Its Monday. I know this can be fairly boring and the next weekend is so far away, so here are some random interesting facts that I would like you share with you.
Do you know who leads the Yankees in doubles? Its Jorge Posada, with 37.
In the 4 grand slams this year, Roger Federer lost 9 sets. In 28 matches. Henin has lost 3 sets in Wimbledon, and none in the US Open or French Open (she skipped Australia).
The most innings pitched in a season without giving up a run is 18, by Karl Spooner for the Dodgers in 1954. He pitched alright in 1955, then retired due to arm troubles.
Philadelphia puts up lots of historical markers around its streets. Over the weekend I found one commemorating the first batch of girl scout cookies and one showing the home of longtime Philadelphia A's manager Connie Mack.
The Pennsylvania liquor control board had $1.5 billion in income in the 05-06 fiscal year on wine and spirits.
Google maps now has a feature that allows you to calculate the shortest distance between 2 points on the globe, taking a circular path. I haven't yet figured out why this will be useful, but I know it will be.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Friday, September 7, 2007
Football (the kind where you use your feet)
I heard this morning on Sportscenter that the Women's world cup is starting next week. Now that I think about it I knew it was supposed to be at some point in 2007, but I had no idea it was next week. This could be my own fault, but I watch and read plenty of sports news so its not like I was being beaten over the head with this news.
Anyway, the tournament is being held in China. If you recall, they planned to hold the 2003 world cup in China, but the SARS outbreak forced them to move the tournament to the US. In the 4 previous world cups, the US team has won twice and finished 3rd twice, so there is reason for optimism unlike with the US men's team.
Yesterday I discussed the state of women's professional sports in the US. My general conclusion was that besides tennis, golf and maybe WNBA (its a stretch), very few people watch women's sports. However, I feel that when it comes to international events such as the world cup or olympics, people watch. Or at least I will.
Is this because I'm a big sports junkie and love watching competition at the highest level? Possibly, but I'm going to lean towards a sense of national pride. Thats what leads me to watch women's track or beach volleyball during the olympics (And here you thought it was just for the women in bikinis). So I'll probably watch parts of the women's world cup, especially when the US plays.
Side note #1: I mentioned yesterday that at times women's tennis is more popular than men's tennis. Well I don't like TV ratings as a metric buts its all I can think of using and here are articles from within the past 10 years mentioned higher ratings for women's matches than for men's.
article 1
article 2
Side note #2: The Rugby world cup (men's) is also starting this weekend. I'm not that much of a rugby fan, although I did get to watch some Gaelic football and hurling while in Ireland and those were lots of fun. So I'll probably also try and watch some rugby, even if its just an excuse to go to an Irish pub.
Anyway, the tournament is being held in China. If you recall, they planned to hold the 2003 world cup in China, but the SARS outbreak forced them to move the tournament to the US. In the 4 previous world cups, the US team has won twice and finished 3rd twice, so there is reason for optimism unlike with the US men's team.
Yesterday I discussed the state of women's professional sports in the US. My general conclusion was that besides tennis, golf and maybe WNBA (its a stretch), very few people watch women's sports. However, I feel that when it comes to international events such as the world cup or olympics, people watch. Or at least I will.
Is this because I'm a big sports junkie and love watching competition at the highest level? Possibly, but I'm going to lean towards a sense of national pride. Thats what leads me to watch women's track or beach volleyball during the olympics (And here you thought it was just for the women in bikinis). So I'll probably watch parts of the women's world cup, especially when the US plays.
Side note #1: I mentioned yesterday that at times women's tennis is more popular than men's tennis. Well I don't like TV ratings as a metric buts its all I can think of using and here are articles from within the past 10 years mentioned higher ratings for women's matches than for men's.
article 1
article 2
Side note #2: The Rugby world cup (men's) is also starting this weekend. I'm not that much of a rugby fan, although I did get to watch some Gaelic football and hurling while in Ireland and those were lots of fun. So I'll probably also try and watch some rugby, even if its just an excuse to go to an Irish pub.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Female sports
I got an interesting comment from Matt about the popularity of women's tennis in general compared to other women's professional sports. I'll focus my comments to US sports as I have no knowledge of how popular women's soccer is in Brazil or women's curling in Canada.
My research dug up the following women's professional sports:
Tennis
Golf
Softball
Football
Basketball (WNBA)
Boxing
Soccer (the WUSA apparently has plans to start again after disbanding)
There may be other professional leagues, but I didn't find any so even if they exist I doubt they are at a very high level.
Of these sports, I would presume that only tennis, golf, and maybe the WNBA could make a female athlete a "star". Now I don't have a well defined explanation for star, but lets just say that the women in the other sports are not getting endorsement deals and I cannot name any of them. I can name female soccer players, but thats just because I'll watch the US national team play.
I think its a safe statement that women's tennis is the biggest of these 3 based on the following criteria:
Money: The WBNA top salary is $100,000. In golf, 79 players have $100,000 so far this year with 5 over $1,000,000. In tennis, 114 women have earned $100,000 this year with 7 over $1,000,000. From these numbers tennis and golf are close.
Name recognition: I'm not a representative sample as I'm a very big tennis fan, but I'd imagine even the casual sports fan knew the Williams sisters and Sharapova and probably a couple of others like Henin or Hingis. For golf, Sorenstam is a big name, as is Michelle Wie, but I think it gets tough after that. If I tried hard enough I could come up with a few WNBA players, but I don't feel there is nearly as much name recognition. Of course, name recognition is very country dependent as the media focuses more on American athletes
So the question becomes why does tennis have the strongest women's sports program? Some possibilities:
1) Tradition: Women's tennis has been around longer than other sports and has gained a foot hold in the sports media.
2) Sex Appeal: Tennis players are more fit than golfers and more feminine (for lack of a better term) than many basketball players. I'm not sure how much of an effect this has but its certaintly something.
3) Similarities to men's game: In this regard, I think golf is more similar between the sexes, other than the distance they are hitting the ball. Tennis is somewhat similar between genders although the increases atheleticism in males has some effect on the playing styles.
Now if we compare the men's and women's version of any given game, tennis also has to be the closest in popularity. In fact, you could argue that at any given time women's tennis can be MORE popular than men's tennis, at least amongst people who consider themselves tennis fans. This depends of course on who the top players are, how deep the field is, blah blah blah.
So what does it all mean? I'm not sure, but the people at the WTA are definitely doing something right.
My research dug up the following women's professional sports:
Tennis
Golf
Softball
Football
Basketball (WNBA)
Boxing
Soccer (the WUSA apparently has plans to start again after disbanding)
There may be other professional leagues, but I didn't find any so even if they exist I doubt they are at a very high level.
Of these sports, I would presume that only tennis, golf, and maybe the WNBA could make a female athlete a "star". Now I don't have a well defined explanation for star, but lets just say that the women in the other sports are not getting endorsement deals and I cannot name any of them. I can name female soccer players, but thats just because I'll watch the US national team play.
I think its a safe statement that women's tennis is the biggest of these 3 based on the following criteria:
Money: The WBNA top salary is $100,000. In golf, 79 players have $100,000 so far this year with 5 over $1,000,000. In tennis, 114 women have earned $100,000 this year with 7 over $1,000,000. From these numbers tennis and golf are close.
Name recognition: I'm not a representative sample as I'm a very big tennis fan, but I'd imagine even the casual sports fan knew the Williams sisters and Sharapova and probably a couple of others like Henin or Hingis. For golf, Sorenstam is a big name, as is Michelle Wie, but I think it gets tough after that. If I tried hard enough I could come up with a few WNBA players, but I don't feel there is nearly as much name recognition. Of course, name recognition is very country dependent as the media focuses more on American athletes
So the question becomes why does tennis have the strongest women's sports program? Some possibilities:
1) Tradition: Women's tennis has been around longer than other sports and has gained a foot hold in the sports media.
2) Sex Appeal: Tennis players are more fit than golfers and more feminine (for lack of a better term) than many basketball players. I'm not sure how much of an effect this has but its certaintly something.
3) Similarities to men's game: In this regard, I think golf is more similar between the sexes, other than the distance they are hitting the ball. Tennis is somewhat similar between genders although the increases atheleticism in males has some effect on the playing styles.
Now if we compare the men's and women's version of any given game, tennis also has to be the closest in popularity. In fact, you could argue that at any given time women's tennis can be MORE popular than men's tennis, at least amongst people who consider themselves tennis fans. This depends of course on who the top players are, how deep the field is, blah blah blah.
So what does it all mean? I'm not sure, but the people at the WTA are definitely doing something right.
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