So it turns out all Americans need to really enjoy soccer is a back-and-forth, high-drama game between two soccer-infatuated countries’ national teams featuring the best two players in the world playing in the literal championship of the world. Also, it can’t interfere with the NFL. Check all those boxes, and Americans love soccer. The game’s gonna grow here, guys. It’s unstoppable.
This does, of course, get one thinking about what game would best introduce fans to other sports. Sports, for example, that Americans like:
College Football
The 2017-18 national championship comes to mind, but I think you need a home game. Let’s go with Alabama vs. Tennessee from this year so I don’t have to think too hard.
College Basketball
Again, it’s gotta be a home game, and what better than the 2019 NIT quarterfinal between NC State and Lipscomb? (To be honest, this wasn’t me. I was in a sports bar yesterday afternoon and people couldn’t stop saying, “You know what that World Cup Final was like? It was like if the first game of college basketball you ever showed someone was the 2019 NIT quarterfinal between NC State and Lipscomb.”)
NFL
The Nick Foles Super Bowl.
NBA
One of those games in the Finals where Dirk beat the Miami LeBrons. I don’t know about you, but if you introduce a sport to me by saying, “There is a Dirk in it,” I watch.
MLB
You don’t even need a full game. Joe Kelly, 2018 World Series, any outing.
NHL
I think you can go with any playoff game that goes to overtime for this. Flames/Oilers, ideally, but anything north of Nashville works. (North of Nashville would be a good name for a pop country band that exclusively sings songs deifying Union generals from the Civil War.)
Blu Is Blue, and in Peru! There’s Much to Do, ‘Cause There’s a Coup!
Well, guys, Aaron Rodgers doesn’t follow Blu on Instagram anymore, or so I’ve been told. As protestors mad that their guy’s attempted coup didn’t work out have stormed airports and other places of import, the reigning back-to-back NFL MVP’s once-rumored girlfriend is in the news as she shares her I’m-trapped-in-Cusco experience on, where else, Instagram.
Here’s the thing not enough people have mentioned about this: Why was Blu in Peru? Obviously, it was to do ayahuasca, but why right now? Well…
If I paid attention during Rodgers’s appearance on that Aubrey Marcus guy’s vlog/podcast/supplement infomercial back in August, ayahuasca can help you gain clarity and offer you guidance in times of questioning. You use ayahuasca, I was told, to work through stuff.
Feels like a post-breakup trip to me.
Dansby Swanson Has a Baseball Body
New Cub Dansby Swanson is impressive in one main regard: The dude gets people fawning over his looks even those he’s got a little flab and he’s got no muscle definition and his hair is a ball of chaos when not contained by a hat. It’s inspiring, to be frank. The guy looks like he has a nasty farmer’s tan. You and I too, perhaps, dear reader. Someday.
Texas Won It All
Texas’s volleyball team won the national championship on Saturday night, and they made it look easy. Which, to be honest here, has me asking why they haven’t won it more often before. If it’s so easy, why do you not do it every year?
Things We’ll Catch Up On Later
We’re on the road today, so we’ll have lots to say about that as the week goes on, but also notes on the glorious NIT-impacting weekend that was, the Sens beating the Red Wings, Burnley grabbing another three points, Fargo being a wonderful car dog today even though she didn’t get a walk this morning, my intentions to smuggle gallon upon gallon of dairy across state lines, etc. There’s so much content from road trips. Even just driving past Waco is a content machine. And we have to talk more about bowel games, too. We have a lot to say about bowel games. It’s going to be a good week.
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Viewing schedule, which is one item long because someone in the college basketball powerbroking room didn’t think of me and thus didn’t schedule anything capable of being the Game of the NITe tonight:
8:15 PM EST: Rams @ Packers (ABC)
Will Aaron Rodgers have a save-Blu game tonight? Will he have a screw-Blu game tonight? Will he have an I-should’ve-saved-Blu game tonight? Will he say something after the game about how the media really isn’t educated about what’s going on in Peru? Because he would be right. But I get the feeling Aaron Rodgers isn’t particularly educated about it either. Not that I’m really educated on it myself or anything. But from forty minutes of reading about it while riding shotgun up I-35 earlier this afternoon, I’m getting the impression that a lot of people want this to be various things it is not.
Go Pack!
