TORONTO. The two professional rock-paper-scissors leagues today announced they have ended their rivalry and will merge in the biggest sports combination since the American and National Football Leagues joined forces in 1970.
U.S.A. Rock Paper Scissors League, headquartered in Hollywood, will become a part of the World RPS Society, based in Toronto, beginning with the 2017 season.
“Rock-paper-scissors has become a truly international sport,” USARPS Commissioner Garrett Thune said in a conference call with sports reporters. “American kids are too busy with their video games–we need to access markets where children still get excited about playing with mud and chickens.”
“Are you ready for some Monday Night R-P-S?”
Industry sources say the NFL has cooked the goose that laid the golden egg, showing games seven days a week and sometimes eight, as in a Beatles film. “We believe RPS is the break-out sport that could replace pro football in the hearts of American viewers,” said Gavin McCartney of ESPN 23, which broadcast the World RPS Society’s 2015 championship in tape-delay. “It’s like a Star Trek convention on steriods.”
Slo-mo replay
Rock-paper-scissors is an age-old children’s game in which two players count from three down to one and then display one of three hand formations–-a fist for a rock, a flat hand for paper or a two-fingered imitation of a pair of scissors. A rock “breaks” scissors, scissors “cuts” paper, and paper “covers” a rock, so that each option prevails over another at the same time that it is bested by the third, unless the youngest child in the family calls “bomb” which beats all three.
The combined league headquarters will be located in Keokuk, Iowa, and will feature an RPS Hall of Fame with interactive video exhibits detailing the heroes, highlights and history of the childhood game. When a reporter asked “Why Keokuk?” Thune replied that it was halfway between Toronto and Hollywood. Another reporter challenged that assertion, saying that the midpoint between the two cities was actually somewhere in southwest Nebraska.
“No it’s not,” Thune explained. “You’re just a big doody-head.”
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Thank goodness you had the diagram. I always forget who beats whom!