige: ‘Michael and me’; detailing my friendship with Michael Jordan (Part 1)
- Woody Paige: Six-time Olympic medalist Amy Van Dyken-Rouen glad 2020 Games postponed
- Woody Paige: Latest John Elway comeback off to a good start for Broncos
- Betting odds to be the New England Patriots Week 1 QB in 2020
- It’s time for the final buzzer to sound on 2019-20 NBA, NHL seasons
- Bouncing back in 2021: A Sports Odyssey – So many games, so little time
