For the most part, people watch sporting events for entertainment. They get enjoyment out of watching skillful athletes make great plays and cheering their team on to victory. Fans laugh when goals are scored, saves are made, ridiculous stunts are pulled off, and even when even when refs make horrendous calls. However, oftentimes viewers laugh for a different reason: failure.
ESPN’s most popular show, SportsCenter has made a living out of exposing these bad plays. Every Friday instead of counting down the ten best plays from the night before, they air their Not Top 10. They air what they think were the worst ten plays of the week. This list of increasingly awful plays from 10 to 1 is intended to make its viewers laugh. And it is very successful in this task.
Whether it’s Amare Stoudemire clanking a dunk off the rim or David Beckham blasting a penalty kick over the crossbar, there’s a reason why people laugh. They laugh because they expect to see these famous athletes perform at such a high level and when they don’t it’s hysterical. This incongruity between what is expected and what happens is the main cause of laughter.
Furthermore, seeing professional athletes mess up and ultimately look stupid makes the average joe feel better about himself. He feels as though there is less of a gap between him and lets say Alex Rodriguez than he had thought. Making extremely bad plays momentarily lowers athletes from their pedestal. If an athlete misses a wide-open goal, an on looking fan thinks to themself, “even I could have scored that.” Athletes can also make themselves look like fools. For example, if a football player starts his celebration before getting into the end zone and someone ends up tackling him from behind he just looks stupid and viewers react in laughter.
It is clear then, that when people laugh while watching SportsCenter’s Not Top 10, they are laughing at the athletes. Yet despite how funny a failed play may appear, viewers should have a bit of restrain recognizing how well these athletes perform the rest of the time.
Here’s the most recent edition of SportsCenter Not Top 10. Enjoy!
No comments:
Post a Comment