28 days is still too long…

February is my yearly sports hell. A month I can describe with a single word: Blah. But hold on!! We start the month with the Super Bowl; the King of Kings, the crème de la crème, the Optimus Prime of a sport that is growing faster than any other in terms of popularity. Certainly this game alone should lift February from the bottom spot. But we forget Super Bowls in February are a new creation. When I was growing up, the Super Bowl was held at the end of January where it belongs, surrounded by its college brethren: Rose, Orange, Fiesta, and Sugar. In my opinion, January needs to take back what it deserves and own the football postseason once again. But, if we ignore this fact and look at the game itself, we realize that much of the phenomenon is marketing hype. Sure there have been great Super Bowls, but we all remember the rank smell of unwashed asshole that was “Steelers V. Seahawks”. So Super Bowl superiority is not a guarantee every year. Honestly, how many times have you heard the words: “Well, at least the commercials were good”?

Obviously, February’s inferiority is not the case for many college basketball fans (which I consider myself to be), but seriously, NCAA basketball has the most meaningless regular season of all the sports. When you realize that 65 teams make the playoff juggernaut that is March Madness, these mid-season games lose their sizzle. I just can’t bring myself to give it credit for a real regular season. The tournament IS the season. So getting excited about a Texas-Kansas matchup is difficult given that they are playing for the right to play Coppin St. in the first round, while the loser will have to struggle against Dayton. And if your team doesn’t make the cut? Well you’ll still be able to watch them in the NIT or that other tourney. And just wait until the NCAA expands the tourney to 96. Then you’ll see truly meaningful games in February!

Added to this is the fact that more likely than not, the stars from each year won’t be there next year, so it is very difficult to build continuity or dynasties and capture fans’ full attention like in decades past. The tourney creates stars and storylines every year, but the next season just can’t hold on to them. How much more exciting would it have been to watch Syracuse basketball in 2003 if Carmelo had stayed and Lebron went to college, or this year if the entire rosters of North Carolina and UCLA hadn’t jumped ship? But I digress.

Hockey and the NBA are exciting sports in their own right, but if baseball is a marathon and football is a 100m sprint for Olympic gold, then basketball and hockey regular seasons are like the 5,000m at the Reebok Invitational. Not long enough or complex enough to earn my full respect, and not fast enough to hold my attention for too long. And here’s a huge factor when looking at the NBA and NHL: more than half the league will make the playoffs!!! If you don’t understand how that dumbs down the regular season then I can’t help you. I also must reiterate that I am writing about February. The NBA and NHL playoffs are in May and April respectively. This means the Warriors could feasibly still make the playoffs with an amazing turnaround!! As unlikely as this is, it speaks worlds about the importance of early season NBA games.

Looking deeper, since we know NBA players don’t start playing defense or “trying” until the 4^th quarter we are essentially treated to ¼ of a regular season. So in my estimation that’s ¼ for the NBA, ½ for NCAAB and 7/8 for the NHL for a grand total of 1 and 5/8 regular season sports (I was a mathlete). Looking at this year specifically, auxiliary sports such as golf will show us what Tiger truly brings to the sport if he doesn’t return: EVERYTHING!! But Tiger-less golf will be offset by the Winter Olympics this year, which can’t be considered a February regular anyway, so don’t get excited.

Overall, there is a lack of intensity, a lack of relevance, and a lack of excitement in February and this month-long drought can be summed up with what until this year was a symbol of February boredom: the Pro Bowl. Enough said.