Brandon’s World: No Sports Doesn’t Mean End Of Entertainment
If you’re like me, you grew up with sports. You grew up sitting in your comfortable game-watching place every night watching some kind of ball game, cheering on your favorite team. Whether it was the opening game of the season, or the championship game, you waited all day to come home to watch your favorite team hopefully win the game that night.
So when the NBA announced on March 10 that they were suspending the season indefinitely due to Utah Jazz Center Rudy Gobert testing positive for coronavirus, if you are like me, a crazed sports fan, you did not know what to expect going forward.
No NBA? What would we do with our lives?!
Within the next 48 hours, every sports league worldwide shut down, and within the next week, the world was essentially shut down because of the virus. Nobody knew what to expect going forward. Many people lost their jobs or were furloughed. There was going to be no sports on. There was going to be no new television shows on. Everybody was asking, “What are we going to do for entertainment for the foreseeable future?”
This was our “new normal”, but as they say, “Pandemics change people forever.”
During a pandemic like COVID-19, we find out what we truly value in life. We find out what’s important. We find out what we need, and what we can do without.
If you’re like me, the first couple nights new games weren’t being played, you thought you were going to be bored out of your mind for months.
However, as time went on, I realized something that I never thought in my lifetime I would realize or even say aloud: I don’t miss sports!
People that know me have said the same thing to me over the last few months, “Brandon, that’s crazy! You’ve watched sports your whole life! How do you not miss sports?!”
It’s not that I don’t entirely miss sports. Yes, I somewhat miss the thrill of a back-and-forth NBA Finals Game 7 with everything on the line. Yes, I somewhat miss just casually watching my Cleveland Indians in my basement on a Saturday night.
What I don’t miss is the pressure of watching sports. Since I started watching sports at age five, every night, I seemingly have watched some kind of sporting event, even if it is during a commercial of a non-sports television show, such as HGTV’s Property Brothers. For years, even when I was watching a non-sports show, I always felt this internal pressure to turn on the game, just in case something BIG was happening, but now, I don’t feel that pressure, and it’s been nice to sit and relax at night and not having to worry about if Brad Hand blew the game while The Property Brothers are revealing their renovation to their clients.
This pandemic has taught me that there is more to life than sports, and so when I see all these commentator’s on these sports networks saying that they are begging to get sports back into their lives, I’m thinking, “Yeah. I love sports too, and yes, I want to talk about sports for a living, but find a new hobby!”
Sports isn’t the end-all be-all for me anymore. While I must admit I am extremely lucky and thankful that I am a wrestling fan because WWE has not stopped producing content during this difficult time, I realize that not everybody has that luxury,
To the people that are bored because there are no sports on, my message to you is: Find something fun to do.
Play a video game. Watch a movie. Listen to some music. Go for a walk. Explore some new avenue that you would otherwise have not tried if it wasn’t for the virus.
When I see the news that the NBA and MLB are returning, unlike most people who are excited that sports are coming back, I have mixed emotions.
Will it be fun watching LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard presumably battle it out in the Western Conference Finals in a (hopefully) grueling seven-game series? Yes. Will it be fun sitting in my basement on Saturday nights watching Indians’ games from start to finish again? Certainly.
However, I am now accustomed to watching HGTV and YouTube before going to bed between 10:30 and 11:00 p.m eastern on the nights that wrestling is not on, and I like my new schedule a lot, and I’m not sure I’m willing to let it go.
I’m hoping that when these leagues start up again, they don’t stop, and they are able to finish their seasons in full, including the playoffs. I hope they provide me and many people worldwide entertainment.
All I’m saying is I don’t miss sports as much as I thought I would, and that is ok because remember, pandemics change people forever.
Brandon Lewis is a columnist, radio show host and podcaster. Check out his podcast, Brandon’s World, here, and follow him on Twitter @real_bworld. Columns will be out every Friday!
