The Olympics are a 2nd tier event

[Unkotare]

What countries participate in the 'world series'?

Check the roster of any team in the majors. The smelly Europeans can't grasp the fact that professional sport in the US did not develop as an extention of 'my inbred ancestors 10,000 years ago flung shit at your inbred ancestors over a patch of gassy swampland.' They also can't comprehend that although we go home from every Olympic games with crates stuffed full of most of the medals, our handball and rugby squads do not represent the finest athletes in all the US. Hell, even in Olympic sports where many of our pro athletes participate it is basically like that sport's All Star game, and anyone can tell you how those games compare to the regular season. Relatively insignificant countries try to convince themselves that the outcome reflects on their national worth because it is the only shot they've got to claim any.

Which part of 'what countries participate in the world series' did you struggle to grasp? It's a straightforward question.... how about just a number.... how many countries compete against each other in the world series?

Reading is fun - try it!

 

[rightwinger]

behind the World Cup, the Super Bowl, World Series etc

Because the staple of the Summer Olympics is track and field.

And track and field has become irrelevant since the 1970s.

Add to that the loss of the Cold War good vs evil (The West vs Soviet Union, East Germany) etc....

I mostly agree

It doesn't have the glamor it had in the 60s and 70s

The Cold War had a lot to do with it. I also think rampant steroids and allowing professionals has ruined the games. They have also added too many sports to water down the prestige of an Olympic medal

 

[rightwinger]

The best Olympics ever was the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. The US destroyed the rest of the world

Juan Carlos and Tommy Smith giving the Black Power salute
Dick Fosbury and his odd high jumping style
Bob Beamon shattering the long jump record by almost two feet
Kip Keino beating Jim Ryan in the 1500 meters
George Forman winning heavyweight gold medal

 

[samjones]

you all pretty much avoid sports where you compete against the world with your best players (Ice Hockey, NBA, American Football, Baseball).. :

LOL! Silly, ignorant, irrelevant European.

Take the "World Series"... mostly teams from the US and a few token ones from Canada... and the have the nerve to call the winner the World champion... HAHAHA..

There is nothing close to the level of competition in MLB anywhere else in the world. The Japanese and Korean leagues are on par with some of the better minor leagues. There are certainly many players in MLB from Venezuela, Mexico, Cuba, the DR, and Canada where the game is very, very popular.

But most MLB players are American. That includes most the great ones.

It is fairly said that the dream of every baseball player to play on a MLB team.

Manchester United is one of the 10 most valuable sports franchises in the world. The New York Yankees are too. The other 8 are NFL teams. Every professional sports league in the world would give its left nut to have the success that the major American leagues have.

There is no "World Series" in soccer. The World Cup is more like an olympics for soccer and isn't an attemp to determine a championship team.

The Super Bowl remains the world's most watched sporting event. No other single sport match comes close to its cachet. UEFA is a joke and they out-and-out lie about their viewership.

The only major sport that really has international competition is the same one that is the only sport that sponsors intergender competition and permits men and women to compete on equal footing. That sport would be tennis.

 

[samjones]

Which part of 'what countries participate in the world series' did you struggle to grasp? It's a straightforward question.... how about just a number.... how many countries compete against each other in the world series?

2

But no countries are specifically excluded. It only happens that the US and Canada are the only countries that have the financial resources and the interest to sponsor a team. If the drug cartels quiet down, it's not hard to imagine a team relocating to Monterrey, Mexico or to San Juan, P.R. (if you would consider that to be a different "country")

 

[tigerbob]

LOL! Silly, ignorant, irrelevant European.

Take the "World Series"... mostly teams from the US and a few token ones from Canada... and the have the nerve to call the winner the World champion... HAHAHA..

There is nothing close to the level of competition in MLB anywhere else in the world. The Japanese and Korean leagues are on par with some of the better minor leagues. There are certainly many players in MLB from Venezuela, Mexico, Cuba, the DR, and Canada where the game is very, very popular.

But most MLB players are American. That includes most the great ones.

It is fairly said that the dream of every baseball player to play on a MLB team.

Manchester United is one of the 10 most valuable sports franchises in the world. The New York Yankees are too. The other 8 are NFL teams. Every professional sports league in the world would give its left nut to have the success that the major American leagues have.

There is no "World Series" in soccer. The World Cup is more like an olympics for soccer and isn't an attemp to determine a championship team.

The Super Bowl remains the world's most watched sporting event. No other single sport match comes close to its cachet. UEFA is a joke and they out-and-out lie about their viewership.

The only major sport that really has international competition is the same one that is the only sport that sponsors intergender competition and permits men and women to compete on equal footing. That sport would be tennis.

According to Forbes last year, the top 10 franchises by value were:

1. Man United - $1.86bn
2. Dallas Cowboys - $1.81
3. NY Yankees - $1.70
4. Washington Redskins - $1.55
5. Real Madrid - $1.55
6. NE Patriots - $1.37
7. Arsenal - $1.19
8. NY Giants - $1.18
9. Houston Texans - $1.17
10. NY Jets - $1.14

Top places for other sports are

Formula 1 (13 - Ferrari - $1.07)
Basketball (47 - NY Knicks - $655m)

All NFL teams are in the Top 50. The lowest of these are the Jaguars at $725. There are 8 soccer teams, 6 Baseball, and two each for hoops and F1. Full Top 50 available here.

The World's 50 Most Valuable Sports Teams - Forbes

 

[TruthSeeker56]

What countries participate in the 'world series'?

Check the roster of any team in the majors. The smelly Europeans can't grasp the fact that professional sport in the US did not develop as an extention of 'my inbred ancestors 10,000 years ago flung shit at your inbred ancestors over a patch of gassy swampland.' They also can't comprehend that although we go home from every Olympic games with crates stuffed full of most of the medals, our handball and rugby squads do not represent the finest athletes in all the US. Hell, even in Olympic sports where many of our pro athletes participate it is basically like that sport's All Star game, and anyone can tell you how those games compare to the regular season. Relatively insignificant countries try to convince themselves that the outcome reflects on their national worth because it is the only shot they've got to claim any.

Which part of 'what countries participate in the world series' did you struggle to grasp? It's a straightforward question.... how about just a number.... how many countries compete against each other in the world series?

Hopefully this will SHUT YOU UP:

Here is a list of the countries that have been represented in Major League Baseball. Looks almost like a list of Olympics participants to me.

Afghanistan
Australia
Austria
Bahamas
Belgium
Brazil
Canada
China
Colombia
Cuba
Denmark
Dominican Republic
England
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Honduras
Indonesia
Ireland
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Mexico
Netherlands
Nicaragua
Norway
Panama
Philippines
Poland
Russia
Saudi Arabia
Scotland
Singapore
South Korea
South Vietnam
Soviet Union
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Republic of China (Taiwan)
Venezuela
Wales
West Germany

 

[TruthSeeker56]

behind the World Cup, the Super Bowl, World Series etc

Because the staple of the Summer Olympics is track and field.

And track and field has become irrelevant since the 1970s.

Add to that the loss of the Cold War good vs evil (The West vs Soviet Union, East Germany) etc....

I'm with you, ginscpy. I used to love to watch the Olympics, both summer and winter. So many great moments!

But, since the 1992 Summer Olympics and the first U.S. basketball "dream team", I have to say that my interest has really waned.

You are absolutely correct about the "Cold War" element that used to be heavily involved in the Olympics. It was the USSR, the Soviet bloc countries and even Cuba, versus everybody else. It made for great drama, and also a lot of controversy.

Who could ever forget the 1972 SHAFTING that the U.S. basketball team got, or the 1980 U.S. hockey team upsetting the vaunted USSR hockey team?

Those days are long gone. Today's Olympic games are full of "political correctness" and corporate sponsor pimps.

I don't rate the Olympics as low as I do SOCCER, but it's getting close.

Random facts for all of the "foreigners" in here who are trying to build up their cheezy "sports" and make feeble attempts to compare them to American football, baseball, basketball, and hockey:

1. American adults have found a cure for INSOMIA..........it's called "SOCCER". In the USA, soccer is very popular with pre-teen children. After that, soccer becomes a sport for outcasts, geeks, Euro-wannabes, and men and women who don't have a life or suck at "American" sports.

2. In the USA, "cricket" is not a sport. A "cricket" is an obnoxious little grasshopper relative that makes a lot of noise at night.

3. Americans have their own version of "Formula One" racing. It's called "go-karts".

4. In the USA, "football" is played by large and strong men, fast and physically superior men, intelligent and physically gifted men, and mean and nasty men with physical talent, who wear an assortment of body protection, because the sport of American football is the most violent and physically demanding sport in the WORLD.

5. In the USA, "football" does not involve a bunch of men running around in shorts and golf shirts, kicking a ball back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth, aiming for a really big hockey net, with the hope that SOMEBODY will kick the ball past the net goalie, so the soccer "match" will end on time, and before everybody in the crowd falls asleep or commits suicide.

 

[rightwinger]

I really don't care about the Olympics anymore. I will watch if nothing else is on. I used to be a big fan of Track and Field. Now, it is all professionals and everyone is chemically enhanced. Olympic boxing used to be where you could see the next group of champions....now, they hardly show it. Watching pros in basketball is just another All Star game against amateur teams

The end of the modern Olympic games was when they added Synchronized Swimming

 

[Unkotare]

The problem with the Olympics is that the coverage of it sucks here in the US.

 

[ginscpy]

Letting pros into the Olympics ie the Dream Team of NBA stars exposed the Olypmics for the sham it is.

 

[tigerbob]

Letting pros into the Olympics ie the Dream Team of NBA stars exposed the Olypmics for the sham it is.

To a degree. But for the majority of participants, competing at the Olympics still represents the highlight of their career.

 

[rightwinger]

Letting pros into the Olympics ie the Dream Team of NBA stars exposed the Olypmics for the sham it is.

To a degree. But for the majority of participants, competing at the Olympics still represents the highlight of their career.

In many "amateur" sports, it does.

In sports like basketball, hockey, tennis and soccer it is just a diversion

 

[tigerbob]

Letting pros into the Olympics ie the Dream Team of NBA stars exposed the Olypmics for the sham it is.

To a degree. But for the majority of participants, competing at the Olympics still represents the highlight of their career.

In many "amatuer" sports, it does.

In sports like basketball, hockey, tennis and soccer it is just a diversion

Yes, precisely. But the majority of Olympic competition is still the pinnacle of a career, even in track where the the top athletes can hardly be said to be amateur anymore.

 

[rightwinger]

To a degree. But for the majority of participants, competing at the Olympics still represents the highlight of their career.

In many "amatuer" sports, it does.

In sports like basketball, hockey, tennis and soccer it is just a diversion

Yes, precisely. But the majority of Olympic competition is still the pinnacle of a career, even in track where the the top athletes can hardly be said to be amateur anymore.

I remember when track athletes would join the Army so that they could be supported while they train. They tried a pro circuit, but it failed miserably

Problem with track and swimming is that Americans only care about it ever four years

 

[ginscpy]

Millionaires competing in the Olympics goes against the Olympic ideal.

ie Dream team NBA players...

Olympics became a sham when they let the pros in

 

[ginscpy]

The USA All-Pros Odefeated GB by about 50 points

x-citing

Gurentee there would have no controversy in 1972 when the USA lost to theRussins in the Gold Medal game. - If proshad been allowed.

 

[Dr Grump]

The Super Bowl remains the world's most watched sporting event. No other single sport match comes close to its cachet. UEFA is a joke and they out-and-out lie about their viewership.

You are dreaming Sam...I can believe it would be the most watched game in the US, but not the World. The Olympics and soccer world cup are. And if you can prove that UEFA lies about its figures, please prove it.

At the end of the day three of the most boring sports in the world - Baseball, American football and ice hockey - are played in the US. Basketball is OK, but is something that is acquired taste.

With the size of the US economy I am not surprised that Forbes puts US franchises in the top ten. But it due to the size of the economy, not hte popularity of the sport in a world wide context

 

[rightwinger]

The Super Bowl remains the world's most watched sporting event. No other single sport match comes close to its cachet. UEFA is a joke and they out-and-out lie about their viewership.

You are dreaming Sam...I can believe it would be the most watched game in the US, but not the World. The Olympics and soccer world cup are. And if you can prove that UEFA lies about its figures, please prove it.

At the end of the day three of the most boring sports in the world - Baseball, American football and ice hockey - are played in the US. Basketball is OK, but is something that is acquired taste.

With the size of the US economy I am not surprised that Forbes puts US franchises in the top ten. But it due to the size of the economy, not hte popularity of the sport in a world wide context

Soccer sucks...no way around it

 

[Dr Grump]

The Super Bowl remains the world's most watched sporting event. No other single sport match comes close to its cachet. UEFA is a joke and they out-and-out lie about their viewership.

You are dreaming Sam...I can believe it would be the most watched game in the US, but not the World. The Olympics and soccer world cup are. And if you can prove that UEFA lies about its figures, please prove it.

At the end of the day three of the most boring sports in the world - Baseball, American football and ice hockey - are played in the US. Basketball is OK, but is something that is acquired taste.

With the size of the US economy I am not surprised that Forbes puts US franchises in the top ten. But it due to the size of the economy, not hte popularity of the sport in a world wide context

Soccer sucks...no way around it

Because the 2 billion people around the world who watch and play it say so...