Two months ago, Holden Nutz had a dream: Granny X Games. He believed the combination of eXtreme sports, reduced reaction times, poorer vestibular systems and frailer bodies would be must see TV. As Mr. Nutz explained in an initial interview, “People watch the X Games for the danger. We figured we could really ramp up the danger and vastly increase the viewership.”

Objections to the Granny X Games

At the time, major sponsorship and sports experts largely dismissed the concept. Objections were focused on the apparent and obvious exploitation of the elderly. One major sponsorship expert claimed that it would be hard to package the Granny X Games as anything other than pure elder abuse. Previous sponsors of the XFL claimed that in the real-world there was a limited tolerance for death in the pursuit of sport – especially when it wasn’t paired with sex as a marketing ploy.

Anonymous Sponsors

All of this contributed to a sense of surprise and amazement when the Granny X Games it had garnered over $15 billion in anonymous sponsorships. As Mr. Nutz explained, “We acquired so much sponsorship that the Granny X Games will be offered ad free. It will just be solid mayhem out there!”

Our investigative journalists investigated and managed to determine who these anonymous sponsors were. They included the Social Security Administration, several major insurers, the U.K. National Health Service, Kaiser Permanente, the Chinese National Healthcare Security Administration and the Japan Health Insurance Association.

Our investigative journalists investigated more and managed to conduct an off-the-record interview with executives at several of these organizations (as F$JNews isn’t a real news service, we felt no need to honor the various promises we made not to report what we heard.)

Changing Times

One executive at the Social Security Administration, Mr. Hardless Basterred, put it most succinctly: “We used to be able to rely on smoking, poor health and limited medical interventions to keep the cost of social security and pensions down. Basically, people would die pretty quickly and at low-cost. All of that has changed. In the mid-90s, 36% of high school students smoked cigarettes. Now it is 10%. People are living longer and they’re dying slower. We, and everybody else in the pension, annuity and healthcare fields, are desperate for old people to die faster. The Granny X Games are the perfect way to encourage high-risk, low-cost behavior among the elderly.”

Mr. Brokas Mutha, from the U.K.’s NHS, added, “We love E-Games for the young – disability claims go way down. And then X-Games for the elderly. The economics of both are obvious.”

The Florida Health Insurers association’s Ms. Fasta Turnofer, added, “The rise of serious pickleball injuries and the secondary effects of those injuries really opened our eyes to the financial benefits of the Granny X Games.”

The Hard Math

The investment benefits are obvious. The U.S. government’s official debt is $30 trillion dollars. If unfunded Social Security and Medicare benefits are included, this rises to $100 trillion. A $1 billion dollar Granny X Games sponsorship represents only 0.0014%. Obviously if the games encourage only a small fraction of the elderly to engage in dangerous sporting activities then they will pay off.

Looking Forward

Indeed, the Granny X Games have chosen a slogan that caters to their sponsors’ needs. Mr. Nutz showed us the banner he plans to unveil at the opening of the first Granny X Games.

It reads, simply and in giant letters even the elderly can make out, “The Granny X Games, Go Out in Style!”