Hey There is something about watching sports that gets every guy pumped up. Seeing your favorite receiver snag a touchdown on a one handed diving catch can easily become the highlight of your work. That is why so many TV shows are about sports and focus on those epic moments where the season is on the line and the team just has to win one for the Gipper. Some sports shows focus on highlights from actual games, and some chronicle the on and off field dilemmas of fictional teams. One thing these shows all have in common is they make us want to cheer on the teams.
SportsCenter
When it comes to sports shows, SportsCenter is the king. Remember those plays mentioned in the first paragraph? The ones that make the hair on the back of your neck stand up and cheer until your voice cracks like a prepubescent boy? SportsCenter is essentially a highlight show made up entirely of those plays. When you want to see the best of the best in athletic performances, you turn on SportsCenter and watch their Top 10 plays.
Hard Knocks
Hard Knocks is one of the best shows on HBO, and that’s saying something. Over the years Hard Knocks has profiled different NFL teams as they go through preseason, showing the routines of veterans, the struggles of new players, and the tough decisions that head coaches have to make. One of the saddest scenes you will see on television is when a player is called into the coach’s office and told to hand in his playbook. For a lot of these guys football is their life, and Hard Knocks does a great job of humanizing these athletes that most of us look up to in awe.
Friday Night Lights
When it comes to shows depicting fictional sports teams, there are none better than Friday Night Lights. Friday Night Lights follows the Dillon Panthers high school football team as they struggle to overcome adversity on and off the football team. The main theme of this show is how small town high school athletes are often placed on a pedestal by those around them, leading to a ridiculous amount of pressure that most teenagers don’t know how to handle. More importantly, the football game scenes are very well done and entertaining as hell.
Shaq Vs.
Hey
Shaquille O’Neal is one of the most outspoken and outgoing professional athletes who has ever lived. He also happens to be one of the best players the NBA has seen. This all adds up to a great show as Shaq takes on professional athletes in other sports and tries to beat them at their own games. A man who tops 7 feet can only be so athletic, so most of these challenges are pretty comedic, with Shaq losing regularly. Still, the big man is an impressive athlete, and he would definitely beat us regular guys at pretty much every sport.
Pros Vs. Joes
Speaking of us regular guys, how often have you seen a basketball player miss a shot or a football player drop a pass and proclaim that you could have done better? Admit it, we all do it. Unlike me, most people are mistaken in their assessments of their athletic abilities. While I totally could have made that play, Pros Vs. Joes prove that when most people try to run by a 250 lb middle linebacker they get absolutely flattened. Occasionally a Joe makes a great play against a Pro, giving the rest of you hope in your meager abilities, but most of the time the Joes fail, and that failure is fun to watch. Just for the record, I’d dominate that show.
Hew
