Ask 100 people what constitutes a sport and you’ll probably get 100 different answers. There are the obvious, but watch ESPN for any length of time and you’ll see them stretch the definition of “sport” to include some really ridiculous things. One thing I do believe is a sport (one of the fastest growing in the nation) is disc golf. If you don’t know what I’m talking about check out pdga.com and discgolfersr.us for some more info or just google it.

As you could probably guess, PDGA stands for Professional Disc Golf Association. There are national and even worldwide tournaments that ESPN could cover, not to mention tons of regional and local tournaments that serve as qualifiers for the bigger events. So I thought I’d email ESPN and ask them why they don’t cover it and what could be done to change that. Part of the contact form (found here) has a category list where I chose ‘Sports Event Coverage’. That populates an Item list where you can select from all of the “sports” that ESPN covers.

That list includes such ridiculous things as Aerobics, Badminton, Cricket (not unless you live in the UK/London/England/Britain/Great Britain/Wales/Whatever the hell it’s called this month), Dominos, Lumberjack, Spelling Bees and Yachting. Don’t get me wrong, I love watching arrogant yacht owners compete to see which one is the biggest douche on a Sunday afternoon, but they’re telling me those are “sports”? Even worse, they think people really want to watch those more than an actual sport?

No worries though because if enough people contact ESPN and demand disc golf coverage then it’ll happen right? Apparently not. ESPN is such an arrogant company that they have a policy of not listening to their viewers.. you know, the viewers who made them who they are and allow them to continue to broadcast. From their FAQ page:

SUBMIT A PROGRAM PROPOSAL OR STORY IDEA TO ESPN
ESPN’s policy does not allow us to accept for review or consideration any ideas, suggestions, or creative materials not solicited by us or our subsidiaries.

Not only will they not listen to their customers (which makes me wonder why they have a contact form in the first place), but they refuse to accept any good ideas unless they thought of it themselves. Even the arrogant bastards on the yachts can tell there’s something wrong with that line of thinking. With Fox and others carrying most real sports ESPN had almost lost me anyways due to lack of anything decent to watch, but that arrogant attitude is the final straw. Even if I get a sudden urge to watch a fierce badminton competition, I definitely won’t be tuning to ESPN anymore. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go train for the lumberjacking finals next week.