Kick Off

Fall is almost here in the U.S., and as baseball season segues into the playoffs, football, basketball and lots of other sports are just grinding into gear all over the country. Here's a shortlist of things to look for in YouTube Sports:

* Football season kicked off with a bang (hello, Appalachian State!), and the sports blogosphere is burning up with predictions, fantasy advice, fan rants, highlights, low lights, etc. Sport video bloggers of interest include The Blog Show (from The Washington Post), CowboyTD (with an admittedly pro-Cowboy, pro-Texas slant) and the irrepressible Bleacher Bloggers, who scour sports blogs netwide for the best posts so you don't have to.

* Skateboarding is alive and kick-flipping all over YouTube, from the hundreds of "Sponsor Me" videos to pro profiles to contest recaps and more. If you ride a mini-ramp or mini-pipe, take a look at MiniRampChamp for a plethora of trick and ramp-building tips. Another one of the most prolific video-making skaters on our site (with a grab bag full of tricks) is MisterCK. Click through some of his highlights, including this nice switch 360 flip revert.

* Basketball season is still several weeks away from tipping off, but there's plenty of summertime hoops on YouTube including loads of footage of wunderkind point guard Brandon Jennings. Nicknamed Doobie Doo, Jennings is widely regarded as one of the best high school players around (and has hoop heads catching visions of Kenny Anderson, circa 1990). You'll find some highlight clips here and here, and a short interview here.

* DC United fans: how passionate are you about your team? Prove your fanaticism in a 90-second response video and win prizes... Here's the invite video and contest info.

* Finally, there's loads of interesting, some would say oddball, sports all over our site. Check out the finger-jousters , the noodlers, the zorbers, the curlers, the hurlers and, of course, the bog-snorkelers.

Last but not least, athletes and fans: I have questions! For example, what exactly qualifies a sport as a "sport"? What's the best sport and why? What's the weirdest sport out there? Let me know what you think here.



Go play,

Andrew B. aka playactionpass