Every year we have sports championships; NBA Championship, The Super Bowl, The World Series. (Lord Stanley who?) But, the really big events happen every four years: Olympics, World Cup, World Baseball Classic.
A regular sports fan will watch the yearly championship, but it’s the quadrennial events that really grab people’s attention.
Today is one of the quadrennial championships. Unfortunately, the scoring is so crazy that we not only didn’t know the winner at the end of the game. We didn’t know it even later the same day. It’s estimated that the final score won’t be posted and a winner declared until possibly the end of the week.
In fairness, there are 50 different score keepers and they are counting over 120 million runs. The final winner needs a score of 270 or better out of 538 possible.
The teams have pretty stupid mascots. One is a blue donkey, the other a red elephant. (Who picked these and who has to wear the donkey costume?)
Unlike baseball, basketball, football, or any sportsball, everyone is interested in today’s competition. And everyone has their favorite.
Here in the USA we typically don’t have to worry about violence around sports events. Oh sure, the fans in the winning city typically burn a few stores and flip some cars, but I mean, who wouldn’t, right?
But, today’s competition has sparked violence for months. And regardless of whether the donkeys or the elephants win, the country is worried about violence. In fact, several states have called out the National Guard.
The NBA Team, the Oklahoma Thunder have the highest payroll in professional sports. They paid $134M in salaries in 2020. The race that is happening today cost an estimated $14 billion dollars.
You would think that for that amount of money they would do a better job of knowing the winner sooner than a week.
Stay safe
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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