The Most Overrated Sporting Events
For fear of sounding too grumpy or annoying anyone ...
I've done Most Overrated Sportspeople, but what are the Most Overrated Sporting Events? All hype. Consistently disappointing. Self-mythologising. Barely sport at all. Inexplicably popular etc
The Masters ... the obvious place to start. I quite like the Masters, but the fact that it thinks itself the most important thing in the world and a quasi-religious experience does my head in. It rarely turns out to be a great pure golf event (it was this year, I admit), it's the same course over and over, a limited field, it's a bit racist, an enormous way up its own arse, and I often feel it punishes good golf too much and doesn't punish genuinely bad shots enough.. So, yeah, not that I haven't watched all four days of it every year for about three decades. the Masters is the most overrated sporting event going.
The Old Firm game ... Graeme Souness fiercely saying it's bigger than Liverpool-Everton, bigger than Fenerbahce Galatasaray ... I get what makes it a major deal, but a) the glory days are long gone, and it's basically a scrap between assorted Endsleigh players and the odd proud Scot b) it happened (before the forced impasse) too many times a season c) the relentless unpleasantness just got a bit boring
IPL ... IPL is corrupt, ugly, often not that exciting, doesn't include all the best players. BBL, even our own T20 Blast, way better. Can't stand it. Enough Danny Morrison.
Last Day of Transfer Window ... obviously
BBC Sports Personality of the Year ... just gets worse and worse
Any Grand Prix, but particularly Qualifying for a Grand Prix ... it's just qualifying ... there are no points for it. It doesn't, essentially, matter how many poles someone's got. People don't get so excited about footballers doing their warm-up
Anything called a World Championship (looking at you golf) which isn't actually a World Championship
The Super Bowl ... talking of which, this bloated self-eating monster kills every NFL season stone dead, goes on too long, too late, makes the whole enterprise seem worthless. And the way they call themselves World Champions ...
The BDO World Darts Championship ... and, in a different way. Almost underhyped rather than overhyped, but time to stop pretending this once great event is anything but the English second division play-offs, not an actual World Championship. Murdoch won this one ...
The FIFA World Cup Final ... I mean, it is the biggest sporting event in the world, but it's rarely a good game of football, so ...
The Boat Race ... not just because it's a slightly second-rate sport and a contest between 18 obscure posh folk you'll never hear of again, just because it's only about once every fifty years that the result isn't a foregone conclusion within about five minutes
WWF ... don't mind the hype, it's just the fact it's not sport but finds its way onto sports channels
The America's Cup - an odd closed shop of a non-event which nevertheless seems to get a lot of coverage whenever it happens
The Champions League draw ...
Any piece of "BREAKING NEWS" on Sky Sports News
I've done Most Overrated Sportspeople, but what are the Most Overrated Sporting Events? All hype. Consistently disappointing. Self-mythologising. Barely sport at all. Inexplicably popular etc
The Masters ... the obvious place to start. I quite like the Masters, but the fact that it thinks itself the most important thing in the world and a quasi-religious experience does my head in. It rarely turns out to be a great pure golf event (it was this year, I admit), it's the same course over and over, a limited field, it's a bit racist, an enormous way up its own arse, and I often feel it punishes good golf too much and doesn't punish genuinely bad shots enough.. So, yeah, not that I haven't watched all four days of it every year for about three decades. the Masters is the most overrated sporting event going.
The Old Firm game ... Graeme Souness fiercely saying it's bigger than Liverpool-Everton, bigger than Fenerbahce Galatasaray ... I get what makes it a major deal, but a) the glory days are long gone, and it's basically a scrap between assorted Endsleigh players and the odd proud Scot b) it happened (before the forced impasse) too many times a season c) the relentless unpleasantness just got a bit boring
IPL ... IPL is corrupt, ugly, often not that exciting, doesn't include all the best players. BBL, even our own T20 Blast, way better. Can't stand it. Enough Danny Morrison.
Last Day of Transfer Window ... obviously
BBC Sports Personality of the Year ... just gets worse and worse
Any Grand Prix, but particularly Qualifying for a Grand Prix ... it's just qualifying ... there are no points for it. It doesn't, essentially, matter how many poles someone's got. People don't get so excited about footballers doing their warm-up
Anything called a World Championship (looking at you golf) which isn't actually a World Championship
The Super Bowl ... talking of which, this bloated self-eating monster kills every NFL season stone dead, goes on too long, too late, makes the whole enterprise seem worthless. And the way they call themselves World Champions ...
The BDO World Darts Championship ... and, in a different way. Almost underhyped rather than overhyped, but time to stop pretending this once great event is anything but the English second division play-offs, not an actual World Championship. Murdoch won this one ...
The FIFA World Cup Final ... I mean, it is the biggest sporting event in the world, but it's rarely a good game of football, so ...
The Boat Race ... not just because it's a slightly second-rate sport and a contest between 18 obscure posh folk you'll never hear of again, just because it's only about once every fifty years that the result isn't a foregone conclusion within about five minutes
WWF ... don't mind the hype, it's just the fact it's not sport but finds its way onto sports channels
The America's Cup - an odd closed shop of a non-event which nevertheless seems to get a lot of coverage whenever it happens
The Champions League draw ...
Any piece of "BREAKING NEWS" on Sky Sports News
Comments
Post a Comment