Man...there was a time when every game mattered. Every pitch, every swing, every shot, every catch. It seems everywhere I look today the regular season becomes less and less a factor. Have we put so much pressure on winning a championship that the road to it has lost it's value? Or is it the over saturation of a money driven market? Look around you, baseball is a prime example, the NBA's playoffs are filled on the eastern side with underachieving teams with sub 500 records, the Pats won every single game in the regular season and it means nothing since they lost the super bowl. Tiger Woods picks and chooses when he shows up for tourneys, power houses in college hoops schedule Sister Mary for the Poor until January when conference play starts, and conference tourney's are becoming less and less important as they are looked at a time for good teams to rest. Then we have the last "true" sport...College Football. But I feel we have the exact opposite here, there is TOO much stress placed on the regular season, too much stress placed on a loss in week 1. Somewhere out there is a healthy medium, somewhere there is a yearning from sports fans to watch a regular season baseball game, a good out of conference matchup in college hoops, or maybe it's just me...
6 comments:
Well said; if you're a true fan you can enjoy a game between last-place teams that aren't going anywhere, but in the modern era, it seems like championships are the only things that matter. If that's all you hang onto, you can expect to live a life of misery as a sports fan, because in most pro leagues, even an average team only wins a championship once every 30 years or so.
Thom...the regular seasons are devalued because there are too many teams in the playoffs. If you are an NBA franchise or NHL franchise, you just about have a 50% shot of making the playoffs! So there is no drama in the regular season. The NFL has drama for 5-6 weeks leading up to the final week of the season as the playoff spots are determined. Granted some teams take Week 17 off, but that's a result of the grueling physicality of the sport.
Forechecker,
Thanks for the comment, I agree with you 100 percent...I wonder if the stress on championships and rings by the media and everyone else has forced fans(who were once like you and I are) to that line of thinking...I hope not
T-Rob,
Great point! I agree that the playoffs have become saturated. Funny that the playoffs are the only thing that matters on one hand, but on the other mediocrity is rewarded by everyone making it...The NFL did have good drama but not as many teams as we think, or at least in the past, if the pats had lost a game then you can take their whole season ending drama out of the picture as well...living down here we are lucky the Titans were deep in it.
NFL is def closer to ncaa football then anything else, I will give you that
In College Football I think they will go to a 4 team play-off soon and that will be good . Like that when Michigan lost to Appy st their National Title shot was gone. Every game is important in college football. In college Basketball Most people I talk to Really dont care about the reg season until Feb. The no 1 team in the country could have a bad night and lose.Not many people really care because they will get their tourney spot most of the time. This is why i hope they keep the College Football play off system We Might be seeing someday to 4 teams 8 at the most.
This would allow a team that is awesome like USC was last year to get healthy towards the end of the regular season and Get a chance to play a team like Georgia or LSU etc.
I agree with Trey Boro. 8 teams at the very most, but 4 is the only logical answer for a college football playoff. This past season basically eliminated any logical arguments for a playoff, at least one any bigger than 4 teams. Any team that complained because they didn't make it to the championship game could have won just one more regular season game and it wouldn't have been an issue.
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