American Hooligans

And that goes double for American sports.

I, as I may have mentioned before, live in Europe. You’d think this would put a crimp on my baseball and American sports-watching habit, what with the time differences and the fact that nobody gives a fuck about NASCAR, MLB, NHL, and college football across the Atlantic. You’d think. You’d be wrong.

The terrible secret  (as to the picture running to the right, I GISed “terrible secret” and, well, who am I to argue with Google?) of ESPN is that they are, ultimately, a sports network. No matter how many “HONK HONK AWOOOGA WE’RE IN THE SPORTS ZOO” shows that feature pudgy ex-jocks they put on, ESPN also has a network of cameras at pretty much every sporting event actually filming sports. If you, like me, you used to look forward to the one game a night they’d deign to show, you will be absolutely furious to know that the people benefiting from all that sports coverage live in Europe.

And we get free health care, too.

It all started when I was perusing my local cable options. I noticed a small sports package offering a roundup of not-exactly-premium channels, like a golf channel and ESPN classic (which, over here, largely shows rugby games from 1993 and England winning hilariously at soccer), but there was also something called NASN. A bit of Googling brought me to something called the North American Sports Network and I thought, oh, they’ll toss a bone out to us ex-pats and give us some NASCAR and second-tier shit.

Oh, how wrong I was.

Not only do I get the best of ESPN and several regional networks–for example, I was watching Hockey Night in Canada when DrunkenMoose was–I also get the best benefit of all: no commercials. There’s promos for upcoming shows, but when you’re being bombarded with ads for Viagra and Valtrex, I’m watching an NASN logo as peppy sports music plays. Or, sometimes, they don’t even bother. Do you know how fast and enjoyable a football game is when it’s uninterrupted? Like, start to finish, no commercials, just a halftime show, then pure action? Like a soccer game? It almost made me like the NFL again.

That was nothing compared to the dawning of baseball season, though. I get Spring Training games that you will never see, then I get them repeated while you’re getting the latest HONK HONK KADOOGA SPORTS ZOO show. What I’m saying to you is if I miss the game that’s at some bizarro time (such as 3am), I can possibly watch it later when I get home from work (for example, at 6pm), because without all the commercials and SPORTS ZOO shows, ESPN is forced to show…sports.

For example, not only am I getting a quadruple-header on Opening day…

Toronto vs. NY Yankees
San Francisco vs. LA Dodgers
LA Angels vs. Minnesota
Houston vs San Diego

Those games will also be repeated on NASN throughout the week, so, for example, if I can’t motivate myself to stay up until 3am to catch the Astros and the Padres, I can motivate myself on a lazy Saturday afternoon to watch a repeat of the game. Or just take tonight, when your programming options are:

High School Basketball All-Star Game

or

Dayton at Ohio State

At the very same time, we will get a reairing of today’s Mets-Braves Spring Training Game. Unless you’re a hardcore Ohio State fan, I suspect I know which one you’d rather watch.

Yes, sports fans, the nation that birthed baseball gets less baseball on TV than a country that doesn’t even know what a baseball is. I get a decent amount of coverage for the Sweet 16, the Elite 8, the Final Four. I get repeat airings of NHL playoff games. And…

No commercials.