My Sport is Better Than Your Sport: the GOAT thread

[TheLastWolf]

5 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

6 hours ago, polishgenius said:

 

Hockey is apparently popular in India and Pakistan, so I can believe it. 

This might be the single most shocking thing this thread has produced. 

Its a fookin national game, utter dominance from 30s to 80s, Hell! if we were talking about GOAT teams they definitely deserve a spot.

But if you think the combined vast population is crazy over it, nah. Cricket frenzy rules.

Edited September 10, 2022 by TheLastWolf

[TheLastWolf]

BTW I believe Hamilton would have made a great footballer and decent cricketer.

Spoiler

Hamilton, an Arsenal fan, said that if Formula One had not worked for him, he would have been a footballer or a cricketer, having played both for his school teams

 

[Which Tyler]

2 hours ago, DMC said:

The reason it's an absurd statistical argument is because you were suggesting 6'1" was close to the mean of any country that has anything to do with baseball.

That's simply not true

[polishgenius]

15 minutes ago, TheLastWolf said:

BTW I believe Hamilton would have made a great footballer and decent cricketer.

  Reveal hidden contents

Hamilton, an Arsenal fan, said that if Formula One had not worked for him, he would have been a footballer or a cricketer, having played both for his school teams

 

 

I mean, it's not impossible, but playing for your school means absolutely nothing. If football was ever going to be anything for him he'd have already been in some team's academy system by that time. 

[BigFatCoward]

Daley Thompson may be the greatest decathlete ever, was a wicked footballer and the first time he played tennis the coach said he hadn't seen anyone who could learn so quickly. 

If someone said pick a player but you don't know the game, you would always go with someone like that rather than lebron every time. 

Edited September 10, 2022 by BigFatCoward

[Which Tyler]

 

[Tywin et al.]

5 hours ago, Which Tyler said:

 That anyone is surprised by this is the most shocking thing for anyone who isn't American.

3rd most popular participation sport in the world is also one of the most popular spectator sports... hardly shocking.

And the sixth largest sport is....table tennis. Total viewership isn't the best way to measure things, especially when two countries can massively skew things.

[DMC]

2 hours ago, Which Tyler said:

That's simply not true

Fair enough.  Either that or you're just bringing up standard deviations which has no relevance to my point.

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Total viewership isn't the best way to measure things, especially when two countries can massively skew things.

You really gotta wonder if those estimates are actually based on the percentage of fans in each country or if they're just identifying countries then looking up population figures and doing basic addition.

[baxus]

21 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Dude, swimming sucks! I already took classes to get better/work on my technique. It's absolutely frustrating, cycling and running, some days I am bit faster, on others he is a bit faster. But not really much of a difference. But as soon as we enter the water he just annihilates me. 

Back in my college days when I returned to rowing, I told a bunch of my rowing friends that through my college we have some cheap swimming timeslots at the local pool so we went for that.  I was 5 minutes late and by the time I got to the pool, my friends were already hanging on to the side of the pool for dear life. Now, I'm not talking about Olympic level rowers, but still they were recreational rowers who have rowed some college regattas (university sports in Europe, and especially in our part of Europe, not being anywhere near US levels), and were in a good enough shape to run half-marathons for fun at around 1h45min range despite not being built anything like distance runners.

11 hours ago, DMC said:

Well, it's ludicrously ignorant to write off baseball as a "niche local sport" either, unless you want to pretend much of the western hemisphere along with Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan encapsulate "niche local."  Seems rather offensively eurocentric to me, but you do you!

Baseball is a "niche local sport", whether you like to admit it or not. It's played in USA and Japan and that's pretty much it. Stating Taiwan as an example of why it's not should probably be the best proof that it actually is.

And what is this "much of the western hemisphere" you are talking about? I did a quick google search and, outside of USA and Canada, only other countries in Americas that have professional league (I'm not sure of the quality levels) are:

• Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Cuba in the Caribbean
• Mexico, Panama and Nicaragua in Central America
• Venezuela and Colombia in South America

Other than that, there's also Australia.

Now, while population of those countries does add up, when we take into account that baseball is nowhere near the most popular sport in those countries, it most definitely is a niche sport.

10 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Idk why he couldn't be a world class swimmer or rower if that's what he wanted to be great at. Again, I'm not saying he'd be as great at other sports as he is at basketball, but it's fairly easy to see how he could be a pro at a number of sports. There aren't a lot of athletes you can reasonably say that about.

Way to ignore all the other sports I mentioned.  

And no, LeBron couldn't be a world class swimmer and the best reason for that would be to have him stand next to world class swimmers. Height and wingspan would work in his favour, but his mass would drag him down massively.

As far as rowing is concerned, it takes completely different type of effort than what he's used to. Basketball is about many bursts of speed, short sprints, explosive jumping etc. while rowing is going 100% all out for 5,5-7,5 minutes. It's really unpleasant at the lowest levels of the sport, let alone at top level where they're basically pushing the limits of what humans are capable of. You can go and watch any Olympic finals race and check out what they look like after crossing the finish line. I have NEVER seen a basketball player in that state after a match, or a football player, or a tennis player etc. Mind you, I'm not saying those sports are any less worthy or anything, just trying to point out difference in types of effort required.

Sure, with top level coaching and training from childhood, LeBron maybe could've become an elite rower, but he's at least 20 years too late to make that switch. There's no turning back for him now, just as you couldn't take a 35 year old elite rower and turn him into world class basketball player by switching his training.

[BigFatCoward]

3rd most populace (and possibly the most insular) country on earth plays sports nobody else cares about and complains that other countries with big populations 'skew' figures? 

Edited September 10, 2022 by BigFatCoward

[DMC]

1 minute ago, baxus said:

And what is this "much of the western hemisphere" you are talking about? I did a quick google search and, outside of USA and Canada, only other countries in Americas that have professional league (I'm not sure of the quality levels) are:

• Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Cuba in the Caribbean
• Mexico, Panama and Nicaragua in Central America
• Venezuela and Colombia in South America

....That's literally much of the western hemisphere.

5 minutes ago, baxus said:

when we take into account that baseball is nowhere near the most popular sport in those countries, it most definitely is a niche sport.

Baseball is extremely popular in all of the Latin American countries you identified.

[baxus]

1 minute ago, DMC said:

....That's literally much of the western hemisphere.

Baseball is extremely popular in all of the Latin American countries you identified.

Sure, if we take some 15% of population of the wester hemisphere as "much of the western hemisphere", then sure...

Plus, let's not turn our attention to the fact that baseball is not even the most popular sport in US (with American football being in a league of it's own, but with even football well on its way to catch up to baseball), let alone in any of the other countries on the list.

A niche sport if there ever was one.

[polishgenius]

15 minutes ago, baxus said:

As far as rowing is concerned, it takes completely different type of effort than what he's used to.

 

This kind of calculus is one of the reasons MMA is such a weird sport- the physical demands of wrestling/grappling and striking are so different that it's pretty frequent for a fighter who specialises in one gas completely if forced too long to engage in the other at any kind of tempo. Tends to happen more on the wrestling side coz there's really not much way to extract a moment to rest or control the tempo against an opponent who's better than you, but it does go both ways. 

[DMC]

1 minute ago, baxus said:

Sure, if we take some 15% of population of the wester hemisphere as "much of the western hemisphere", then sure...

Er..what?  You clearly don't know how to do math - or just are shockingly misinformed about population figures.  The US has 32% of the percentage of the population of the Americas all on its own.  Mexico has 12%, Columbia 5, Venezuela 3...

6 minutes ago, baxus said:

Plus, let's not turn our attention to the fact that baseball is not even the most popular sport in US (with American football being in a league of it's own, but with even football well on its way to catch up to baseball), let alone in any of the other countries on the list.

I didn't know the qualification here was the sport had to be the MOST popular in each country.  If that's the case then those metrics obviously counting India for cricket, table tennis, and hockey really need to make a choice.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

24 minutes ago, baxus said:

And no, LeBron couldn't be a world class swimmer and the best reason for that would be to have him stand next to world class swimmers. Height and wingspan would work in his favour, but his mass would drag him down massively.

Have you seen a World Class Swimmer? They are massive. It just doesn't show that much on TV, because they are all tall with a very muscular frame. I mean just look at Michael Phelps or Markus Rogan. And they are all built like that. Both Phelps and Rogan are well over 1.90 m tall weigh(ed) 90kg+. 

[BigFatCoward]

21 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

This kind of calculus is one of the reasons MMA is such a weird sport- the physical demands of wrestling/grappling and striking are so different that it's pretty frequent for a fighter who specialises in one gas completely if forced too long to engage in the other at any kind of tempo. Tends to happen more on the wrestling side coz there's really not much way to extract a moment to rest or control the tempo against an opponent who's better than you, but it does go both ways. 

Even on a personal level, I cycle 125 miles a week, walking up stairs really tires me out. 

[BigFatCoward]

9 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Have you seen a World Class Swimmer? They are massive. It just doesn't show that much on TV, because they are all tall with a very muscular frame. I mean just look at Michael Phelps or Markus Rogan. And they are all built like that. Both Phelps and Rogan are well over 1.90 m tall weigh(ed) 90kg+. 

So about 20% lighter than lebron. He is much wider, hence lots of drag.

Swimmers have very interesting frames, concave chests, huge feet and hands. Being big is not what defines them. 

[baxus]

25 minutes ago, DMC said:

Er..what?  You clearly don't know how to do math - or just are shockingly misinformed about population figures.  The US has 32% of the percentage of the population of the Americas all on its own.  Mexico has 12%, Columbia 5, Venezuela 3...

I didn't know the qualification here was the sport had to be the MOST popular in each country.  If that's the case then those metrics obviously counting India for cricket, table tennis, and hockey really need to make a choice.

Ok, my numbers were off. I must admit I thought some countries were part of Western hemisphere that weren't.

As far as determining if sport is niche or not, popularity is definitely a factor. If the country where baseball is THE most popular in the world has 2 more popular sports (American football and basketball) and a relatively new sport (football) is in the same ballpark, and there's only a handful of other countries where it's played at all, then you can't really make a case that it's popular worldwide, can you?

12 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Have you seen a World Class Swimmer? They are massive. It just doesn't show that much on TV, because they are all tall with a very muscular frame. I mean just look at Michael Phelps or Markus Rogan. And they are all built like that. Both Phelps and Rogan are well over 1.90 m tall weigh(ed) 90kg+. 

Here's Michael Phelps and here's LeBron James. You see the difference? Let me help you out - one is 1.93m tall and weighs 90kg, the other is 2.06m tall and weighs 113kg. I'll let you decide which is which.

Edited September 10, 2022 by baxus

[polishgenius]

There's LeBron, there's Phelps, and here's the peak of human athleticism.