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February 23, 2021 By: Mark Knudson

What in the Wide World of Sports would you like to ‘cancel’?

It’s a big thing these days to complain about “cancel culture.”

Everyone who thinks they aren’t being heard seems to feel that they’re being “cancelled” by this platform or that one. (Didn’t we gain the ability to “cancel” messages when the TV remote control was invented? But I digress…)

Regardless, there are things we’d all like to remove from our daily orbit, right? Things we are tired of seeing. Other people’s ideals we disagree with and really just don’t want to hear about anymore?

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Yes, there are even some things like that in sports. Stuff we’ve simply had enough of and no longer want to see or hear about. Stuff we’d like to cancel.

I’ll go first.

I’ll start with a hot topic: Tom Brady. Yes, I’d like to “cancel” Tom Brady.

For me, Brady is like that cool new song you hear on the radio one day, and you can’t wait to hear it again. Then it starts getting played. A lot. Over and over. Heavy rotation they call it. As it gets more popular, you hear it more and more often…until pretty soon you’re hearing it six times a day and you’re sick of it. There can be too much of a good thing, you know?

So this is not about debating his greatness, nor trying to cancel his achievements or anything like that. He’s the best ever. The G.O.A.T. Fine. I’m just over Tom Brady. Had enough. Done. I’d really be totally fine to not see or hear from him anymore.

Bye Felicia.

While we’re at it, he can take Bill Belichik with him. I’m over the New England Patriots too. The whole thing. They can just be gone, and they won’t be missed. At all. It wasn’t even fun seeing them lose a lot this season. I’d rather they were just cancelled.

For that matter, how about Nick Saban and everything about Alabama football? They’ve had more than their fair share of airtime. They could be cancelled too. Yes, Saban has created a dynasty, and in a lot of cases, dynasties are good for sports. Gives everyone else something or some one to root hard against. But in this case, the way things are currently tilted, there’s no end in sight to the dominance of Saban’s program. We are destined for a lot more of the same. And that sucks.

What remains of college football would be better off if Saban – who’s treatment of media and others shows he’s a bad guy to begin with – got cancelled. Alabama football too. Wouldn’t miss them even a little bit. And let’s go ahead and take it a step further: Let’s just cancel the entire Southeastern Conference. Sorry, just over all of that, too. The fawning. The slobbering over their greatness (without pointing out the inequities.) Enough already.

Yes, these semi-professional programs (and with the advent of “Name, Image and Likeness” payments – which should also be cancelled – the gap is just going to grow) that are masquerading as college football churn out a lot of professional football talent. But do we have to start seeing and reading all about “Mock Drafts” the day after the regular season ends?

Mock Drafts could be cancelled, and sports would be better off.

While we’re at it (and I know I’m in a huge minority here) I’d love to cancel Fantasy Football (and baseball for that matter.) All of it.

The pre-season “drafts,” the in-season obsession on individual player statistics, the league partnerships…all of it. It’s just another form of gambling, and for my money, gambling detracts from the games themselves. Imagine the increase productivity in offices all over the country if Fantasy Football was cancelled? Give me the real thing, thank you. Real football games where the name on the front of the jersey is more important than the name on the back.

That’s my fantasy.

It’s not just football stuff I’d like to cancel.

With baseball season starting soon, I’d be fine if we cancelled the Los Angeles Dodgers. Wouldn’t miss them for one second if they left the building forever.

Is some of this envy? Sure.

Not only do the Dodgers have more money than the almighty, which is a root cause of jealousy, but they know how to use it. So while it’s easy to tip your cap to them and praise how they do things, it’s also easy to be sick of their superior “we invented baseball” attitude that permeates the clubhouse and the press box whenever they come to your town. Arrogance that’s earned is one thing. But when you’ve won one-third of a world championship in more than 30 years, that kind of arrogance is easy to despise. Yes, I’d be fine if the Dodgers got cancelled.

But baseball has bigger issues.

Even though this is a minority point of view (again) I’d be more than happy to cancel the Designated Hitter forever. And some of Commissioner Rob Manfred’s ridiculous rule change proposals – a few of which he’s gotten in on a temporary basis due to the pandemic – like the California tie-breaker which begins extra-innings with a runner already on second base – need to be permanently cancelled. Manfred’s affinity for things like a smaller strike zone(ludicrous) and stealing first base (even more ludicrous) need to be cancelled immediately and forever. Actually, MLB simply needs a new commish. But that’s for a different column.

There are lots of other things in sports I personally would not miss if it were cancelled. I wouldn’t miss Soccer in general if it were to vanish, but I understand the value to small children playing the game, and I know millions world-wide love to watch it. Fine. It doesn’t dominate my sports page (so to speak) or my Twitter feed like Brady or the Dodgers, so I’m not looking to include the game itself on my list of cancellations. But within the World’s Game, couldn’t they at least cancel some of the stupid stuff, like flopping (which the NBA’s done a decent job of curtailing) and stoppage time, which is one of the two dumbest concepts in all of sports. Why can’t soccer have a normal clock like every other sport?

The other dumbest concept in all of sports, which needs to be cancelled ASAP, is the use of “Judges” to determine outcomes. IMO, it’s not a sport if the result it determined by people (with agendas) watching from the sidelines. Gymnastics. Figure Skating, certain skiing events…anything and everything that’s determined by a judge is illegitimate. If it doesn’t have a clock or a scoreboard to show us who truly won, it’s not a real sport.

Boxing is on the way to fixing this with the advent of electronic “punch counters” and the like. Eventually boxing judges will be replaced by what amounts to a scoreboard to determine who won a fight. All sports that use “judges” should follow suit…or be cancelled.

As long as we’re talking about boxing, I’m old school. If MMA got cancelled, I wouldn’t miss it. But that’s just me. And even though it’s a race with a clock and all, I’m sorry. If it got cancelled, I wouldn’t miss NASCAR even a little bit either. Not my thing. Maybe it’s yours.

Of course your list will be vastly different than mine, and that’s fine. But the fact is, no one’s list actually matters. “Cancel culture” doesn’t really exist, even if some folks think it does or would like it to.