INN SportsWrap – DECEMBER 2023

SANDY: ‘SnakeDog’ Sockic joins us now I bet you’re looking forward to the holidays and a summer full of sport ahead of us! 

JOE: My oath I am Sands! And a very happy holiday to you too and to all our sports fans watching on INNformationNews.com or on the YouTubes…

SANDY: Nice plug Joe! And speaking of plugging your own show, I saw the NBA promoting some kind of in-season basketball tournament a few weeks back.. I always thought the season WAS the tournament?

JOE: Oh, tell me about it! I’ve seen some puffed-up American sporting moments in my time, but this was right up there with calling Major League Baseball finals the World Series or the Super Bowl winners World Champions! So the NBA had a go at stealing some ratings off the NFL by running a tournament inside its own tournament during November and December, when their early-season games are dull as dishwater and the football’s enjoying a pre-playoff ratings boost. 67 of the NBA;s 2,460 excruciatingly long season games were used to basically run a month long commercial for their brands

SANDY: And everyone was excited by this?

JOE: Oh, ecstatic Sands –  they’re American! Money was made and spent and hype went into overdrive. I think the Lakers eventually won the bloody thing, and we’ll have a look in a sec during SportsWrap, but you might’ve thought they crown more World Champion the way they carried on.

SANDY: Oh! Oh! I know that guy! He’s the guy from the bad version of Space Jam!

JOE: Well there’s no ‘bad’ version of Space Jam Sands, top movies, both of ‘em… but yes, that’s LeBron James partying like was actually in the Wolf of Wall Street. The yanks do enjoy a celebration, eh? This happened after a pass was intercepted in the NFL once – and if you actually score, you gotta step it up! This ref tried to call a unsportman-like conduct penalty on this bloke, but he just kept dancing all the way through it!

SANDY: Wow, that’s very flamboyant! I suppose the NBA’s trying to keep up with those flashy new courts they desiged for the tournament Joe?

JOE: Ahh, what’s going on there? I got epilepsy watching the Pacers and the Cavs! And I actually felt like I’d landed in hell watching the Bulls on their home court – which is the same feeling as actually going to Chicago at the moment, I’m told… Look, you only need two things for a basketball game. A basket and a ball. And I couldn’t see either of ‘em during this tournament – so I’ll stick to cricket this summer, I reckon Sands… Anyway, onto the final SportsWrap for 202

SPORTSWRAP

– Like I said, the LA Lakers beat the Indiana Pacers in the inaugural NBA In-Season Tournament, raising this giant championship banner so they’d always remember, ahh, whatever this tournament was about – oh I remember! It was about a $500,000 cash prize awarded to every player on the winning team.

• – Major League Soccer wrapped up in the states, with the Columbus Crew winning their third MLS Cup, defeating defending champions Los Angeles FC 2–1. The league broke it’s all time attendance record with an average of over 22,000 people turning up across the 29 team league – but not say that out loud if you ever go America if you wanna make any friends… 
• – And the Luge World Cup is finally here, beginning in Lake Placid, New York. God, I love a bit of Luge! Germany’s Max Langenhan edged out the Austrian Jonas Muller to take the first points of the season before heading to Whistler, Vancouver and then onto Europe to crown some REAL world Champions!

JOE: Ahh, the Luge! A nice and very wintery way to slide into the Christmas season Sands

SANDY: The Holiday Season!

JOE: Oh! Yeah. The Holidays season! Sorry 

SANDY: No worries Joe, Thanks mate!