There are some sporting occasions that are almost bigger than the sports themselves. Those events that basically everyone watches, they are like finales of TV shows or documentary specials or even news broadcasts that will contain an amazing or special pieces of information. They feel more like public events than they do sporting occasions. They get people who no interest in that sport or sometimes even sport in general, glued to the front of their TV and admiring the spectacle and pageantry of sport as much as they actual sport itself.
These are the events that people carve out their time to watch, they stop whole countries, even at times the whole planet stops to watch. They can bring cities to a standstill, New York will often stop at once to watch one of its teams play an important game. If the Mets or the Yankees might take a championship, if the Knicks or the Nets have their acts together or if the Rangers and Islander are about to make friends with Stanley then people will be willing to watch.
These events define people’s non-sporting experience, for people who do not care about sport they are their way into a conversation. It is their time to learn and then shine. In the build up to the events, suddenly people who have never shown an interest in sport know who a player or coach is. They speculate on who is going to win, they might even have a small wager on it, even if they have no previous interest in betting. These are some of the biggest events which match that description. Events which are almost bigger than the sports themselves and ones which you need to make sure to watch this year.
Grand National (Horse Racing)
This one is quite specific to the UNited Kingdom but it is utterly amazing how much this one Horse race in Liverpool makes people want to watch a sport they care little about the rest of the year. It manages to get TV ratings of 10 million in the United Kingdom, which is a sixth of the whole population with 600 million more worldwide. It also gets a lot of people to bet, many families only place one bet a year and they do it on the national, bookmakers often advertise a Grand National bonus as they know people will want to bet on it and thus they can entice them in. It is a really amazing event and one which gets people glued to their TV screens in the UK.
World Series (Baseball)
It is tough to be a really involved baseball fan, with so much baseball on during the year, it can be tough to watch even half of your team’s matches, but some people do it. For everyone else, they always watch the World Series, it is the perfect balance between sporting skill and drama. It never disappoints.
World Cup Final (Soccer)
The most watched sporting event in the world, the whole planet watches this game with literally billions of people tuning in. This years final in Russia is likely to be the biggest ever.