Commentary
What The Hell?!?
By Michael Silbergleid
Oct 19, 2004, 08:32

Very late one night (or very early one morning, depending on your personal philosophy regarding such things) I turned on the TV and flipped through to ESPN2 to find...Scrabble.

Yes, the six-day 2004 National Scrabble Championship from New Orleans was in the final match. I watched for a while, trying to figure out why I was watching the 2004 National Scrabble Championship, and trying to figure out why ESPN2 would air such a thing. I later found out that I was watching a replay of the Championship, which originally aired on a Sunday at 1pm on ESPN (I suppose they have to air something against football and auto racing).

We all know that the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network does more than just “pure” sports. But Scrabble? What the hell?!? This was 2004. Twenty-five years since ESPN first signed on with its share of trash sports to fill time. But Scrabble?

So, regardless of the time, I logged on to dictionary.com to get the definition for “sport” (see below). Basically, we’re talking about a competitive physical event. Is Scrabble competitive? Sure, no question—someone’s got to win. Is Scrabble physical? Well, those tiles must weigh something.

Then there’s the looser definition (number 3 in the box below), with “sport” being “an active pastime.” OK, Scrabble certainly passes the time, and the players are somewhat active with all that heavy tile lifting (yes, I know...it’s mentally active).

To be fair, I haven’t played Scrabble in years, but I did learn a new term: bingo. A bingo is when you use all seven tiles at one time (I bet that will come in handy if I ever play in the Trivial Pursuit Championship, which will air on ESPN8: The Ocho). Even with the “very small community of Scrabble players,” as the ESPN commentator put it, there were hundreds of Scrabble fans watching the championship game on monitors from an observation room. The production of the 2004 National Scrabble Championship was what you would expect. There was the overhead board shot, the over-the-shoulder shot of the competitor, the rack shot (that’s the thing that holds those massive tiles), and a fair amount of graphics and commentary. Of course, with ESPN and ESPN2 airing the 2004 National Scrabble Championship, that meant that people had to crew this show. Maybe airing a Scrabble game is good for the industry. Gear rental (maybe even a truck...well, not a big truck), crew, talent, etc...

I can relate to ESPN. So many hours to fill and on a Sunday afternoon. I’ve tried to vary our coverage in SportsTV Production with different sports and coverage angles. However, if you ever see curling on the cover, please notify the authorities. It means I’ve gone loony.
What really surprised me when I started thinking about Scrabble on ESPN was that I have no problem with poker being aired as a sport. Maybe it’s more masculine. Maybe it’s because I play poker (those nine numbers and four letters are so much easier to deal with than 26 letters, a blank tile or two, and tens of thousand of words). Maybe it’s because I’m closed minded (I’m sure that’s it).

So until the next issue—with expanded coverage of frog jumping, gold fish swallowing, toe-nail clipping for distance, and a cover story on curling—take care and shoot safe.

And case you were wondering, Trey Wright won the Scrabble Championship, beating 856 other players in round robin play and taking home a $25,000 pot.

Michael Silbergleid, Editor
msilbergleid@cmpinformation.com


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