Guest Posts on County 10 are provided by contributors and the opinions, thoughts, and comments within are their own and may not necessarily reflect those of County 10.
My studious, shy, parochial school-attending granddaughters, Jayne and Norah, have a not-so-secret appreciation of violent, combat sports, at least theatrical combat. For a Christmas present, Staci and Adam surprised the girls with tickets to the WWE Live Holiday Tour at Pittsburgh’s PPG Paints Arena on December 27.
Yes, the reflective eight-year-old Jayne, who competes in cross country and basketball, and her exuberant dancing little sister, six-year-old Norah, are huge fans of Cody Rhodes. They used to be fans of John Cena, but as the girls explained to me, he has been under a spell and turned bad at recent events.
They know it’s staged, I know it’s staged, you know it’s staged, but professional wrestling remains one of the most popular of the “entertainment sports.”
Aren’t all sports entertainment at the end of the day?
I’m not glued to the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN for those of you scoring at home) as I once was. But I watch it during college football season, and occasionally during college basketball.
It’s advertised as an entertainment venue, much like FOX News, which unsuccessfully argued they were an entertainment, not a news organization, before they lost a lawsuit to Dominion Voting Systems for $787 million after libeling the company with false claims of voter fraud after the 2020 election. FOX admitted they’re not news, just entertainment.
That doesn’t matter much to many Americans. The world of reality and entertainment is now so blurred that it’s difficult to determine if anything is, in fact, true.
Why not be a professional wrestling fan? Pro wrestling is as real and viable as professional basketball.
The officials in both sports are largely superficial. The chairs, ladders, and folding tables used as props by the muscle-bound, gigantic men and women of professional wrestling provide a little more excitement.
What’s the difference between some giant smashing a folding chair over another guy’s head versus watching some other giant take seven steps on a breakaway layup before dunking the ball?
The professional game ignores traveling, obvious fouls (if they’re committed by a star), and allows flopping, fake injuries, and other dramatic actions to foul (pun intended) an otherwise great game.
As you can tell, I’m not a fan of pro basketball. When the college season ends in April, I don’t watch or even pay attention to hoops until the following November.
There’s nothing better on a cold winter’s night than hustling into a gym to watch the local boys and girls play basketball or settling down after a long day to watch a little college hoops.
Entertainment-based sports seem to be a wave of the future.
Last summer, our son Brian entered the Savannah Banana Lottery and was able to purchase four tickets for their game with the Firemen in Denver.
It was fabulous. The capacity crowd added to the excitement. It filled Coors Field, something the pathetic Rockies struggled to do.
The players were college-level baseball players, with a few good enough to make Triple A and a handful who’d made it to the major leagues in their younger years.
Stunts, spectacular catches, a non-stop roaring soundtrack of classic tunes, and just on occasion, an impressive scoop and throw to first from third-base or shortstop.
In between the games, drawings and fan interaction were non-stop.
With the end of college football, yes, as long as the portal exists and NIL money exceeds what some players can make with professional contracts, the college game, at least the Division I version of it, is over.
Big Money makes big decisions when it comes to the former college game.
NIL money is so vast at this point that a top 30 college quarterback can now demand an average salary of $2.8 million. In contrast, the University of Wyoming’s entire NIL budget fluctuates between 1.4 and 1.8 million dollars.
I watched Montana State win a nail-biter over the Illinois State Redbirds in the FCS National Championship Game. It was the first national championship for the Bobcats, even though they’re a very familiar team in the FCS playoffs.
The Bobcats spent $2.2 million in (Name Image and Likeness…NIL) money during the 2025-26 season. They’re in the middle of the pack among FCS programs.
The Oregon Ducks had a budget of $969 million for this season. They’re expected to become the first billion-dollar (that’s right, with a “B”) NCAA football program beginning next season.
I’m a fan of high school coaches and constantly defend them, but if you’re the head coach of a top-five team in NIL money and can pay for the best and don’t win, you need to be sent down the road.
After Oregon the next four teams in NIL expenditures are Texas A&M $849 million, Texas $766 million, Florida $763 million and Georgia with a budget of “only” $716 million.
It boggles the mind.
Not a single team in the Mountain West Conference is in the top 50. The majority of SEC, ACC, and Big 10 programs spend half a billion or more dollars on football each year.
There isn’t much room for a walk-on these days. But if you do make the starting lineup at a mid-major program like Wyoming, you can always enter the portal the next year, hire an agent, and barter for the big bucks.
College football still plays by the rules on the field. But in the back offices and living rooms of recruits across the nation, it’s become just another WWE, NBA, or Savannah Banana-style entertainment venue disguised as a sport.
I’ll stick to the high school game, though NIL money is now available and being paid out in ever-increasing amounts to blue-chip football and men’s basketball players.
I’ll still enjoy a few WWE matches, how can I not be a fan when my early years were spent with Sergeant Slaughter, the Iron Sheik, the British Bulldogs, Superfly Jimmy Snooka and Andre the Giant?
Sport is where you find it, and reality is becoming less and less an issue with each passing season.