Give me a playoff any day!
I know this isn’t about golf but I think it’s very relevant to what I was talking about a couple of weeks ago. Two weekends ago some of us mad people either stayed up or got up very early to experience the complete farce that was Mayweather v McGregor. I call it a farce because the outcome was one of the most predictable in boxing/fighting history. Conor McGregor, a very good boxer within the MMA bracket took on, in his first full professional boxing bout, possibly one of the best that has ever laced on gloves. I actually think he did himself and MMA proud by lasting into the 10th round and in the early rounds proved how handy a boxer he really is. But a farce it was as the outcome was pretty obvious. Therefore, the purse that the two fighters fought over - $400 million would make most of us roll our eyes at the very least and some of us, I have no doubt, very angry. But here’s the point: Unfortunately, they ‘earned it’ in the same way that I argued all sportsmen do. By being the highest profile practitioners in their sports they created a furore that was hardly warranted but it did mean that a record number of people signed up, and paid up, to watch them. And to some extent they were entertained, which is what it is all about. In fact I think this fight underlines my point that sports people are entertainers and they need to understand it. Conor McGregor understands it completely and his foul mouth rants, as unfortunate as they are, prove that he knows his marketplace and how to tap it. Did they hurt anyone or anything that weekend? I don’t think so – the money they shared was all put in a pot by those dying to see the outcome and who gladly parted with their £20ish to do so, so there was no robbery. Their relative sports couldn’t have had a much better outcome – MMA looked pretty good considering and boxing prevailed. Does it matter that I think it was a farce? No, because if too many of these non-events spring up then the audiences will drop and so will the money. You really can’t knock how it works but at the same time I feel a bit empty about the whole thing. Sport to me should be about the theatre of not knowing the outcome. You cannot script some sporting events and the drama that unfolds is pure gold – sometimes. Of course we have the option of just not giving them our money but I really do think this one fell into the bracket of ‘sports entertainment’. Give me a playoff between Jordan Spieth and Dustin Johnson any day and the ‘not knowing’ whether DJ’s enormous drive would land safely or not. That’s more like it!
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