* I've written a few times in the space what I consider to be a lamentable truth: companies that bring us sports, like ESPN, are for-profit, and we are a capitalist country. The money is made by appealing to casual fans, on account of there being so many of them, in ways that often give hardcore fans the short of the end of the stick. That's just profit-maximizing business, which a lot of you approve of in the abstract, at least.
Still, I was able to say this with ease because I haven't really encountered such a decision that really burnt my toast, personally. Until yesterday.
In the first Australian Open quarterfinal, young rising star — really more of a meteor, she has future Slam winner written all over her — is the American Iva Jovic, who just turned 18. She faced world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in her quarterfinal. I was looking forward to it.
But I would have to scramble to find a way to watch it, because ESPN2, which has had opening-to-closing match coverage all throughout the tournament, would not have this match. Why? Because instead it was showing The Freaking Golf League. I wrote about the first episode last year and, in case you missed it, I did not like it.
This is what I want to say, and want to register as my official opinion:
This isn't even real golf. This is some made up BS that the golfers will pretend to be real passionate about, but what they are real passionate about is the beaucoup bucks they're getting to prop up this idiocy! They save their golfing passion for real golf and real tournaments! And this is getting play over a major in tennis, late in the tournament, featuring an exciting American! What. The. Hell?
And yes, that is where the lizard part of my brain goes. But I want even more to be ideologically consistent. The fact of the matter is, yes, TGL does draw better ratings then tennis, even major tennis tournaments, even major tennis tournaments with Americans playing important matches. I checked. There's precedence.
I don't get it, but it's true. My childhood, where tennis tournaments didn't even have to be majors to hit NBC/ABC/CBS, is long gone. Americans just don't like tennis as much as they used to.
Damn it.
* It seems to be mandatory that the press asks American players in the Australian Open what they think of ICE, the ICE protests, and which side of the protest they are on, and how does it "feel" to represent the U.S. at this point in history, are they still proud to represent the U.S., etc.
I'm a liberal (U.S. definition) journalist. I don't think I'm going out on a limb by suggesting that the askers are hoping for an anti-ICE response, or better yet, some sort of "I'm ashamed to represent the United States" answer.
If I were a high-ranking young tennis player, while I certainly would not be ashamed to represent the U.S., they would probably love my answers beyond that.
Nevertheless, this is a BS line of questioning that they should not be asking. These are tennis players; they did not ask to be spokespeople for either side of the U.S. political divide, and it's very very clear by their (mostly) non-answers to the question — Learner Tien straight-up refused to answer — they don't want to be political mouthpieces.
And it's sort of gross, Aussie Open journalists, that you want them to be, because hitting a ball with a racket well does not in any qualify their political opinions of having particular importance, and they would be the first to tell you that!
But no, these journalists, if they were being blunt instead of employing lame attempts at subtlety, are saying, "You're an American who has made a deep run in this tournament. So pick a side." Stop it.
* I've been complaining for years about how boring it is for me personally when tennis tournaments go chalk, and this year has been particularly gruesome in the Aussie Open, as seven of the eight quarterfinalists on the men's side were from the top 8 seeds, and on the women's side, six of the top 6 and 7 of the top 12 women made the quarterfinals. That boring-ness was mitigated somewhat by the fact that the lone outside-the-top-20 players to make the quarterfinals were both young Americans, Tien and Jovic.
Still, they were both bounced in the quarterfinals, and I will stop caring if Ben Shelton also gets eliminated. But my picks to win are Sabalenka for the women and Carlos Alcaraz for the men.
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