Top 10 oddest professional sports

For every Major League Baseball, there’s a professional ping-pong league trying to break into the mainstream.
I call them fringe sports, because they appeal to a niche audience on the fringes of professional sports. Some eventually break through to a larger mainstream audience, such as professional beach volleyball or the X Games. But most toil in obscurity.
Here are my picks for the top 10 oddest professional sports today:

1. Lingerie football

The Lingerie Football League combines tackle football and gorgeous women in bikini lingerie. It’s an odd mix of sports and sex appeal that looks pretty entertaining.
This year, game highlights are being shown Friday nights on MTV2. Last year, during the league’s inaugural season, games were on pay-per-view only. So far, ratings are good, according to the LFL. But getting respect for this new sport will be a bigger challenge.
From what I’ve seen, the women are all attractive, but the best teams have one or two players that are muscular beasts. They’re usually running backs that can plow through the more feminine, classically pretty players. So LFL teams have to balance having the hottest women vs. having the best athletes.


2. Competitive eating

Competitive eating is a sport based on gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins.
The winner is whoever can stuff the most food down their throats in the allotted time. I’ve seen a Major League Eating hot-dog eating contest and it was pretty gross. Contestants, known as “gurgitators,” generally eat the buns and franks separately. They dunk the buns in water, Gatorade or whatever to make them easier to swallow. It gets really messy.
A competing organization, the Association of Independent Competitive Eaters, uses “picnic style rules.” Under picnic rules, players have to “respect the food” – so no dunking of hot dog buns in water.
Contests can involve eating practically any food: hamburgers, spicy chicken wings, baked beans, pancakes, pizza, oysters, jalapeños, etc.

3. Professional video game playing

Major League Gaming is a professional video game league. Other pro video game tournaments and leagues include the Cyberathlete Professional League and World Cyber Games.
These groups are trying to elevate the couch potato pastime of playing video games into a respected professional sport or e-sport.
If competitive eating is based on the deadly sin of gluttony, then pro video gaming is based on the deadly sin of sloth.


4. Ping-pong
Table tennis, or ping-pong, is a sport more popular in China than the U.S. But table-tennis equipment maker Killerspin is working its butt off to get professional ping-pong to take off in the States.
There’s no denying the skill of the top-flight players, such as Biba Golic of Serbia (pictured). But to me it’s a game that belongs more in basement rec rooms than in arenas with throngs of cheering fans.
But if ping-pong takes off as a pro sport, expect foosball and air hockey to be close behind.


5. Beer pong
Just as equipment maker Killerspin is promoting ping-pong as a pro sport, BPong.com is trying to do the same with the drinking game beer pong.
BPong.com sells beer pong tables, cups, balls and other items. It’s the sponsor the World Series of Beer Pong, held each January in Las Vegas. The winning team gets $50,000.
Do we really want our sports heroes to be guys who can accurately toss ping-pong balls into cups of beer?


6. Pole dancing

Founded in 2008, the United States Pole Dance Federation is the first organization in the U.S. to host professional pole dancing competitions based on a fair judging format. The federation presents pole dancing as a competitive sport in a theater setting where people can truly appreciate the art of pole dancing.
The judges have extensive backgrounds in gymnastics, fitness, professional dance and choreography, and aerial work. They use a professional scoring system to rate dancers’ routines. The USPDF is trying to elevate pole dancing from its strip-club beginnings. That could save male fans a lot of dollar bills.


7. Rock paper scissors

The United States of America Rock Paper Scissors League, now sponsored by Amp Energy drinks, has turned the simple hand sign game of rock paper scissors into a competitive sport. The league was founded in January 2006.
The most recent competition was held in March in Acapulco during Spring Break. Fourteen student-athletes from across the U.S. gathered in Mexico to face off for $25,000 in tuition money courtesy of AMP Energy.
There also are the World RPS Society and the U.K. Rock Paper Scissors Championship.

8. Paint ball

Paintball Sports Promotions is striving to make the simulated combat sport of paintball into a big-time spectator event. The organization sponsors tournaments, including the upcoming PSP World Cup on Oct. 21-24 in Lakeland, Fla.
Like the sponsors of other fringe sports, the promoters behind paintball competitions are involved in the sale of gear and rental of playing fields.
The sport involves teams shooting the other teams with paintballs that splatter on contact.

9. Poker

A card game often played in smoke-filled rooms is now a sport broadcast on ESPN. These “athletes” work up a sweat playing high-stakes poker.
The World Series of Poker is the best known poker tournament. It’s been around since 1970. The finals are held annually in Las Vegas.

In 2009, the event attracted 60,875 entrants from 115 different countries to the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and awarded over $174 million in prize money.

10. Roller derby

Roller derby is a contact sport with roots in sports entertainment. The game is based on formation roller skating around an oval track by two teams; points are scored as the designated scoring player (the “jammer”) of both teams each laps members of the opposing team, according to Wikipedia.
The sport is predominantly female. Most players in these leagues skate under an alias, also called a derby name. For instance, members of Connecticut’s CT RollerGirls include Eleanor Bruisevelt, Pearl Jammer, Pepper Grind-Her, C. Mya Rage and Rinko Starr.
CT RollerGirls are members of the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association.

Winner of Nathan’s hot dog-eating contest downs 68 franks and buns

Congratulations are in order, I guess, for Joey Chestnut of San Jose, Calif., who won this year’s Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest.
Chestnut snarfed down 68 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes, 3 1/2 more than archrival Takeru Kobayashi of Japan.
Chestnut has now won the contest three years in a row. Before that, Kobayashi held the title for six straight years.

July 4: The Super Bowl of competitive eating

For the fringe sport of competitive eating, July 4 is the biggest day of the year. It’s when Nathan’s Famous holds its annual hot dog eating competition at Coney Island, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Last year’s winner, Joey Chestnut of San Jose, Calif., downed 59 hot dogs and buns in a 10-minute regulation match, tying Takeru Kobayashi of Nagano, Japan. Chestnut then beat Kobayashi by seven seconds in a five-dog overtime match.
The Nathan's Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog-Eating Contest has been held each year since 1916.
In May 2008, I attended a regional qualifying event for the Nathan’s competition in suburban Chicago. As a spectator sport, hot dog eating is pretty gross. Contestants soak their hot dog buns in water, Gatorade or other drinks to make them easier to swallow quickly. The resulting mess is disgusting. As the contestants (known as “gurgitators”) stuff dozens of hot dogs down their throats, there’s also a chance that they could throw up. And paramedics are standing by in case they choke.
The Nathan’s hot dog eating contest is the premier event for Major League Eating, the professional franchise set up by the International Federation of Competitive Eating.
In addition to Nathan’s hot dogs, competitions have involved Krystal hamburgers, Jimmy John’s sandwiches, Pizza Hut P'Zones, fried calamari, ribs, gryos, clams, sweet corn, chicken wings, burritos, waffles, potato wedges, and just about every type of food imaginable.
I spoke with George Shea, chairman of Major League Eating, in May 2008 when I considered writing an article on competitive eating. He said Major League Eating had ramped up from 20 or 30 events a year several years ago to about 85 a year now.
The Nathan’s Fourth of July event gets a tremendous amount of news coverage, he said. It’s broadcast on ESPN.
“The growth in media coverage has been truly remarkable,” he said. “Essentially it’s a contest with a lot of pageantry and humor leading up to it. It’s funny and kind of dramatic.”

Photos:
Top: Joey Chestnut receives his mustard yellow belt for winning the 2008 Nathan’s Famous hot dog eating competition in New York.
Bottom: Qualifying event for Nathan’s hot dog eating contest held May 17, 2008, in Matteson, Ill.

Fringe sports get their own video games

Football has "Madden NFL." Basketball has "NBA Live." Sports fans like to indulge their passions by playing video games featuring their favorite teams and players.
Now even fringe sports are getting their own video games. Fringe sports are sports that haven’t found a mainstream audience. They have niche fan bases and are working to expand the popularity of their sports.
Two of the wackiest fringe sports – beer pong and competitive eating – now have their own video games.
Publisher X, a global publisher of digitally downloadable games and interactive software, is now selling “Beer Pong – BPong 2009 Edition” for download to Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch.
The publisher partnered with BPong.com, the official governing body of the annual World Series of Beer Pong, on the video version of the drinking game.
“Beer Pong – BPong 2009 Edition is the closest you can get to Beer Pong without getting splashed in the face with beer,” Doug Kennedy, co-founder of Publisher X, said in an April 8 press release.
Last summer, video game publisher Mastiff launched the first video game based on the sport of competitive eating for Nintendo’s Wii console.
“Major League Eating: The Game” features “the world’s greatest gurgitory athletes competing across a variety of foods and venues,” a July 11, 2008, press release announced. The game is available for download as WiiWare. The game uses the motion-sensing Wii Remote to simulate a variety of eating techniques including the cram, toss, and “typewriter.” Gamers guide their on-screen characters as they eat hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza and other dishes.