- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
I don’t want to alarm you, but tomorrow is a very special day in our nation’s history. Not just sporting history. History. Period.
You’ve heard of the blackest day in Australian sport? Tomorrow is the opposite.
It’s a joyous occasion, to be celebrated with copious amounts of couch time, topped with your favourite beverage and perhaps some Tasty Cheese CCs sprinkled on top for good measure. Mmmmmm.
In a single evening, Australians will be tuning in to elite level cricket, rugby league, tennis and cycling, in what might just be a sporting binge large enough to see the nation gain a kilo or two for every man, woman and child.
But guess what? It doesn’t end with the Big Four. Oh no. There are 13 tasty parcels of sporting goodness spread from 6:30pm to 2am (AEST, of course) this evening, presenting us with the kind of dilemma usually reserved for a five-year-old at Baskin Robins.
If you’re a corporate shill with a Chernobyl on your hands, or government looking to announce a mass surveillance program, get those press releases ready, because two-thirds of the country will be otherwise occupied. The other third will be asleep, or don’t have a telly.
Is your boss a bum? I feel sorry for you.
We have surfing, the university games, baseball, footy (the real kind), union, panel shows, replays, and even a special guest appearance from someone tenuously related to athletic pursuits.
Not satisfied with merely presenting these in a list – I don’t like simple, remember – here’s a Power Ranking. Read into this what you will as it pertains to what will be on my big screen this evening.
13. Universiade: The World University Games
Want to see a bunch of 19-year-old Arts students more interested in chasing tail and getting hammered ply their trade as amateur-cum-professional athletes? Have I got just the telecast for you!
12. State of Origin 1 and 2 replay
Rugby league has never clicked for me. I don’t know if it’s the boorishness, or the fact it is, fundamentally, a game of attrition. Either way, I shan’t be tuning in to watch State of Origin replays. It’s not like these games mean anything anyway, right?
11. NRL 360 (Origin preview)
See above. If the actual game replays aren’t getting a run, then the panel show will be must-skip-TV in my household. Kindly direct all hatred to the comment box to your immediate south.
10. Snoop and Son: A Dad’s Dream
If you’re not hooked on the title, I don’t know what else I can do for you. Its Snoop Dogg, and his son, and Snoop Dogg imposing his dream of becoming a professional athlete on his son.
Mr Dogg has lots of money made over his career as a professional rap artist, and a large part of his earnings are probably attributable to his fortunately timed name change (I mean, Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr has a nice ring to it).
What sport is he forcing his son to play? And is Snoop’s son any good? Tune in to ESPN to find out. Even just a flick between overs.
9. Rugby union ‘special’
Ah, the old let’s-put-something-on-at-the-same-time-as-a-major-sporting-event-that-most-people-will-watch-but-some-won’t-and-those-that-won’t-will-like-this-instead trick. Well played, Fox Sport 1. One problem though – if you want people to watch this instead of Origin 3, maybe you should include what is going to be on the tube in your Electronic Programming Guide? Just saying.
8. MLB Astros v Indians (replay)
Baseball can be fun. It can also be drudgerous. Is drudgerous a word? If it’s not, can we please coin it as a way of describing the experience of watching bad baseball?
The Houston Astros are surprising the baseball world with their dominant start to the Major League Baseball season (wait, they’re 80-odd games in, and it’s only the start of the season?), while Cleveland won’t be breaking their city’s title drought. Maybe LeBron will show up and pull an MJ?
Worth a flick, particularly towards the end of the replay. Good baseball is good, people, I swear.
7. AFL 360 and League Teams
Fox Footy describes itself as the Greatest Channel on Earth. And as a football crazy person, I’m inclined to agree. But their flagship magazine program, AFL 360, has a touch of the stales about it. Every show is described as a monster by their overzealous social media coordinator, yet it’s the same formula every night.
[Insert club] in crisis.
**dark, foreboding music plays**
**radio quote number 1 plays**
Slow motion shot of [insert club] player being tackled
**radio quote number 2 plays**
Slow motion shot of [insert club] player with head in hands walking off the ground
Black and white shot of [insert club] coach staring into space
You get the idea. But it’s not just that. It’s the hosts – well, one of the hosts who seems content to spill feelpinions all over the desk, but gets the yips when challenged on those opinions. A shake up would be nice for 2016. I’m not holding my breath.
But will I watch? I’m a football crazy. What do you think?
6. Wimbledon Recap
5. Wimbledon Live
Footy is taking over my life, to the point where it’s becoming monogamous. Its hurting my relationship with a summertime fling: tennis.
I’ve not watched a point of Wimbledon live so far, although from what I’ve been following it’s not like I’ve missed a great deal. Just the very public implosion of one bad boy, and the warm, tender public embrace of another.
But it will be men’s singles Quarter-finals time, and there’s some potentially tasty match ups on offer. The recap will get a look in if I’m settled in my cave, but otherwise the chance of some live grass court action in my household is high.
4. World Surfing League (live, baby)
Can you think of a more perfect back-and-forth sport than freaking elite level surfing? Well, we’ve got Day 1 of the South African leg of the World Surfing League, live from J-Bay. These surfing types know how to make things sound enticing, am I right?
So just picture it now. You’re at a commercial break, and just can’t take another ad for KFC or Holden or Coles while you wait for your first choice programming to return. Flick over to Fox Sport 2 any time from 6:30pm til 1am, and you’ll see guys throwing themselves at 10 foot walls of water. Like, c’mon, as if you’re not going to do that.
Having been to a surfing event a number of years ago, I can vouch that it looks like as much fun to be there as it does on TV. Do yourself a favour and take in some of the atmosphere, even if you have to simulate the sea spray by mixing your own salt water and running it through a pedestal fan. It’s worth it.
3. State of Origin 3: The Decider
Alright, so I’m a sucker for the big occasion. The Decider™ will probably be the highest rating show of the year in rugby league’s native New South Wales and Victoria, and rank in the 80s or 90s elsewhere.
I kid, I kid. People will watch, if only because everyone knows a bloody Cockroach or Cane Toad.
I know absolutely nothing of the context of this game, who is playing (Jarryd Hayne is the captain right?), or even the rules in the requisite detail, if I’m being honest. But someone is likely to punch someone else, and on Australia’s sporting night of nights, that rates as entertainment for me.
Check out some of my esteemed colleague’s work on this one over at the league vertical if you want a valid take on this game.
2. Tour de France
Who doesn’t like Le Tour? I know people that don’t even like sport that watch this thing.
We turn a blind eye to the obvious use of performance-enhancing substances and techniques, if only so we can keep our eyes wide open at the French countryside. Is there any other competition that offers the visual hues of elite cycling?
Cycling has a special place in my heart. From a very young age – old enough to have a telly in my bedroom, but young enough that it had to be provided for me – I remember tuning into the Tour and watching for hours on school nights. I couldn’t tell you the names of anyone competing, or what’s happening tactically, or who is actually winning the thing, but I’d be mesmerised. It’s hypnotic, which makes sense when you think you’re watching wheels spinning at a few thousand RPM.
And then there’s The Voice: Phil Liggett. He could read me my Miranda rights and I’d probably turn into a puddle of mush.
Best of all? I’m on the west coast, bitches. This baby kicks off at a much more amenable for viewing 8:30pm. Sure, we don’t have daylight savings, but we have more primetime hours of the Tour than you. I know what I’d choose.
1. The Ashes, Day 1
Was it going to be anything else?
Test cricket is my first sporting love – yes, it predates my infatuation with AFL footy – with a lineage I can trace back to running around the change rooms at Thornlie Cricket Club as a five-year-old.
When your old man suits up for more than 300 weekends of grade cricket, it should come as no surprise that you develop a close bond with the willow and leather.
I never had the chops to be a decent cricketer: too slow to be a fast bowler, too streaky to be a solid batsman, handy enough in the cover-point region, but Australia don’t use designated fieldsman. But I’ve always loved this game, and I always will.
Test cricket, one day cricket, T20 cricket, domestic cricket, international cricket. There’s a common denominator in there somewhere.
Anyway, the Ashes is the pinnacle of the sport as far as I’m concerned, and there’s nothing better than an English Ashes series to take up a huge chunk of July’s screen time. The radio gets a bit of a work out too.
This series looks a corker on paper, with Australia’s relatively inexperienced – and still unproven over a long Test series – pace attack primed for an assault on England’s relatively inexperienced batting line up.
That Alastair Cook bloke still goes alright in the Test arena, while Our Mitches are apparently well acclimatised to their pitches.
Again, my head has been in the AFL books, so I’m not the best bloke to ask about what’s going to happen on the field. But will I be watching? You bet.
That’s a look at what’s going down at my place. And for your reference, I’ve put together a fancy looking Gantt chart to help you plan your Best Night Ever.
So, what’s going to be on at your place?
