World Champions

I was channel surfing like a champion the other day. My god there was a load of crap on. As I came to ESPN I saw that the baseball season had started. Now baseball isn’t my favourite sport to watch on the T.V but when you are pottering about doing other things it is pretty easy to flick in and out of so I kept it on. I cannot remember who were playing but the commentators mentioned ‘World Champions.’ Only the bloody yanks would class a team that won their national title as ‘World Champions.’

I honestly do not understand how this can be? How many teams from another continent play in the American leagues in any sport…..NONE. This may well be only one fact, but it is quite a clear, concise and damning fact to the people that argue for the ‘world champion’ tag. One of the sports that the winners are considered ‘World Champions’ is American Football. I mean come on!! The sport is called American Football, it suggests that the Americans have invented it for Americans and Americans play it!! yes I accept it is played worldwide, but there is not a tournament that involves all the winners of various leagues. I also accept if this did happen that the team that won the NFL would comfortably win the ‘World Cup’ (which I have now called it), but still, World Champions, I think not.

Let’s take rugby for example. They have a world cup that involves international teams. The winner of that is then known as the ‘World Champion’. There is also a Heineken Cup that involves the best teams in Europe. Whoever wins that is rightly crowned the European Champions. Then there is the Southern Hemisphere Super 15 tournament. The winners of this tournament have on a couple of occasions played the winner of the Heineken Cup but due to travel and Time Zone issues it hasn’t happened often. Neither team that wins their respective competition calls themselves ‘World Champions.’

Now let me tackle Ice Hockey. I know less than bugger all about Ice Hockey. What I do know is that the team that wins the NHL in America are miraculously called ‘World Champions.’ I am aware that there are Canadian teams that play in the NHL and that is something, I am also aware that in Sweden and Russia Ice Hockey is huge. I would hazard a guess that some of their teams would give the Americans a run for their money, but no, the American club side are the rightful ‘World Champions.’

With Baseball you have the Japanese, they are pretty shit hot at that sport I am told. Some of their best players go and make a hell of a lot of money in America but I reckon that some make serious amount of cashish staying put in the land of the Rising Sun.

Please note. Football (soccer to all you uneducated swines!!), is the biggest sport on the planet, easily. In the U.S no one gave a rats about it until a big name player goes there to receive a nice retirement fund (Henry, Beckham, Matthaus, Pele). They help fill the stadia. When two teams that have no big name players are playing the crowds just are not there. As they won’t be ‘World Champions’ there is no point in going to see them. University sport gets more people going to see a game than the MLS the world’s biggest sport. So Americans, you are not the ‘World Champions’ just because you win the American league in your sport, as no one else give a shit about those sports. That is the thought for today, tune in tomorrow for something else. Laters