By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL/Designated Writers

You could accuse me of being naive, but I’m probably going to be the last man standing when it comes to disagreeing with the idea that sports is just “a TV show.”

Seinfeld was a TV show. The Ed Sullivan Show was a TV show. Until further notice, I will continue to believe that sports are events that happen to be televised. In my Leave-It-To-Beaver line of thinking, they would still go on, even without a camera present. (Now that was a TV show.)

This comes up — again — because the College Football Playoffs are getting closer to reality and everyone wants to speculate on who might make it in. In particular, Alabama. The thought is that if it came down to Alabama and say, Utah (which would be the Pac 12 champion), that the playoff selection committee would naturally choose Alabama because “it’s a TV show” and more people would want to watch the Crimson Tide than the Utes.

There is no doubt that is true, but that shouldn’t even be a scintilla of a factor, much less the main factor.

If that were the case, let’s just give the Mets and Yankees an automatic bye into the World Series and be done with the Major League Baseball season.

Just like the announcement of the NCAA tournament field, the actual selection of the CFP Final Four is a television show. Got that. And I know all about the famous line from All The President’s Men about “follow the money.” No doubt that television brings a tremendous hammer to the table.

But I’m going to continue to hang in there and believe that when it comes right down to it, competition, not ratings, is what really matters when it comes to sports. Let the networks agonize over the tenth of a rating point because that’s their job.

The rest of us can watch and just let the winners win.

It happened for my DW co-founder a few months before it happened for me.

I thought my time would never come. Or if it did, it would be shortly before I’d be on the side of the road, helpless as a deer with two flat tires.

Instead, it all worked out.

My odometer hit 200,000 and was good for more.

I have owned a lot of vehicles and, for reasons this and that, have never hit 200,000 miles. I always traded things in. Or somebody had wrecked my ride. But the 2009 Toyota Camry, my favorite model — a 2009 Paid4 — is still getting it done. It is a puke green so a chick mobile for sure (JOKE!), but I am just glad it runs.

The magic moment occurred after I came home from an East Coast college football game Friday night. Thursday, I’d caught the fancy ‘aeroplane’ in Monroe for the game to take me east. My odemoter sat on 199,900 solid.

Late Friday night, the high-falutin’ plane landed Saturday morning back in Monore about 1:30 am. I didn’t want to drive my car to Shreveport but it was the only way to get home.

I was on I-20 West, in Bossier City, between where the interstate signs read “Airline Dr. Next Exit” and “Airline Drive” when it happened. Mile Marker 22ish. My odemoter, she rolled over to 200,000.

Emmylou Harris was singing Ashes By Now.” It was 2:49 am. I was almost home. Traffic was light, and I didn’t HAVE to do anything all the rest of the day except get safely in bed.

After 200,000 miles, that’s a good thing.

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