'SportsDome' Tries To Capture Rare Success For Sports Comedy On TV

The Onion, your most trusted source of fake news for the last two decades, will try its hand at TV sports comedy with the premiere of SportsDome on Comedy Central on Tuesday (starting time at 10:30/9:30 Central). It's being billed as the sports version of Comedy Central's The Daily Show, but it's more accurately described as a cut-up of ESPN's flagship SportsCenter.

Which is to say it's full of the bombast and absurdity that ESPN has made a staple of American sports fandom. The only difference is that the stories are about Bill Belichik throwing acid in Tom Brady's face and a boxer with a metal hands.

Scripted TV sports comedy hasn't had the best record of success. ESPN itself tried it a few times; Jay Mohr's Mohr Sports, an attempt at a Leno-style talk show (I mean that in the meanest way possible) with a sports bent, was dreadful and didn't last one season. Cheap Seats, ESPN's Mystery Science Theater 3000 infused Sklar brothers vehicle, lasted longer, but still didn't really manage to take sports comedy mainstream. Sports Soup, a weekly show on Versus that borrows the clips-and-jokes formula of E!'s wonderful The Soup, has similarly lasted but failed to make a wide mark.

The Onion plays a different sport entirely, and I'm almost embarrassed I mentioned Jay Mohr in this post. One of the keys will be how the hosts, Matt Walton and Matt Oberg, recreate the worst of SportsCenter smarm and cliché. The trailer above sets hopes high, as Oberg captures the Stephen Colbert faux sincerity rather well and Walton's deadpan delivery looks solid. With guest spots from Gary Payton and others, this looks promising.

SportsDome airs on Comedy Central Tuesday night at 10:30 Eastern and Pacific, 9:30 Central.