bizarreville

Following a 15-year trend of increasing sports gimmickry, the silly sideshows have now eclipsed the games themselves in fan interest.  Exit polls done by the Jallop organization of fans leaving sports venues have shown diminishing interest and outright boredom of the high-priced arrogant prima donna parade out on the field.  More and more fans could not even remember who won the game, some even were not quite sure who was playing.  Only one in 10 even knew who Art Shmellman was.

But all remembered and were excited about the cheerleaders shooting air cannons of cheap T-shirts to the fans…which was voted the #1 fan interest activity in the latest poll.  Even though the T-shirts were often just goofy promotional crap from places like Bill’s TV and Appliance, fans would dive and crash into little kids just for the chance of snapping one up.  At a recent Bizarreville Skunkspray football game, little Tommy Derfberger received a broken nose when Elmer “the Whale” Flabbertime launched  himself over several rows to get a tie-dye.  Ironically, the shirt size was “Medium”, 5 sizes short of Elmer’s girth needs.

Other popular sideshows in order of popularity included the old grammaw trying to throw a football through an orifice 20 yards away, the scoreboard icon race, the little  s#*!t  bands that go through the stands playing obnoxious mini-songs, and the mock fighting between opposing team mascots with a crotch-busting at the goalpost finale. 

The Wave, which years ago was #1 in sideshow popularity did not make the latest Top Ten….although it continues to be exceedingly popular at some schools in Ohio, which apparently have not received the memo yet.

Team owners seem very happy with the trends.  For years, they were able to only cater to the hard-core, cigar-smoking ultra-fans who would laser focus on game play and keep score in their programs.  Unfortunately, this group rarely bought the 8-buck nacho chips, the 9-buck cotton candies, or the 10-buck vanilla cokes.  The new fans load up on all this overpriced garbage like there’s no tomorrow, as well as the chintzy hats, helmets, and literally anything with a team logo, creating a huge new revenue stream for the salivating owners.  “The experience has changed from just watching a meaningless game to a whole new social activity now,” one owner said.  “I don’t know…seems like the new fans just want to stuff their faces more.”

Owners are now contemplating how to better exploit the ultimate sideshow:  the tailgate party.  One innovative owner is trialling a bratwurst tax, with a team of weiner checkers to make counts in the lot.  If this is successful, you can bet that it won’t be long before all sports teams have weiner checkers on staff.