What every sports fan wants but wont admit.

There is quite possibly a drug more popular than marijuana that almost everyone secretly wants legalized but no one is willing to admit it: steroids. I’m not talking about juicing up a high school or college athlete, but a pro athlete should be able to take advantage of something that will help him better his career. Of course, it could come at a price with some mild to severe medical problems later on. Some of you are probably thinking that I’m nuts and there’s no chance any kind of PED’s (performance enhancing drugs) will ever be legal for use, especially in sports, and for the longest time I agreed with that thought process. I would be the first to say that it’s considered cheating and there is no place in sports for it.

Then, I started to think about this after Dee Gordon of the Marlins was suspended for 80 games. Is baseball, or any sport, really better off without some guys taking this stuff just to perform better? Not really. As fans, we like to see more offense, more home runs, more grand slams. We awwed over Mark Mcgwire and Sammy Sosa  when they were hitting 60 home runs a year. And, what seemed to be more impressive is how far the home runs were. Funny enough, that’s also when baseball was drawing in more fans than ever.

And how about Tiger Woods? Some have claimed that he took something, but so what if he did?  Tiger was so much fun to watch because no one on the tour could drive the ball off the tee as far as he could. I mean seriously, the guy could drive it over 400 yards.  Although Tiger was not the most accurate driver in the world, he still had the insane strength to power the ball out of the rough right onto the green.

We followed the Tour De France for years because we wanted to see how many more times Lance Armstrong could win.

As much as we love our underdogs in American sports, we may love the dominant athlete more. Still don’t believe me? Explain why steroids is almost encouraged in bodybuilding competitions. I’ll tell you why, it draws a much bigger crowd than a natural show. We want to see how big, lean and vascular these guys can get. Look at the changes in wrestlers in the WWE from the 1980’s till now. You didn’t see a lot of huge muscular ripped guys in wrestling when it first started to become popular. Now it’s almost impossible not to get into that business without being 6’4” and almost 300lbs of solid muscle (and before the “WWE Nation” attacks me, I do realize that there are  some exceptions to that rule).

So let’s face it, steroids help make sports what they should be, more entertaining. Steroids helps put butts in the seats and eyes on the television. he more people watch, the more money is being brought in by ticket sales and advertising. And sporting events do really well with advertising. That’s why the Super Bowl, March Madness, and the World Cup are among the top in advertising sales.

The most important thing is that we are all highly entertained by watching a product that is truly at it’s highest quality.  And, for everyone who still wants to say that it’s unfair to the players that choose not to take them, don’t worry. Those players are still going to make their money just like they did in the 90’s.