The 10 Best Sports Based Television Shows

Sports are loaded with humor and drama - they are truly the two weird looking acting faces combined. So it naturally makes great TV.  Here is a list of the best sports based television shows ever made:

10. Friday Night Lights (2006 - Present) - This TV show based on a movie that was based on a book that was based on real life. This show has everything- small jokes, drugs, sexual situations, Derek Jeter’s girlfriend, and even murder.  Yes it has gotten a little off the mark of your stereotypical high school football season (I remember one time we found a six pack under a shopping cart when I played, that was the worst thing we ever did.) The show is more entertaining then a bunch of fat people running up and down hills till one of them dies or loses 150 pounds.

9. Pro Stars (1991) - This show starts the trend of great shows that were cancelled far to soon. Where else can you get Bo Jackson, Michael Jordon, and Wayne Gretzky kicking the crap out of gang members, eco terrorist and super-villains? Jordan could freaking fly, Gretzky could shoot what seemed to be magic pucks out ahockey stick cannon, and Bo would just hit you with a damn tree. This was the best thing to watch after a bowl of Lucky Charms the size of a small bath tube. The sugar high combined with knowledge that man can jump over a busy street gave me some great memories with my friends (RIP MIKE.)

8. The League (2009-Present) – This Show is geeky but funny, it’s the only place I know were you’ll have Adrian Peterson guest starring in an episode where a guy ties his wife up for sex. It’s based off this group of friends who are in a fantasy football league and the hilarity that ensues because of their drive to win the big crappy trophy. Now I knowthat your league is probably like my league, where the most exciting thing that happens is smack talk in the chat room.  The show is amazingly funny with jokes that only the football fan will enjoy, that and some good humored fart jokes that everyone loves.

7. Hard Knocks (2001-2002, 2007-present) – This show makes mewant a snack. This show is hands down the best reality TV show ever made, and if you say no I’m going to have Rex Ryan swear you to deathwith his big foot loving mouth. This show gives you an inside look of the drama that is the NFL football preseason. From the Pac Man Jones saga to Antonio Cromartie forgetting the names of his 35 children this show has everything you need to get your blood pumping. Danny Woodhead got his spot light rolling in Jets camp before he became a national story with the Patriots later in the season. This show is the perfect way to get your self amped for the season.

6. Coach (1989-1997) – Craig T. Nelson gives you the perfect incite to the zany nature of college football in the Midwest (and a couple of crappy seasons in the pros).  It has every thing Luther the bumbling assistant who is always eating or crapping on all Coach Hayden’s hard work, Dobber is the guy who voices Patrick Starfish on Sponge Bob is there for the big dumb ex-jock stereotype. I can’t help but sit and watch it any time I flip through and see it on TV land.  The only thing that makes it seem fakeish is that not once did the Eagles get put on probation for a recruiting violation, which is a complete fairy tale for a Big 10 coach

5. Arli$$ (1996-2002) – This show was the first show to couple nudity and sports comedy together as a late night HBO show.  As a teenager this show had it all, see some naked chicks and your favorite athletes doing crazy things bam that’s a Saturday night. It centered on a sports agent whowould do anything to please his clients even getting them cable TV in prison. The show was funny and on point and featured more baseball super stars then the Mitchell Report. It also allowed HBO to take the profits from Arliss and make shows like the Sopranos and Deadwood, and that in its self is enough to get you on this list.

4. Eastbound and down (2009- Present) -  You’re F---KING out! From the first scene to the season finally of the second season, this show does nothing but deliver. It takes a hilarious look at the dirty under belly of baseball in the early part of the last decade. Kenny Powers plays a washed up baseball closer trying to get back in the game. In season one he returns to his home town in hopes of finding himself and hooking up with April Big canons (Katy Mixon), his former high school girl friend.  Kenny indulges him self on drugs, roids, and women in a small town (I know what you’re thinking, and no it’s not based on Joba Chamberlain). He is over weight and out of shape (still not based on Joba) but he and his loyal side kick Stevey will do anything to get back in the pros. This show is funnier then Larry the Cable guy getting beat to death by 15 clowns in tuxedos, GET-R-Dun.

3. Playmakers (2003) - This show was so gritty and true to life that the NFL said if ESPN kept airing it they would pull their rights to play highlights of their games.  Drug addicted young stars, veterans on the verge of retirement, illegitimate children, weight and health issues from playing, and abuse, this show had every storyline possible. The fictions Cougars had almost as many problems as the current Cowboys.  Playmakers won numerous awards and covered drugs and steroid abuse in sports well before America decided to care. Playmakers helped you identify with the NFL players you watched on Sundays, made them seem more human then grid iron gods.  This show was so intense, it made Monday Night Football look like Bambi.

2. The Bronx Is Burning (2007) - I know, I know it was mini series but it was on TV so that’s how I’m justifying this. It covered the most out spoken Yankee team ever during the turn around season for the great franchise. Between race riots, the Son of Sam killer, the rise of disco, and the Yankees losing the World Series the year before the city was in complete chaos. It follows the Bronx Zoo Yankees on their quest to win a world championship in the crazy climate that was New York in the late 70’s. The casting was perfect and the show does the team justice (which is hard to do with such larger then life characters).  It was so convincing that I went to the stadium that summer and was inconsolable when I found out that Reggie Jackson was not still on the team.

1. Sports Night (1998-2000) – Sports Night was the first ground braking comedy/Drama for Aaron Sorkin (creator of the West Wing and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip). The show featured a real life behind scene view of a “Sports Center” like show. The Show centered on the two anchors (Casey and Dan) and the supporting cast (featuring Felicity Huffman). That show was cancelled way before it’s time, it had the right combination of drama and comedy, and made for great television for the sports junky in all of us.