Over the past few years, athlete sex scandals have become more common than sluts on Halloween. Though many fans are outraged by the new soap opera storylines accompanying sport’s news, they’re here to stay. And quite frankly, they’re really entertaining.

First things first, it is impossible to avoid these scandals. Complaining about them does nothing but annoy the person you’re drunkenly slurring to at the sports bar, so don’t waste your breath.

There are sex scandals everywhere and sports are no exception. These scandals aren’t limited to just the NBA or NFL either.

Tonya Harding has a sex tape (Seriously, she does.); Chipper Jones knocked up a Hooters waitress who worked near the Braves’ spring training facility; Joel Monaghan, an Australian rugby player, had to leave his team after a photo surfaced of him having sex with a teammate’s dog.

It hits every sport. Every sport except bowling of course, however that’s just because it is not a scandal for a pro bowler to be getting some, it’s just known information.

The great thing about sports scandals as opposed to Hollywood scandals is that they can’t be used as a publicity stunt.

Being in a sex scandal might get people talking to you, but it doesn’t get you a contract with a championship team. All it really does is get you a bad name with your fans and a skit on Saturday Night Live.

The true question is, does a sex scandal make you more successful?

Tiger Woods is the highest paid athlete in the world; he isn’t doing so hot anymore.

Kobe Bryant; he’s pretty good at basketball, right? Raping a hotel employee really throws off your jump shot for a bit, but he bounced back.

Brett Favre wasn’t too affected by his recent scandal, but he probably couldn’t hear people talking about it. Besides, he’s been retired since 1846.

Ben Roethlisberger? Nothing like making the playoffs to get everyone off your back about some girl from Georgia. Now we can’t really answer this question scientifically, but we can speculate how different things would have been if Colt McCoy was the one in those Georgia nightclubs.

It is understandable to be pissed at athletes for trying to live Hollywood lives. And it’s not like any athletes have done this intentionally. I mean just look at “The TO show”; “Shaq vs.”; or when the Kardashians dated the entire NFL on any of their shows.

Wait, that isn’t right. Not to say that the scandals are intentional, but it isn’t unlike an athlete to try and achieve Hollywood fame.

I understand that many athletes aspire for an acting career but you’d think they would realize it isn’t really their expertise. Numerous athletes have tried and failed at acting: Barry Bonds was on 90210; Wayne Gretzky was on the Brady Bunch; some figure skater was in a Hilary Duff movie, I think; and we’ve all seen a terrible episode of SNL hosted by a pro athlete. The obvious exception is Keith Hernandez’s performance on Seinfeld, but that goes without saying.

If we didn’t have fake celebrities we wouldn’t have shows like “Living Lohan” and “Real Housewives” of anywhere. That’s why I think we should embrace the new look on athletes. At least being a pro athlete is a legitimate talent that makes it reasonable to be famous, which is more than I can say for most “celebrities” right now.

If anything you should embrace these scandals. They make the athletes more relatable. Athletes have sex, and so do most people. And I don’t know about you but anything I have in common with a professional athlete is a pick up line waiting to happen. And that is great.

Dylan Lusk is a sophomore electronic media production major and a columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. Contact him at [email protected].