205 Drop: Top 10 train wrecks I want to see in a so bad it's good SportsCenter competitor

Today's link is a fairly esoteric piece of snark, but it speaks to a wonderful and true hope of mine -- namely, that the field is large enough to foster (nay, demand) actual competition, and perhaps on the national level. And no, I'm not talking about going to watch Lemur News instead.

At its core, SC is the network flagship, and it needs to not only serve its constituents with just enough to keep them coming back, but also to do something more substantial on an advertising standpoint. It needs to keep the audience young. (And good luck with that, given all of the forces that are making sports fans gray faster than the competition.) Correctly or no, brand marketers prize younger viewers, who have more time to buy crap, more willingness to try new products, and are increasingly difficult to reach through other television buys.

Which leads us to an opening for more than just disgruntled Lemur watchers, who, to be fair, are probably less gruntled than they should be from the monopolistic Lemur control of the art form. (Yes, yes, I know; you could be watching homer-centric coverage, especially on networks like Comcast, NESN, YES, SNY and a bunch of regional Fox plays. By the numbers, people generally don't. Moving on.)

What might a SC-esque competitor look like? Well, if you start with the idea that the target is in their mid 30s to mid 50s -- not the sexiest demographic to sell ad space to, but still a hell of a lot better than most -- and work backward from that. So the on-screen graphics are a little larger, with the font size upped a bit. Catch phrases and references are reined in. It's probably dryer, with more highlights from each game. Commentators are less apt to scream (and, sadder, be diverse from a gender or ethnic standpoint). Maybe you're just seeing washed-up newspaper guys here, since there's a glut of guys who that group feels favorable towards, and would like to see get work.

And it'll be horrible at the start, and lose money for years until it found its way, assuming it ever does, because that is the nature of such things. So screw it, and just give us the train wreck.

Oh, and today's list also gives me one more chance to consider the wit, wonder and wisdom that is Brian Collins, who really does deserve to have his name remembered for changing the way we look at sports. Forever.