ESPN says next big "sports" phenomenon will be Dominos

[jmcclain19]

All I can say is, wow, has ESPN really gone south

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...&feed=rss.news

Poker-winning ESPN has dominoes theory
Sports network bets numbered tiles game due popularity boom

Corey Kilgannon, New York Times

New York -- The next big thing in sports programming is dominoes?

To the occasional player, it is a stretch to even call this quiet game of straight-faced strategy a sport. But anyone who has spent time in a Latino neighborhood in New York City could testify that dominoes played there -- with the slammed-down tiles, the verbal sparring, the bragging and bluffing -- is no parlor game.

From the opening bid, a simple sidewalk match will quickly escalate into a raucous, freewheeling spectacle: a mini-fiesta where salsa and cigars, Bacardi and brown-bagged beers have as much a role as the little colored tiles with dots.

The games almost always draw spectators, so perhaps it is no surprise that the ESPN sports network has declared dominoes the next big spectator sport and is promoting it as both a cultural touchstone and a highly competitive game, complete with rankings, formal tournaments, celebrity events and sponsors.

Encouraged by the success of televised poker, the network has begun combing New York City for top players and colorful clubs for its coverage and has been taping segments on formal tournaments and casual neighborhood games.

Hourlong domino shows now run Tuesday nights on the network's Spanish-language sports channel ESPN Deportes. Hoping it will be popular with English-speaking viewers, the network plans to show similar programming on ESPN2 starting in June.

"We think it will be the next cool thing," said Lino Garcia, general manager of ESPN Deportes. "We're connecting with the best places dominoes is played, so naturally we're going to start in uptown Manhattan and the Bronx, the places where it really happens."

Garcia said he hopes to repeat the success the network has had with poker -- its World Series of Poker is its highest-rated regular series. Like poker, domino games offer plenty of suspense at the table, with clever decision-making and reading the strategies of other players all pivotal to winning. The network will also televise the world championships next year from the Dominican Republic.

The plan, Garcia said, is not only to present dominoes in world-class tournaments and flashy celebrity events the way the network showcases poker, but to capture the excitement and charm of "the highly energetic games on street corners and small clubs in basements where guys go every day."

New York's neighborhoods are filled with characters who come together to play. Older men in caps and young men in muscle T-shirts and gold chains go at it, slapping dominoes onto flimsy tables, speaking in Spanish in games lubricated by Presidente beer and salsa music.

Luis Guzman, a well-known Puerto Rican actor, said in an interview that the domino table is an arena where the very dramas of life play out: love, hatred, revenge. Tempers can flare, and lifelong relationships can begin and end around a domino game.

Guzman recalled that when he grew up on Manhattan's Lower East Side, it seemed that every male Latino played dominoes.

"My pops would play for hours on end; all the men did," he said. "I know best friends who stopped talking to each other for years because of one game. After 10 years, one would still be saying, 'Man, why'd he play that one when he knew the other guy was holding the 6-3?' I know a guy who jumped out a second-story window and broke both legs after losing a domino game."

At a dominoes club in the Bronx called Hijos y Amigos de Altamira, the players had varying opinions about how old-school domino players accustomed to casual, free-flowing action would react to being analyzed and scrutinized by ESPN, which plans to install a dozen table-level cameras, along with others overhead and around the club.

"I think being on TV would make some of our players nervous," said Augusto Montan, 55, "but then again, I could name at least a few guys right now who would eat it up."

[Larkin411]

That's funny, I saw this after I got home from playing dominoes. Technically we were playing "chicken leg." I've only just learned the game and I'm obsessed with it right now. Don't know that I'd watch other people playing dominoes though.

[savafan]

Also planned programming for ESPN in 2007:

Uno
Solitaire
Pooh Sticks
Sudoku
Pik-up-Stix
Tiddly Winks
Operation
and Bomberman

[MrCinatit]

until they start carrying strip poker - all female players, of course - i refuse to tune in.

[savafan]

Originally Posted by MrCinatit

until they start carrying strip poker - all female players, of course - i refuse to tune in.

I think that is on ESPNU, which Time Warner doesn't carry...

[BoomerSoonerRed]

Originally Posted by savafan

Also planned programming for ESPN in 2007:

Uno
Solitaire
Pooh Sticks
Sudoku
Pik-up-Stix
Tiddly Winks
Operation
and Bomberman

I would add marbles and jumping rope to that list.
And what about chess? I know more great chess players than I do poker players.

[KronoRed]

Originally Posted by savafan

Also planned programming for ESPN in 2007:

Uno
Solitaire
Pooh Sticks
Sudoku
Pik-up-Stix
Tiddly Winks
Operation
and Bomberman

Uno?

YES

I am a pro athlete

[BoomerSoonerRed]

How about ping-pong? That's one sport I definitely specialize in.

[GAC]

Originally Posted by KronoRed

Uno?

YES

I am a pro athlete

Our family has moved up a level to Uno Attack.

[Heath]

No new ESPN programming is complete with out the National Strat-a-Matic Baseball World Series and the Super Bowl of Paper Football.

I miss study hall.

[registerthis]

Originally Posted by Heath

No new ESPN programming is complete with out the National Strat-a-Matic Baseball World Series and the Super Bowl of Paper Football.

How about the Super Bowl on the vibrating field? I had the '85 Super Bowl version of that. I think the board still vibrates, but most of the players are missing or were chewed up by the dog.

[Johnny Footstool]

They showed a Magic: The Gathering tournament on ESPN a few years ago. Riveting. Absolutely riveting.

[Yachtzee]

If they want to capture the younger generation, they could always put on Beer Pong Tournaments, or maybe Speed Quarters.

[RFS62]

Mumbly peg.

[Roy Tucker]

ESPN is looking for a green field sport that is cheap as all get out to stage and then market the bejesus out of it and make it a big deal.

See the World Series of Poker.