Adult Swim

Tony Kornheiser recently wondered, on his radio show, about the need to send a Washington Post sports reporter all the way to Australia to cover the 12th FINA World Championships. At the time, Michael Phelps had just broken the world record in freestyle, and would in successive days, break his own record, and a few others, the most recent in butterfly.

Let's face it, sports radio commentary, a radio genre that's exploded in the last 5-10 years, focuses on three sports: football, basketball, and baseball, in roughly that order. Occasionally, they cover golf, because the sports pundits play golf and because of Tiger Woods, who essentially put an African American face on what many had perceived as a white sport (of course, he was far from the first African American to play golf at a high level, but he's the first that's dominated the sport--yes, yes, he's half-Thai, but that's not mentioned a great deal).

Here are some sports that are almost never covered: tennis, auto racing, hockey. And of course, there are sports that are really never covered, like cricket, soccer, some college-only sports like lacrosse and field hockey. The only time these sports get a mention is when a scandal occurs, such as the Duke Lacrosse team scandal. And even then, there's nary a mention of the Pakistani coach, Bob Woolmer (from South Africa), getting strangled after Pakistan had lost to unheralded Ireland.

Much of this ignorance reflects the thinking of sports pundits. They believe they are the surrogates for the average American fan, who also don't like these sports. And more than likely, they actually don't like the sports at all, barely following it, not knowing who's who. Occasionally, they pronounce a few names semi-correctly like Belgian tennis player Justine Henin-Hardenne.

You would think that a guy like Mr. Tony would love to promote some obscure sport he loves and talk to the world about it. But if he hasn't been following it for twenty years, he's basically not interested, mostly because he feels he adds little to the table (although he would claim that he doesn't know half the football that Joe Theismann does, but still, he can't say he knows as little about football as he does about, say, soccer).

It seems like we've heard about Michael Phelps forever. I've known his name far longer than I've known what he looks like. Unlike other athletes, I don't know what his voice sounds like. I know little of his personal life. He's not dissected on radio like Barry Bonds or Terrell Owens. He's a white boy in a white sport.

But he is local, born in Baltimore, and having trained in Maryland. Heck, he's even swam in the pool at the University of Maryland Natatorium (quite an impressive facility given the utter crap it was when it existed in Cole Field House--UNC, I believe, routinely paid Maryland not to swim there away meets at Maryland).

Michael Phelps could be a total ass for all I know. "Nigel", the guy that Tony talks to, claims he had met Michael once, and needed a ride back from some event, and he refused, despite being a sports personality. Whether this really happened (it sounds plausible, despite the Nigel persona, which may or may not be real), I can't say. Phelps is tabula rosa to me, a blank slate.

Even so, he's had to go to Australia, mind you, on the other side of the world, adjust to the time differences, and manage a whole week of knockout performances, winning six golds so far, and breaking several world records in the process. Of course, Mr. Tony would rather talk about Sanjaya and how awful he is, and his hair, because he only reflects the American public's affinity for American Idol.

Now, to be fair, Mr. Tony's obsession with American Idol is practically unprecedented for a sports pundit. He spends easily a third of his time, more these days, discussing non-sports topic. You don't hear, say, Mike and Mike in the morning do anything like that. Indeed, with Mike Golic playing the "man" role, watching American Idol would be anathema to what they do. And the sports listeners would cringe at how much discussion the show gets. They love sports, not some guy with poofy hair singing Gwen Stefani.

His penchant for covering non sports events gives his show some breadth that most sports talk shows lack. I listen to some late night sports commentary on the radio coming home from work, and it's painful to listen to. Still, I'm not really up for the pop-music that's on and sometimes NPR isn't covering stuff that interests me.

What's particularly impressive about Michael Phelps's achievements is that he times it so well to the big championships. How many records have been broken in key championships or in the Olympics? I suppose it's useful to do that, because those accomplishments get airplay, more so than if it had occurred in some smaller non-event. This lack of coverage may indeed influence athletes who try to gear up for the big events and swim their best in them.

I suppose that shouldn't be surprising. After all, isn't this what athletes in other sports do? Gear up for the big game? The Superbowl? The Final Four? The NBA Championships? Why not try to do your best in the big games?

But the key is this. He's trying to break records too. In a team sporting event, the goal is merely to win. Kobe isn't planning to go for 100 points during the playoffs. Indeed, there's some question as to whether he could even approach such a record with playoff caliber teams. Even in golf, a tough sport if there ever is one, Tiger doesn't care to break scoring records. Since each course is unique, and the majors are played on difficult courses, he's less likely to break a scoring record. He just needs to win.

But in sports like swimming or track and field, breaking records seems to be par for the course. There's honestly no good comparison with the sports Americans appreciate most, and so there's no real appreciation for the accomplishments either.

Does it say something that, other than NASCAR and hockey, predominantly white sports don't appeal to Americans? Perhaps because Americans aren't particularly good at these sports? But this is not true in swimming, and unlike the cancer surviving story of Lance Armstrong, who perhaps single-handedly raised the awareness of the Tour de France so that a network like OLN would even think of covering it, and fans would consider watching it, and heck, people would consider buying a Trek bike so they too could begin to appreciate road cycling.

Sports like swimming and racing seem to lack the kind of drama needed for fans to be rabid. It's pure speed. There's not much strategy, at least, nothing visible to the average eye. And it's over in a few minutes. You can't sit and watch these events for a few hours. This may explain why people only crave such events once in a few years, as in the Olympics, and even the Olympics have waned in popularity now that there are hundreds of competing channels to watch. When only four channels existed, the Olympics had a captive audience.

So sorry Michael Phelps that Mr. Tony doesn't care for you (or Nigel, for that matter). Best of luck, and don't be an asshole.