What Is The Best Sport?: Fourth Round Analysis

This is in reference to the Funny Or Die “What Is The Best Sport? ‘ bracket!

Whoa whoa whoa there, hold up! What just happened? The first truly game changing upset went down last night and the Sports world is still reeling. Baseball and Football skated through to the “Finalized 4 ‘ while Hockey edged Soccer and Bowling, yes BOWLING, took down Basketball, yes BASKETBALL!

Voting closed last night at midnight with Bowling just narrowly edging Basketball for a ticket to the next round. I know. I ‘m just as surprised as you are and, yes, to answer your question, my worldview has shifted.

*I ‘d like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that I will be presenting a big check for $100 to the winning sport. That is all.*

ROUND 4 FINAL SCORES

TOP STORYLINES

Is Bowling actually the #BestSport? I ‘m now thinking that it might be!
I ‘ll be honest, I was baldly touting Basketball as the hands down favorite in this tournament from day one. But with Bowling ‘s exceptionally strong showing, my paradigm is shifting. Bending slowly but surely in the direction of bowling ‘s perfect balance of accessibility, gentle improvement curve, and just plain good old fashion family fun.

What other sport is a perfect first date AND a recreational league that is truly competitive? What other sport serves as weekend beacon for scheming suburban teens AND senior citizen activity groups? Bowling is unity, recreation, competition, and fucking fun. I ‘m on the Bowling bandwagon, baby, let ‘s ride this bad boy straight into the fucking sunset!

Hockey fends off surging Soccer
Lost in all the Bowling/Basketball hoopla is the fact that Hockey beat Soccer. Hockey has traditionally been more well established in the U.S. and Canada than Soccer, with the NHL being far more popular than the MLS in terms of the sport actually played on American soil and ice. However, it ‘s undeniable that Soccer has crept into American consciousness in the last decade and there is no question that Hockey has been sweating it big time. The Soccer surge in the States combined with the obvious international favoring of Soccer made it a clear favorite here against Hockey.

Hockey still has some life, though! The NHL is still shown on some cable stations. The Phoenix Coyotes still have not gone bankrupt. And until that all happens, they are still in the running in this #BestSport tournament.

WHO ‘S #TRENDING?

*TRENDING UP: Hard Hits!
Whether we ‘re talking balls, pins, pucks, or people, all 4 remaining sports depend on players hitting something very hard. And isn ‘t that the most basic form of competition. Pure brute force being applied in the most precise and focused way to knock the shit out of something.

*TRENDING DOWN: Internationally Popular Sports
Sure, Hockey is very popular in parts of non-American continents where it ‘s basically winter year round, and Baseball is popular in parts of Asia, but other than that, this is a a very Continental American final. South, Central, and North America are regularly brought together by their love of Baseball and Canada has the second most popular Football League in the world. More internationally popular sports like Surfing (Australia), Soccer (Everywhere), and Basketball (Every country who saw the Dream Team play), just couldn ‘t hold their own.

MATCHUP 2 WATCH

Hockey vs. Football
Two sports that require a lot of pads and a lot of gigantic people hitting other gigantic people will go head to head for the first time in history. For years, toothless Hockey-heads have decried Football as a slow, weaker version of the constant speed and full-on fighting that happens in their sport. Football-heads have mostly all forgotten that other sports exist. I wouldn ‘t go so far as to say this matchup decides the “Toughest ‘ Sport, after all Rugby, Boxing, MMA, Triathlon, Marathon, etc. could very easily claim that, but this matchup WILL decide who is toughest between sports that a lot of people regularly watch.

UPSET 2 WATCH

Bowling will beat Baseball
Sorry folks, we ‘re all on the Bowling train and this choo choo is destined to plow through bats and balls across the nation. Baseball has been predictably quietly dominant through the tournament so far but maybe they ‘ve been lulled to sleep by their steady progress? They can ‘t afford to sleep on Bowling with this kind of momentum. I just had a funny thought: What if you played baseball with a bowling ball? A lot of bunts and tagging runners out would be brutal and bloody. Pretty fun!