The increased affordability of big plasma and LCD TVs -- and the increased number of events broadcast with HD technology -- revolutionized home viewing. By 2004, Fox was televising up to six NFL games per week in HD.

These advancements allow viewers to enjoy vivid images from stadiums and arenas. They can follow the trickle of sweat down the brow of their favorite athlete. "When HD came on, it was as important as color to the industry," Fox Sports chairman David Hill told the Wall Street Journal in 2008. "Viewing sports in HD is so compelling, you sit down and you just wallow in it."

As telecasts became more sophisticated -- offering additional camera angles and clearer images -- officiating mistakes became more glaring. The highlight shows played them over and over and over again. So it was just a matter of time before sports leagues started using this technology to reverse blown calls.

The NFL led the way, moving to a full-blown replay challenge system in 1999. The NBA (reviewing buzzer-beating shots), NHL (checking disputed goals or non-goals), tennis (line call challenges) and Major League Baseball (fair or foul home runs) followed suit, as did NCAA basketball and football.

Rather than deal with media types face to face or over the phone, sports figures use their "Tweets" to break news or respond to it. Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chad Ochocinco is one of the Twitter kings, with nearly a half-million followers to his "Ocho Cinco News Network."

Besides sharing every small aspect of his life with his followers, Chad sprinkles in platitudes like this: "When you out today walk with your head high not down, you can't reach for the stars with your head hanging down!! Be great please!"

The mainstream media have embraced Twitter, too, using the text-based technology to break stories with lightning speed.

Tipsters feed bloggers incriminating photos and videos, eyewitness accounts, voice mails, text messages and leaked memos. Bloggers blend such content with original reporting, snarky commentary, links to related material and user feedback. They hit fast and hard, generating enough buzz to force the "mainstream media" to give chase. Blogs break stories and, as Tiger Woods discovered, accelerate coverage. In a blur, Tiger's personal life was exposed to global examination.

Here is one example: At 3:07 p.m. on Nov. 27, Sports By Brooks posted its first entry on Tiger's one-car accident. By Dec. 3 at 12:35 p.m., that site had posted 36 more Woods items -- culling information from gossip ou

"The CoT has really got everybody in a box," Dale Earnhardt Jr. complained. "We're all basically out there competing in the same thing. I can't do anything, or I can't be any more creative than the next guy.

"I wish there was a way to make the racing to where if I have a really, really good car, I can get away from this guy in this car that's not so good. (But) I don't see NASCAR changing anything. They will build the fence higher and stronger before they do anything to keep us from running into each other. I think they made the cars safer becau

But the spread offense rules the Big 12 Conference today and spices up the sport from coast to coast. Mike Leach developed the "Air Raid" version of that offense in the 1990s with his mentor, Hal Mumme, at Valdosta State and Kentucky. Leach brought it to Oklahoma in 1999 as offensive coordinator and then took it to Texas Tech as head coach.

With no huddles, wide line splits, shotgun snaps and up to five receivers running routes, this offense more resembled basketball than football. But it worked and many teams were running variations of the spread, spread-option and pistol offense. Staggering passing totals and marathon games ensued as the college game took a different form.

"The base idea here is you have to make the defense cover the whole field," Leach told Texas Monthly. "Not just pa

The popularity of the sport soared unabated until 2006, when the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act took a chunk out of on-line poker sites.

"I equate poker to NASCAR," long-time television executive Neal Pilson once said. "Everyone drives, so they have an instant recognition for the skill and drama of NASCAR. Well, there's a huge population that plays poker. It's reality programming, with drama, excitement and a tremendous amount of money."

But in 2002, a errant puck struck 13-year-old Blue Jackets fan Brittanie Cecil in the forehead during a game in Columbus. She died two days later. As a result of that tragedy, the league decided to install protective netting at both ends of the ice -- resembling backstop screens at baseball stadiums.

This took some getting used to, but most fans adapted. "This netting, I believe, is something you will adjust to," NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said at the time. "If you are a fan and you sit there fixated on the fact that you don't like the netting and you stare at the netting, it will be harder to adjust. If you sit back and you relax and watch the game, within a minute you won't even know it's there."

World records fell, en masse, once the suits became popular. Other companies developed similar products. The results were so dramatic that the sport's governing body voted overwhelmingly to ban such suits.

"As a forward-thinking company that has invested millions in R&D, we believe that technology, properly monitored and adhering to guidelines, does have a place in all sport," Speedo said in a corporate statement after the ban. "Any move which seems to take the sport back two decades . . . is a retrograde step that could be detrimental to the future of swimming."

The Original Maple Bat Corporation took flight in the late 1990s. Don Holman developed the bats on the principle that maple wood is much harder than ash.

While traditional ash bats shatter, maple bats tend to break in bigger and more dangerous chunks. These flying shards of wood make our national pastime much more dangerous.

"There's a serious, serious safety issue in front of us, and it's going to be a matter of how we handle it," Pirates equipment manager Roger Wilson told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette last year. "It's a time bomb waiting to happen."