What is the point of a competition when the winner has already been decided? After writing my baseball-cricket article, inspired by my son’s dual American and Australian identity, the thought crossed my mind with the World Baseball Classic now underway.
Watching various world cups and other tournaments may be exciting, but anyone who follows certain competitions can narrow down the small group of teams most likely to take home the gold.
With football, funding is the biggest issue for smaller countries, which produce players that inevitably get poached by larger, more lucrative markets.
Not entirely analogous is the Cricket World Cup. If you are not from a traditional cricket-playing nation and do not have enough financial backing, the results remain skewed in favour of the usual suspects.
For example, when there was less money in the game and before basketball poached the tall, would-be cricketers, the West Indies had a strong and vibrant Test side. With respect to their Twenty20 abilities, their Test skills have seemingly gone by the wayside.
However, it does not have to be this way. When a sport has limited appeal outside of its traditional markets, it forces creativity.
Read the full article by Spencer Kassimir at Roar.