Let’s cut to the chase. There is one reason and only one reason why so many companies are pimping this whole idea of 3D television…

There it is. Avatar and its 3D blue-skinned hot chicks are making too much damn money at the box office, and now big media wants us to spend all this cash to duplicate that 3D experience at home so that we can all remain mesmerized by the pretty computer graphics and not think about just how shallow and artless the actual story is.

So now everyone is jumping on the 3D bandwagon — including ESPN, which has big plans to make you wear stupid glasses on your living room sofa just so you can see that Cristiano Ronaldo free kick coming right at your head. It’s dipping! Don’t flinch!

Please. 3DTV might the biggest waste of time and money this side of JaMarcus Russell. Most of us (except me) just spent our hard-earned cash to get nice flat panel HD screens or in our homes. We’re just now getting accustomed to 720p football, and we’re not the least bit bored with it. It’s awesome. And that’s not enough anymore? We’re now being asked to throw out perfectly good HDTVs that most people are still paying off and spend another $2K to $3K so that the action “pops out” at us? The cost of entry for HD was high enough, and it provided actual value. 3D doesn’t do that.

Number two, has anyone come up with a 3DTV solution that doesn’t involve wearing some sort of silly glasses? If you turn your head wrong, the 3D effect disappears. So if we get up and shout at the TV like your average football fan, or turn our heads back to our laptops to chat with friends about the game, it gets weird. Unless you’re a steward at Old Trafford, you can’t force football fans to sit still and passively watch football.

And yet everyone is jumping on this 3DTV bandwagon, because Hollywood demands that James Cameron’s gigantic blue cock ego must be stroked. They’re all missing the point. 3D is a gimmick meant to be consumed in small doses in IMAX theaters and dodecaplexes. People will pay for it there because it only costs $10 to $15 a pop for a night of entertainment. Ask those same people to blow $2,500 to kinda-sorta bring that gimmick home — especially when so many people just spent close to that on a new home theater — and they’ll laugh you out of the room.

IMAX 3D is something that can’t be duplicated by a home theater. That’s the point. It’s supposed to get you out of the house to experience something more engrossing than even the 10-foot HD image your friend’s projector throws at his wall. I enjoy a good IMAX 3D experience. In fact, if my local IMAX theater announced it was going to show England v. USA live in giant-screen 3D for $50 a head, I’d buy a ticket. That doesn’t mean I want to see Wayne Rooney’s ugly mug jumping out of my TV set — and even if I did, it still wouldn’t duplicate the experience I could get in an IMAX theater. After all, if it’s nightmare fuel you want, it might as well be larger than life.

Maybe if ESPN set up a network to show big games in IMAX theaters, it would find an audience. It won’t find that audience for a 3D sports network at home. I’m sticking with HDTV, thanks. 3DTV has FAIL written all over it.