A revamped AWA Wrestling? Has NBC relinquished Arena Football? If only we were so lucky. ESPN announced today that they’ve secured the rights to the final 17 races of next year’s NASCAR competition.

For those of us who so passionately look forward to the same episode of “Streetball” that we’ve already seen 7 times, this is very bad news. To say nothing of the lost hours of ESPN2 programming time that might otherwise have been devoted to the College Cheerleading and Dance Nationals, the mooted reality series “Lupica Knows Best” or the inexplicably not-popular-enough world of Competitive Eating.