Short attention spans are killing sport
Roar Guru By sheek, 14 Oct 2009 The Crowd is a Roar Guru
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- BC Marathon, Cricket, Horse Racing, Melbourne Cup, netball, Sevens rugby, Twenty20, US Breeders Cup
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Australian batsman Andrew Symonds in the Twenty20 match, Australia v New Zealand - AAP Image/Tony McDonough
I guess it’s the society we live in today – everything is instant gratification. If someone or something can’t get your attention in the first five to ten seconds, you’re outta here!
While playing around on Google, I looked up the US Breeders Cup horse racing series, looking for some related info for a possible upcoming article.
I noticed they have a new race called the BC Marathon, run over 1 and 3/4 miles, or about 2800 metres.
It would be a marathon for American horses, because the only graded race over that distance in the States is the grade (group) 2 San Juan Capistrano Handicap run at Santa Anita.
In the US, they have no races run over the Melbourne Cup distance of 3200 metres (about two miles). Not yet a marathon for our horses, but probably will become so in due course.
Once upon a time, the capital city cup in each state was run over this distance – 3200 metres – in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth.
But now the Adelaide and Perth cups are back to 2400 metres.
Sydney and Brisbane are in danger of doing same. Additionally, the Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane cups have been down graded to group 2.
Like the US, Australia is moving towards miles and sprints races. Staying races could be a thing of the past. For breeders and owners, shorter races provide a quicker return on investments.
Bugger the aesthetics of racing!
In cricket, the Test format is dying from boredom and lack of love. Leading all-rounders Andy Flintoff (England) and Jacob Oram (New Zealand) have retired from Test cricket, but intend to continue playing LOM & T20.
Both are still young enough to continue playing Test cricket for another four or five years. But there’s too much money to be had in Twenty20 especially.
In rugby, the Sevens version has been admitted into the Olympic games. With the broad dissatisfaction with 15 man rugby, especially in Australia, 7s rugby might become the new king.
Quite unexpectedly, it might also provide a ‘coming together’ point for both union and league, at the expense of both the 15 and 13 man games.
Even netball is experimenting with an abridged form of their game. And years ago, tennis came up with the tie-breaker to shorten games.
In twenty years time, the Sydney-Hobart ocean classic yacht race might become the Sydney Harbour to Port Hacking dash yacht race!
But just to confuse the issue of shorter sport attention spans, we’re being inundated on TV and radio with a multitude of erectile dysfunction ads.
Hello? Hello? Is anyone still reading this?
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- BC Marathon, Cricket, Horse Racing, Melbourne Cup, netball, Sevens rugby, Twenty20, US Breeders Cup
October 14th 2009 @ 11:35am
Bay35Pablo said | October 14th 2009 @ 11:35am | Report comment
Sheek, I’m sorry, I don’t have the attention span to read the article, can you summarise it to me in 160 characters or less like an SMS?
Good article. I remember when Super League started, the avowed aim was that every game would be State of Origin quality. The only problem is, when they are all the same, nothing stands out.
That is the problem with cricket ODIs and 20/20, there are so many they all blur into one. Similarly Sevens rugby. it is bland. The truly great games have something to remember them by. The Greatest Test Match of All Time between the Wallabies and ABs. I still remember a ODI between the Windies and Aussies in about 1990 when it was rain shortened to about 30 overs, and was knife edge. Give me multiple 20/20 games, and it isn’t the same.
Bah, humbug. Bring back the golden days when it was all perfect!!!
October 14th 2009 @ 11:47am
sheek said | October 14th 2009 @ 11:47am | Report comment
Bay,
Good point about homogeneity. That’s the other problem – too much sameness, not enough variety!
October 14th 2009 @ 12:06pm
Chris said | October 14th 2009 @ 12:06pm | Report comment
I can’t really see sevens hurting League at all. Partly because I can’t see anyone but the most hardcore rugby fans waking up at 4am to watch the Sevens from Rio! Unfortunately many Australian’s (and most of East Asia for that matter) will miss this Olympics as it literally could not be in a worse time zone for us! Ah well, anything the keep the US TV stations happy.
October 14th 2009 @ 12:03pm
Working Class Rugger said | October 14th 2009 @ 12:03pm | Report comment
Sport seems to be the best indicator of exactly where Western Society sits at the moment. And its rather concerning if you pay any attention to history. The West has become increasingly superficial to the point that now sport has had to bastardize itself to remain relevant. Sad really. But true. All this actually suggests that at the very least a significant decline is long overdue or rapidly approaching. Romans anyone.
October 14th 2009 @ 12:19pm
Adam said | October 14th 2009 @ 12:19pm | Report comment
In all fairness not all sports have been shortened for the various sporting markets around the world. Baseball is the biggest example that I can think of. Here is a sport that goes for over 3 hours for one match and every side plays 162 matches a season. The average attendance for games is around 30,000. This puts the attendance numbers for a major league season in the 10′s of millions.
October 14th 2009 @ 1:38pm
Pippinu said | October 14th 2009 @ 1:38pm | Report comment
Sheek
good article and some terrific comments.
I am reminded that at one point, some scribe prophesised that a show like Gladiator (pretend sport condensed within a one hour TV how, designed to watch in your loungeroom with the whole family) would eventually supplant “real” sport as our preferred poison.
This has not happened, and in fact, the reverse is true.
Ten years on and we are all watching more live sport (in person and on TV) than ever before.
And all four football codes have kept the same time formats that have been in use for the best part of a century.
so there is some hope yet
October 15th 2009 @ 4:38pm
Republican said | October 15th 2009 @ 4:38pm | Report comment
Sheek.
Couldn’t agree more.
It has something to do with the evolution of I.T. me thinks. A culture has been evolving for generations now that is insatiably pre disposed to Instant gratification, with no appreciation of subtlety whatsoever.
Netball is now toying with the idea of compromising the real essence of the game due in part to an increasing pressure to survive in a saturated market place. This game is losing ground at the GR to Soccer apparently since Soccer is attracting both genders in droves. The modified game trialed in Manchester last week and not so subtly named the ‘World Series’ looked to all intents and purpose more like Basketball sadly. How ironic that Soccer really has not changed much at all in its long history yet it continues to dominate the world soporting landscape despite being akin to watching the grass grow!
Cheers
October 15th 2009 @ 7:40pm
vinay verma said | October 15th 2009 @ 7:40pm | Report comment
Well written,Sheek…dont give up on the subtlety and the longer form…good cricketers last longer.
October 15th 2009 @ 8:12pm
Freud of Football said | October 15th 2009 @ 8:12pm | Report comment
Cricket has been mentioned a few times here and test matches are really the only sport that still goes on for days, at least I can’t think of any other major sports where a single game (or whatever the sport is competed as) lasts such a long time. Although it should also be remembered that for a long time tests were timeless.
Sheek, excellent piece btw, you mentioned you can’t even watch a full days cricket anymore. I too used to sit down and watch full days of test math cricket on the box but can no longer do so, however this has more to do with life.
Since moving to Europe I’ve noticed how little time I actually have and I struggle to see how I ever managed to dedicate a full day to nothing other than watching test match cricket. One thing or the other takes time out of my day to the point that by midnight, after waking up at 6am I’m naffed and have had absolutely no “leisure” time with work, travel, errands, the Roar, family – time just flies by.
This is probably a good point when one talks about the decline of test cricket, no-one has the same amount of time that they once did, younger generations have their schedules filled up from a younger age and probably lack the time that test cricket requires to be loved.