S1E70 · The Best Sport in the World: Pulse and Wallace

My personal and business goal is to be just a little bit better every day. I believe everyone, especially normal people, have a story to tell. The Virtus podcast exists to help us all find small ways of consistent improvement by discussing the journey and experiences of each of our guests. Big news, sports fans! I've decided to start calling everyone sports fans. I know I'm not exactly the jockey type, but I watched Hoosiers last night and I like sports now. We also like sports now, don't we Pulse? How about our local sports team, huh? How about that guy kicking the touchdown?

All fair, all fair. Running and leaning into a slam dunk, that was pretty cool. Jumping, hey. So, welcome to the Virtus Performance Podcast. This is episode number 71, I believe. Wow. I know, it's pretty cool. It's prime, too. I think it's 71. I like it, prime number. Prime? Is it? No, I don't think it is now. No, divisible by 3. 71? Yeah. No, it's not. No, it's not. 23 and a half? Yeah, it's not 4, not 5, not 6. Good. Can we go only 7 now? No, I reckon it is prime. So, the last 15 seconds is probably a good insight into the next hour and a half or so.

So, the plan for today is we are doing a podcast about sports. Yay! So, after knowing Polcie for a little while, I've known him as a man who loves his sports, and I also like my sports. It's fun to say sports instead of sport. Plural. Plural. Everything's better. Plural. I can think of worse things. Most things are better. Plural. I won't go where my brain was thinking. No. So, after being inspired by, I think, Aubrey Marcus, talking to one of his colleagues about the best sport in the world, we weren't overly happy with the result, which, to be honest, I can't remember what it was because I was so outraged.

I think they might have ended up with UFC or NFL as the best sport in the world. I disagree. We disagree wholeheartedly. So, what we've done is we've made a bracket. Yes, we have. A 32 team bracket. Teams to sport bracket. Sports. Not teams. Yeah, sorry. A 32 sport bracket, and what we're going to do is we're going to start eliminating sports one at a time and see who wins. So, we've spent the last six weeks researching and planning and sorting it out. Six hours, maybe, not weeks. Ten minutes. So, this is going to be our opinionated, under-researched view on what we think is the best sport.

We've got five factors. Criteria. Five criteria that we're going to rank the sports on. That criteria is the wow factor. Explain that to me. The wow factor, I thought, was more like your jaw-dropping feats. It's your moment. It's your thing. You look at it and you're just like, "How does someone do that? How does a team do that?" They do say sport is the best form of reality TV. Who says that? I've heard it before. I've read it somewhere. In a book? Yeah. On an article. Good. Do you reckon television companies spend so much money for sport?

No, I'm not arguing. We just don't know. Sport is unpredictable in itself. Which takes us to the second one, which is predictability. We want unpredictable sports. We want sports where we don't really know who's going to win. The underdogs can get up. We love an underdog. We all love an underdog. True story of an underdog. The third one is watchability. Can you sit there and watch a whole game or a whole race or a whole series? Obviously, being at the sport as well, we didn't talk about live-action sports. Yeah. I guess being on your couch and being at the venue is something completely different that will come into this debate.

Yes. The fourth is athleticism. Obviously, sheer athleticism, speed, strength, power, endurance. All these things are fairly important when it comes to sports. It's going to be quite difficult because a lot of these sports have different-- Physical capacities. Yeah, like who's the fittest athlete on earth? That's another show for another day. CrossFit didn't even come into the conversation. Yeah, just like who's fitter, a gymnast or a race car driver. You could have that debate. What's fitness? I guess if you listen to earlier podcasts, you might be able to work that out. That's true. The last one is mass appeal.

Of the seven point something, something billion people in the world, how many of them are paying attention to this sport? We only chose 32, so obviously we've left some out. There's a couple of honorable mentions. Or dishonorable mentions saying they're the 33rd to 42nd best sport. There's other sports that exist as well, but we didn't even think of them. We figure if we didn't think of them in our first 40 sports, then they're probably not great sports. We're looking at the list. We try to base it off what sports are in the Olympics because that has probably the largest global appeal in terms of sports, but that's an ever-changing dynamic.

Did you tell me rock climbing was in the Olympics in 2020? Yeah, because obviously the next Olympics is in Tokyo. The Japanese have -- when you're the host nation of the Olympics, you have a choice at what can come in and what can go out. So I'm pretty sure skateboarding is going to be in the Olympics. I'm pretty sure -- Skateboarding was one of our honorable mentions. Yeah, skateboarding was -- Didn't quite make it. Sorry, Tony Hawk fans. Is he still in? He might come back to win a gold medal for America. That would be impressive.

So if rock climbing is a sport, does that mean hiking is going to become a sport? That's just a form of running then, wouldn't it be? Hiking? Or walking? Walking is a sport. Race walking. That's outrageous. That will come into the track and field. From what I know, I think they're bringing baseball and softball back. Surfing. Surfing is coming in. I think there's some Olympics that are just trying to go down the route of the Winter Olympics and trying to appeal to that younger generation with the extreme sports. There's a bit more time and a bit more wow factor.

Yes. Wow. Indeed. So what were the sports that made the shortlist to not be good enough to be on the big list? So we've got skateboarding. Apologies to Tony Hawk. And friends. I could name some more. Rodney Mullen. Rick McCrank. Bob Burnquist. Bob Burnquist. Who's sponsored by Oakley? All these cool glasses. Squash, which I was disappointed about. We've got badminton, which is the fastest sport in the world. The fastest? Apparently the shuttlecock moves the fastest in the world. Don't quote me on that, but if you want some stats we'll put them in the show notes. What about jet fighter pilot racing?

Fastest ball law implement sport, shuttlecock. You know, it doesn't follow a parabolic flight curve. It doesn't? There's only one thing that doesn't follow a parabolic flight curve. Is that because it flies and then the feathers gain resistance and then it starts shutting down? If you hit it, it will get to a certain point and it will just drop straight down. Whereas any other projectile has a parabolic flight curve. There you go. Yeah, fun fact. It's going to be full of fun facts. I know so many. Lawn bowls, apologies to our older listeners. Apologies to our ABC viewers.

Is it still on ABC? I don't know. Do you know Jack Heverin on SCN? He's a local boy. He's like a sports broadcaster. He cut his teeth and got his jobs now like commentating NFL through becoming like the number one commentator in lawn bowls. No, Jack. Where did the term cutting your teeth come from? I don't know. It obviously comes back to when you're an infant and something happens. And you're cutting your teeth. Cutting your teeth. It's normally, I don't know where the analogy comes from. I like it though. Yeah, it's pretty good. We all know what it means.

Powerlifting? I don't know much about that. Lucky Coach Cam and a few others aren't in here. They'd probably argue against it not being part of the 32, but you know, it's a fantastic exponent of strength. Is powerlifting the three lifts? Squats, deads, bench. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, if we argue against CrossFit, we have to argue against, oh, maybe we do a 64 sport brackets. We need to do some more research. Boxing? We did twice as much as we did today. Yeah, boxing didn't make it. And some people say it's the purest of all sports, I assume.

I've never been a big fan. I don't understand the appeal. I know they're quite fit and everything. They are incredible athletes from being able to punch someone whilst simultaneously being punched in the head kind of deal. And obviously kickboxing and things like that go into that category. That did make it. We've got like UFC and MMA. We thought that was a bit more appealing than boxing. We'll get to that. We'll get to that. But I don't know. I think it's one of those sports that may be dying a little bit. Very corrupt as well. Yes, corruption isn't one of our five criteria.

The movie appeals to the older generation. But it's still very popular. Sailing didn't make it. Sailing. Olympic sport. Unfortunate. I don't know. It just doesn't. If the America Cup was a little bit, like if Australia's victory was a little bit earlier, then maybe it would win. Yeah. We've got lacrosse. Lacrosse didn't make it, unfortunately. More of an Americanised sport. Outside of college, I don't think it actually exists. No, there's international leagues in Europe and stuff, I assume. Europe? I think so. I think it's big in Europe. I just remember it from American Pie. Yeah. So obviously we haven't been.

No, we don't follow lacrosse. No, we play in the city. I've seen it. Do they? Yeah, there's a league. You know what I was shown in Bolivia of all places? Curling. Or hurling. No, hurling. Hurling's a Gaelic sport. Yes. It's incredible. It's like field hockey and footy. Yeah, it's like field hockey, lacrosse and footy all put together. They're literally taking jukes with whatever their paddle thing is and throwing it. It's a bit like golf. They do hurl it, yes. They hurl it like 60 metres. And it's just hectic. It's insane. So jump on YouTube for some hurling highlights if you're currently not driving your car.

We've also got motor racing. Speaking of driving cars, apologies to Rick Kelly for us not putting motor racing in there. To Mark Webber, he's not doing it anymore. I think he still drives a car though. Sebastian, I apologise. Sebastian Vettel. Correct. Daniel Ricardo. Motor racing is, I think, in terms of athletic prowess, awesome. In terms of, for me... I can't consider it a sport because it relies on the mechanical. Because they're not all the same cars. So does cycling, more or less. Yeah, but you still, the car's powered, the bike's powered by you. Correct. But where the car is, with motor racing, I feel as though if you've got the most money, you're probably going to win.

Well, you can buy the best driver, so yeah, probably. Not even that, you can have the best car. So I think with sports like that, I think... Technology is obviously a big proponent of it. ...a big driver, you can buy speed in that sport. You can buy being successful to a point. Obviously, if it was an equal playing field, which I think they've tried in the past, where they're all the same cars, it makes it a little bit interesting. But I think with those kind of sports, and apologies to all the motor racing fans out there, I just feel that if you're in a team, I don't think it's an equal playing field every time you go out to race.

Yeah, that's interesting. And obviously the two-wheeled version of that made it into the 32, so I'll obviously talk about that. That's a bit more creativity though, I think, a little bit. That will come into that once we have that debate. Yeah, good, good. I like it. So they're the sports, obviously, there's things like curling and... Yeah, there's a lot of sports we're doing. And horse racing. Oh, horse racing, yeah, that didn't make it, because obviously it's all the horse, and it's a little bit cruel sometimes. We like the motor racing too, it's all the car, really.

What about free diving? As in... Well, we didn't even have diving on there. Oh, yeah. Didn't have synchronized swimming either. Yeah, so we've missed a few, but... I'm pretty comfortable with the 32 we've got. It's a good 32. Do you want to start rolling through it? It's a little bit hard, because obviously we can't, it's all just done at random, so it's a bit hard to predict where they're going to come out, because obviously if one gets eliminated, it doesn't have a chance to come back in. Yeah, there is no plan B, there's no... There's no rep-a-charge.

No wild card. Yeah. Let's see how we go. Yeah, okay. So the first battle, round one, some would say. Yeah, match one. Match one. Water polo versus ice hockey. Now, as someone who doesn't really watch either sport... They're very similar. Are they? Well, yeah, in terms of numbers, and obviously the... Oh, in terms of the way the game is played. The way the game is played. Spot on. One's got sticks. Yeah. The other one's got a lot of... Both are very rough. If you're into, like, people getting hurt and getting roughed up... Are you into being roughed up?

That's another podcast for a later date. After Dark One. Well, here's how I look at it, right? I do not know water polo exists. Outside of the Olympics. Outside of the Olympics. However, come Olympics, I will watch some water polo. That is quite successful. I'm not that prerequisite of trying to work out which one's better sport. It's not one of the first five, mate. It's quite skillful. Can be a bit boring at times. Water polo. They just kind of flop around in the pool. It's a little like soccer in terms of the... Tactics as well. Tactics, yes.

And it's very hard to score. Most games are seven to six. I can't remember how long they actually play for. A lot of things happening underwater which you can't really view as well. Fortunately so? Apparently they grab you on the bits and stuff like that. It's very big in the European block. The grabbing on the bits or the water polo? The water polo. The stronger countries tend to come from the European countries. Eastern European block. Ice hockey, I think, from a... It's a very good sport to watch. From a wow factor, ice hockey, because people get punched in the head every now and again.

I think we forget to think about the fact that the way that they can move on ice. Because that's a skill within itself. Agreed. Being able to skate. From an athleticism point of view, is being able to skate or being able to keep yourself above water better? Which one is? I think ice hockey. I think athleticism, ice hockey, watchability, ice hockey, wow factor. I think ice hockey is more of a 360 degree game as well. Whereas water polo tends to only happen in half. It's very 180 based. Correct. It's very invasion gamey. Yeah, obviously it's got a goal as well.

It probably can get a little bit... They've got a shot clock which speeds it up a little bit. But it's pretty much one team swims the ball down and tries to score a goal and the other one. Which is similar to ice hockey in a way, but it's a bit more creative. What they can do... People counter attack maybe? Yeah. Similar in the fact that they can both get sent off and put it in the penalty box. My love for the mighty ducks might see me this one through I reckon. Make a call mate. I think it's going to be ice hockey.

Ice hockey, oh the winner. Good. So round two, match two. Yeah. Skiing and boarding versus equestrian. Now these are two groups of sports. Well equestrian can be three things from my knowledge and apologies to the equine fans out there. Equestrian from what I know and what I've watched at the Olympics is you've got... It's a three event. It's made up of three events. So you've got your dress art which the horse does all the crazy stuff in the rectangle with the sand. Like dances to music and stuff. You've got the cross country which I think is the coolest part of it where they just try and whip around this course and jump over stuff and like go over water and...

Just get it done. That's cool. And then the last part of it is just the show jumping where they jump over the different coloured fences. My question for you, why did equestrian make it and horse riding didn't? Because one's making them go fast, the other one's making them do weird shit. Yeah well I'm not a big fan of horse racing. We talked about corrupt sports and stuff like that too, I think it's up there. If you want to put horse racing in you could put greyhounds in. Yep, but you don't see any little people, any four year olds riding a greyhound.

That would be something to watch for. Watch that sport. Watchability, if anyone from Fox Sports is listening. The Ocho, ESPN 8. Yeah so equestrian, skiing and boarding, that's such a broad one, you've got winter Olympics. I wanted to put winter Olympics as a single sport. So you've got skiing, so you've got downhill skiing, you've got slalom, you've got super G, you've got ski jumping, you've got... I have superior... Like border cross and ski cross and they've got half pipe. I have incredible respect for all boarders and skiers because it's such a scary, intense sport. Look at old mate Lydia, knocking over the gold for the aerial skiing.

I think to be honest... We haven't even put ice skating on the list. It's not really a sport mate, it's more like dancing. We'll talk about that to Steve Bradbury. He fell over. Yeah but that's a memory we have, but how about all the other athletes? No no, it's definitely a sport, I'm being facetious. There's short truck and long truck, have you ever seen short? That's good to watch. We'll put that in the dishonorable mentions as well. We're going to come up with lots of dishonorable mentions as we go. Are we going to get caught off track?

Skiing and boarding... Are we going to fall off the side of the mountain? You've got to almost think here, there's that equestrian, because skiing and boarding are so broad. So if I had a choice of what I wanted to watch and it was on Fox Sports, one was on 503, one was on 504, I would probably lean towards the skiing and boarding. So would I, purely wow factor, like you watch... Like the guys on the snowboards in the halfpipe and stuff like that, that's pretty impressive. And Snowboard Cross is pretty cool to watch. Yeah for sure.

People going to ask over tit and doing all those kind of things. And you've got a number of different elements there that you can look into. You've got like speed and you've got creativity. And obviously we haven't really broken it down enough to pick an individual sport against an individual sport, but skiing and boarding wins, as far as I'm concerned. Yeah I don't have an issue with that. Well apologies if you do love your horses, you can probably turn off now. Nice place, isn't it? Skiing and boarding. But I think we're going to have to be careful with that because...

It beats ice hockey. We'll get to that. We'll get to round two. Alright, so game three, rowing and handball. Ooh. So, you know, is this the same as we were told at school, European handball? It's just called team handball, or just handball. What about if you're not in Europe, it's called European handball? I think we call it European handball, but we can just call it handball. Is it actually origins from Europe? Um, that I don't know. I think so. A lot of the big soccer clubs in Europe have handball teams. That's pretty cool. Yeah, like basketball clubs.

So they're big entities over there and have handball, basketball, clubs like Barcelona and all those have teams. Rolling. I think rowing... Is that kayaking as well, like that crazy stuff that have to go through the gates? What's it called, slalom kayaking? Yeah, that's cool. I'd put rowing as just a... Because I do have canoeing and kayaking rowing. And what's it, eights? Yeah, the single skull. The double skull? Yes. Two k's, just flatten that guy. Oh, mate, it's... I've never been in a rowboat that's not a dinghy, but... Well, you've got an ergo here, which is... We've got an ergo, which, not quite the same, but I'm sure it gives us some taste and it sucks.

Yeah. Six minutes on it, just blows your lungs to pieces. So I think... Steeped in history rowing, like a lot of the major universities around the world and those kind of things. Yeah, true, we also, you know... It's pretty, like, it's just two k's in Australia. We've got things that are steeped in history, though, that doesn't really do it for me. I know, I'm just bringing it to the table. I think handball's quite exciting. It's not a very popular sport in Australia. If you're listening to my earlier podcasts, you'll probably find that I'm not quite a strong advocate for handball.

You are, and it's come up before. So, you know, to be honest, I don't really have an opinion on these two sports. I can take it, I'll leave it. Why would you rather watch on TV? Rowing, you'd flick it over and then see what else is, and then come back and it'd be in exactly the same spot. Do they stand ball in that, Tom? In rowing, yeah, that's it. In rowing, I think it's one of the sports that even the athletes lay down every now and again. Lay down Sally. Stab. Shout out to her. Whatever happened to her?

I think she's still laying down. She's still laying down. Doing her best work. That's the kind of position. I'd watch handball. Yeah. If you ever get the opportunity, if you do, go to Europe or... There's no real wow factor for rowing. They do cool things in handball. How do they make it in? How do they what? How did rowing make it into the 32? I think it's, so watchability and wow factor, not really. If they're close, it's cool, but then you can't really tell because the camera's in a weird spot. Yeah. Well, it's hard to actually...

Massive deal. No, predictability... Produced on TV. Yeah, correct. Because obviously it's a 2K race. Drones, mate. Get into drones. I'm sure drones would be a leap to watch rowing. Well, you should go up and cut some legs and go to the National State Rowing Center. National Water Sports Center. And apologies to Charlie Shaw and Wade Cording, if you're listening. Yeah, that's a whole 'nother story. We might have to do a little bracket for all the extreme sports. I mean, other sports. Freestyle. Yeah. Couple of stuff. There we go. Athleticism is probably why rowing made it, because it's just exceptional, pure anaerobic power.

They've had quite a large... Tank. ...aerobic capacity as well. I'd love to see the VO2 max of a rower compared to, say, like, our traditional endurance... Yeah, they have a big, big tank. Like, two fish in a tank. Hmm? Two fish in a tank. One goes to the other one. Who's driving this thing? That's poor. I think handball, that wins that one. Ooh, yep. Yep, agreed. Alright, now this is a big one. Well, a big one that I think we can argue about. Cricket or golf? The next two are quite big, actually, in terms of Australian sports.

Yeah, cricket or golf? What wins? I think cricket. Why? It's a lot more exciting than golf is. Golf would be a sport I'd watch if there was nothing else on 'em. I'll watch cricket before I watch golf. See, cricket and golf are two sports that I would... And I very rarely flick. I very rarely sit in front of the TV. But if I was sitting in front of the TV and there was cricket and golf on, I would flick between the two and it would make up about half of the entertainment value I'm looking for. So...

They're even. Is that what you're trying to say? They're even in terms of shitness. What would you rather play? Because I do thoroughly enjoy golf. I did play some X golf last week. If anyone's down in Moynston, get down to X golf. Oh, and mini golf? Is that coming too? Mini golf is fun. I don't know. In terms of mass appeal, it probably adds to it. I think cricket. Mass appeal. Like India. Mate, Tiger won again. Yeah, but... Hit around him. Shout out to Tiger if you'll think. Sure is. Be disappointed with the way this is going.

I think cricket have done a great job in obviously changing their game, so it's more... It's pretty impressive. Watchability, wow factor and athleticism. I think with the introduction of 2020, it's made it a lot more watchable. Yeah. Like if you were just creating some test matches... IPL, et cetera, et cetera. So expensive. If we're in the subcontinent, then it's a no brainer. Yeah. We're not though. Not a truly world sport, more of your Commonwealth kind of style sport. Yeah. There's a lot of younger developing nations becoming... I think golf, from an athleticism point of view, isn't where it needs to be.

Obviously they're becoming more athletic, however... Yeah, you see books like John Daly and stuff like that. I don't know. Golf is watchability. You don't know. It's like a cricket. It's like a test match. You don't know the winner for four days. Correct, and no one likes that, so I think cricket wins. I think cricket can, with its 2020 and stuff like that, cricket wins that one. And so the next one is a bit of a toughie. Well this is where there's flaws in the way the sports come out, because we've got two quite popular sports. But I'm okay with having two popular sports, because the winner wins anyway.

Yeah, true, true. So we've got AFL and netball for those playing at home. I think netball is a sport that often gets underestimated by the male population at how skillful it is. Yeah. Being a PE teacher. It's speedy. It is very speedy, and the girls and the men that play it, because obviously men are... Bryce Rowley, get around him. Yeah, he represented Australia, I saw. Yeah, he did. Yeah, which is good. It's a good social game, netball. Obviously a nice, small, tight deck to play on. Yeah, not good in terms of injuries and stuff like that, but you could argue with that with a lot of sports.

I just think, in terms of watchability, if you were to sit down and not know the game of netball, you'd really find it difficult to understand what was actually going on. There was a lot of whistles. A lot of stopping and starting. A lot of stopping and starting. A lot of strange rules. No running with the ball, that freaks me out. Yeah, I get that. And I think it teaches you a lot about zoning and communication with your teammates, which is an important skill. Positioning. But, two, I think it's becoming more and more athletic in terms of days in the past, you've probably seen some golf shooters that wouldn't fit the type of an athletic style.

And also, two, I think the taller you are, it creates a bit of an unfair advantage just with the rules that are basic. It doesn't make it a fair... And I know that's not the person's fault, that they're extremely tall. And it just seems like they have an unfair advantage. I don't know, I like netball, but I can't see it beating this game. It does beat footy, it's as simple as that. No, footy is a 1-3-6 game. It's a 360 degree game, aerial ping pong. I don't want to see send bias. Big crash tackles, skillful left and right, you've got your steel side bottoms and your magic doors.

It's a game for everyone, you can be all shapes and sizes and still have a role to play. Correct, and I think having 18 different positions, it's one that's made for multiple body types. Netball, obviously, you've got your taller defenders and shooter-shooters, and then your speedier wingers and centres. I think, too, it's hard because Australia is the hub of netball. It's a common law sport, not like Australian rules. I was going to not bring that up because, you know, obviously the international rules series kind of... That's why they don't even play the Australian rules. ...went down the gurgle a little bit.

I think they play every team. The international series, it's on every year. It'll be interesting to see in 20 years if there's all that development in other countries with our wonderful sport. If you look at Wow Faka, I know what I would want to be watching, athleticism. Just the contact element of AFL and the need to run, change direction with the ball, with contact, makes it more athletic than netball. Yeah. AFL wins? Sorry, KP. Yeah, sorry to all the netball fans. They probably go half out. They actually probably drop from eight to four. Yeah, AFL or Australian rules football, they never call it AFL.

You don't play Australian football league, you play Australian rules. Yeah, but calling it ARF is weird. All right, let's bring it in. Just call it footy. Footy, but then the people get upset. Aussie rules. All right, next one, tennis and rugby league. Now we're interested, very interested to hear your thoughts on this one, J-Pulse. Tennis is quite, I like tennis, but I only like tennis for like two weeks of the year when the strain opens in town. Yeah. I'd like to like tennis more, but. I hear more about tennis now when there's an outrageous thing said by one of the players than actually watching the game.

We're pretty golden era in terms of being able to watch guys like Federer and Djokovic and Nadal and like Serena Williams. And Gail Monfils. Gail, what a man. They're pretty remarkable athletes. They don't have off season. Skill sets impressive. Yeah, absolutely. Do you need an off season though? I don't think every athlete needs an off season, but they play 11 months of the year. There you go, they get a month of off season. Yeah. They're quite impressive, like particularly those Grand Slam matches, they can go, for the women, go two hours, two and a half hours.

The men can go five, six. Yeah, that's pretty hectic. From an athleticism point of view, it's huge. From a wow factor, when Fed and the Djokovic are playing, it's very enjoyable to watch. Rugby league's quite insular, like it's more of a Commonwealth game, it's not a worldly game. Yeah. Few Commonwealth games on the left side of the bracket. Yeah. Or sports. If I was choosing rugby, I'd choose union. Yeah. Did union make it? I hope so. Yes, it did. We'll get there. We'll get there. Yeah, I'd probably go tennis, to be honest. Tennis. And I can't believe I'm saying that.

Some of the rules in the league are very hard to accept as a person that enjoys Australian rules football. Yeah. You only get six goals and you've got to kick it. It's pretty weird. I kind of enjoy that because you've got a finite amount of time and a finite amount of plays to make something happen. Yeah. I'm changing my vote. I'm going rugby league. No, I'm sticking with tennis here. Alright, rock off. No, no, no. Let's flush this out. The rugby league, why are we talking wow factor? It's up there. Billy's shoulder charge. We'll go with the five.

Wow factor. Wow factor, I would say rugby league tries or tackles. I would say wow factor would be tennis because you get to a match point or a tie break and it's exceptional. Watchability is tennis for me. See, I'd say rugby. Tackles and stuff. I'll give you that one. So one all. Athleticism. Tennis. These guys just run in straight lines. Running straight lines. Yeah, but getting hit over and over again. That's not athletic. That means you've just got a concrete head. Yeah, but strong boys. Strength is an athletic. Okay, being able to produce absorb force with the skill to have the technical capabilities to put the ball where you want it.

Concentration. Concentration. Okay, tennis wins. Athleticism. So that's two to one. Mass appeal. Tennis much bigger. Tennis wins. Tennis wins. Bravo. Thank you. What have we got next? We've got baseball and softball you put into one sport, which I guess is sexist. I don't really know. Well, baseball is the male sport and softball is the female sport from what I know of. Not sexist then. I think they cross over a little bit. Yeah, same thing basically aren't they? They both have bases. They both have bats. They both have balls. They both have nine players on the diamond field.

Diamond? Baseball pitcher throws overhand. Softball pitcher throws underhand. And some of those softball pitchers are outrageous how fast they pitch. Oh yeah. Big windmill. It's very impressive. I like it. Generated by a lot of force. I think it's coming back, obviously with baseball being such a popular sport in Japan. I think it's coming back in Tokyo in 2020. Is it? Is it popular in Japan? Baseball is massive. Like outside of America, I'd say baseball is probably the biggest sport in the world. Maybe sumo. I don't know. In Japan you mean? No, yeah. For them, yeah. Baseball is massive over there.

Yeah, that's cool. Soccer I think is pretty big as well. Track and field though. I think track and field is the purest of all sports, so I don't have an issue with just bumping track and field across here. It wins for me in a second. There's so many things that I'm sure we're going to have to have a conversation. I think we're going to have a big conversation about it when we get the next round. Yeah, I think it's up there in the favourites in terms of winning this bracket, I feel. All right, so the next one is basketball and darts.

So, let me push a case for darts. I think you're putting it downhill fast. I think darts is the kind of sport that takes such fine motor skills. It's the only real target sport on the list. Yeah, and it's probably not an accident. I think, I don't know, darts, no athleticism really. Fine motor skills, impressive. I wouldn't, like it's only such a small part. Do you know they have to ban them from drinking beer? Why? Because it slows their reaction to them and makes them a better thrower. Yeah, it's like a beta blocker. Yeah, for sure.

But watching darts, though. Watchability, you see those guys that go crazy. Oh, mate. 180. It's recently come to Melbourne. It's always that around Christmas time. The world championship. I went and saw it a couple of years ago when the... Did you throw all the chairs in the middle? We were up on the first level, so we got a nice view of people being hit in the face by chairs. I think basketball. Basketball wins. Obviously. All the dart players out there. Yes. The next one's an interesting one, though. Yeah. Volleyball beat an indoor versus UFC MMA and we've got WWE.

I don't think WWE needs to be. Maybe for WWE. It's a bit of a guilty pleasure, Marty. It's a bit of a joke. Really? Yeah. Pulse. Oh yeah, we were more of an Undertaker fan. Triple H. I was Rock all the way. Yeah, okay, fair. The Rock. The Rock was the Hardy Boys. What was The Rock's... I like Shawn Michaels. Yeah. Never really watched it. But The Rock, what was his tagline? What was it? If you smell, The Rock is cool. That's right. Yeah, he's good. Okay, so WWE is not one of our 32 sports, obviously.

I don't think of this sport. It's like a male soap opera. Yeah, fair. With extreme athleticism and wow factor. It actually does pretty well on our criteria system, but it's not a sport, so carry on. UFC MMA, I think, is obviously... It's growing. It's the biggest, it's the fastest growing sport in the last decade. I'm not a watcher. I struggle to watch it. I understand it. We talked about boxing earlier. Yeah, I think it obviously trumps boxing because of the multi-layered aspect of mixed martial arts rather than it just being one of the many. I get it.

There's striking, there's grappling, there's... I think volleyball is a very underrated sport, though. Well, obviously, volleyball wouldn't have even been a conversation prior to meeting The Fizz and talking about it and watching it and being a little bit more in tune with what's going on. I think it's one of the biggest sports in China and some European countries. South America. It's big. There you go. That's more beach volleyball, right? No, no, Brazil is quite successful in indoor volleyball. Getting the pins out on America, on the beach. Quite strong. Big college sport. Yeah. Uh-uh. Yeah. See, I think...

I'm leaning towards volleyball, but that's probably because I have a bit of a disdain for UFC. Not a disdain, I just don't enjoy it. From a wow factor and watchability point of view, if the top guys are fighting UFC, then I will watch it. I don't watch many sports. Sorry, I don't watch many fights. I don't watch many of the USCs. They're up to like 228 or something, but in a couple of weeks, I will be diving in and watching Conor and Khabib. So, I don't know. I think UFC... Volleyballs, they're athletic. Yeah, but mass appeal, I would say UFC is probably bigger now.

Predictability, it's so unpredictable. Is it? Yeah. Like, the better guys usually win, as for most sports, but it takes one hit, one clip, one knee, one wrong decision, one wrong move. Probably when you've got the beach volleyball aspect of it as well. You're talking about like rigs? No. That's quite skill in itself, being able to absorb force in the sand. Good save. Good. I don't know why they've got rules for their female clothing compared to the male clothing. The males get to wear a lot more. They get to? Well, they have to. Well, they have to, I think.

That's unfortunate. Get the guys' rigs out. They're at board shorts and they go topless, or they can wear like a singlet, where the girls just wear bikini, which is a little bit unfair. It helps with moveability and things of that nature, I assume. Yeah. See, my vote would be for USC. Yeah. I'll let you pick. No. I think you're right. I just think volleyball. There's something just primal about watching people punch each other in the head. I'm not a fan of it, myself. You're a bit more of a lover instead of a fighter, though. You would say that.

I know it's pretty pure in terms of trying to beat one man. But I think volleyball has to... I think it's purest. Just two people in a cage, trying not to be killed. It has to win. I think so. Unfortunately for volleyball. Here's one you'll have a bit to say about. Cycling and NFL. Cycling wins hands down for me. NFL is one of the most boring sports I've ever watched. Look, I agree. A game that lasts for, is it 40 minutes, can go for like four hours? Forty minutes total playing time in the four hours. Is it 15 minute quarters?

To be honest, couldn't tell you. I know a lot of people like it and I've tried to watch it, but... Yeah, I agree. I don't get it. For me, it's like baseball. It's one of those sports that... Even basketball for mine, because I'm not a big basketball fan. It's one of those sports that I feel as though I should want to watch, but I just don't. But basketball is over in two hours. NFL goes with three and a half full. Think how much work you get done in two hours. Well, how much do you get done in four?

Yeah, twice as much even. Depends how productive you are. That's true. Productivity and busyness are two different things. Anyway, I digress. Well, cycling you've got mountain biking, you've got BMX, you've got road cycling. You've got the tour? Yeah, you've got your endurance, your grand tours and those kind of things. You've got time trials, you've got team time trials. You've got the velodrome, which is an underrated sport people kind of forget about between Olympics. Do you want a salad anymore? I think I don't have to. It's already written in. Cycling wins? Yeah, I know there's a lot of people that like American football, but in terms of the American sports, I'd take basketball before I take American football.

Agreed. Then baseball, softball, but then baseball. I'd take... Oh no, I'd take... I'd go basketball, ice hockey, then the next two. Doesn't matter? No. Well, I think from an athletic athleticism point of view, the sheer speed, strength, power from a NFL point of view is exceptional. Yeah. I'm not doubting that. Hats off to blokes like Lachie Edwards who just get tackled after they kick and stuff. He rarely gets tackled. No, he's a good kick though. I know Lachie, he's a great man, but like he waltzes on and kicks a ball and then waltzes off and probably doesn't come back onto the field fair.

It's very specialised in their position. It gets paid a lot of money to do so, and I understand it, but it's weird. You get like four chances to move the ball 10 yards. What's with you in sports that don't give you X amount of chances? It's just... yeah, I don't get it. Nah, play on, cycling wins for mine. Yeah, that's going to be a good match up in the next one. The next one's going to be a quickie, Olympic weightlifting, which, you know, the true test of... Strength? Or power? Oh, I'd say power. Of power. Strength and power.

And obviously the technique and technical aspect of it's huge. Flexibility? They're quite flexible. Yeah, mobility. Mobility, yeah. Versus motocross, which, you know, we obviously could split into like actual motos, motocross and... Supercross? And supercross, which frankly... Are we talking about like doing tricks and like shit? Uh, yeah. Excuse my French. Well, I think supercross is doing a little bit more of the old aerial play, some would say. Whereas motocross is just getting... Freestyle motocross. Yeah, freestyle motocross. Supercross is the racing one, isn't it? Yeah, it's still getting from A to B as quickly as you can, but going high at the same time.

Motocross is pretty intense. You know, after coaching and seeing a lot of the athletes from motocross compete, they are a different breed of human. Oh, no doubt. Those guys that do like the double backflips and stuff going over like those massive kills. There's the freestyle stuff, like the racing. That's what I'm thinking. The racing, they sit at like 160, 180 beats per minute for 20, 25 minutes. It's insane. Once again, though, I think you can buy victories in that content. Whereas the freestyle side of it is probably more up to the rider. Whereas the racing style things, like if you've got the most money, you're probably going to win.

If any of the boys I coach are listening, I would love to hear your thoughts on whether money can buy wins at the top level. Yeah. Or whether all of the teams are very... By speed, probably not wins. Yeah, good, by speed. Because obviously you need some luck and those kind of things along the way. Only weightlifting, take it or leave it. It's good to watch. Yeah, it's cool. Every four years you'd probably say, yeah, that's cool. Motocross wins. And you see like the smaller guys, like when the bar bends and stuff like that, that's pretty amazing.

You see this 52 kilo class. And you always see like a pretty, apologies, like you always see like a bad injury in the weightlifting. Yeah. Oh yeah, because motocross is free from injuries. I'm not a big motocross watcher, like I won't sit down and watch motocross. Neither will I, but that's partly because it's not really on free-to-wear TV. Yeah, no, I think motocross wins that. The next one, table tennis and gymnastics. I know what you want on boat form. It has to be gymnastics. Good, good. Your heart's saying table tennis, your head's saying gymnastics. Ah, no.

Aren't you the best table tennis player at Kewirop? Far from it. I think in terms of the athletic system, gymnasts are probably the strongest athletes in the world. Almost all-round athletes. All-round in terms of power, body positioning. Flexibility, coordination. Gymnastics is one of those sports. You've got a lot of gymnasts coming through the gym. We do have a lot and they are freaks. They can do some silly things. You throw a ball at them though and it's hilarious. Well unless they're rhythmic gymnastics, when they have to use the ball in the class. Yes, yeah, maybe. But I just stand on dancing here.

Is that a form of gymnastics? Dancing? Well cheerleading technically is gymnastics. That's what I learned at uni. Well it kind of goes gymnastics, sport-aerobics, cheerleading. Aerobics? Sport-aerobics. It's hectic. Oh no doubt. Calisthenics? Yeah, well yeah. A few people around here that do calisthenics. I think gymnastics has to win. Teams? It's quite, if you sit down and watch a gymnastics competition. I could watch it. The team event. Where they have all the different athletes come in and do their cheerleading. They all factor in watchability, it's just huge. It's just outrageous. Yeah and I think too, an

underrated watch is when at the end of the gymnastics where they all come together and produce like, that's a bit of a free round where they can do some crazy shit that's not within, that's like a gala. It's gymnastics gala at the end of every major competition. That's really good to watch. Yeah, I think gymnastics is easy peasy. Yeah table tennis is cool but it's more of a recreational game. Who can forget about. Professionals wouldn't say that but. Oh yeah but like, it's a great game. It's over pretty quick. The table's been folded up for a while, maybe we need to get it back out.

Get it rolling again. Beer pong. Beer pong? Oh yeah. Table tennis. It's a game for all, like a lot of people could play it. True. A lot of older people play it probably as well. Much like golf, you didn't give that much love so I reckon gymnastics it is. Yeah we can probably go on for a little bit for gymnastics, there's so many different elements. I'm sure we'll come back to it and seeing it won. Yeah. So the next one we've put the marathon and then ultra marathon endurance sport, endurance running in as one category. Mmm.

And I think it's the truest of all endurance sports because there's a set distance that truly loads up on your aerobic capacity but it's your ability to maintain a certain speed and obviously we just saw the world record broken a couple of weeks ago. What a humble man he is. What an incredible human. He's just, I just want to... Get him to do a podcast maybe? Yeah that'd be a leap. You get some contacts. Yeah. Speak to Nike. Speak to Nike, yeah. And it's just one of those, for him to be able to run, what was it, 201 for 30 something?

Yeah he broke it by like a minute and a half, 80 seconds I think in the end. Which is enormous in terms of shifting that needle that way. Yeah, that's like... He obviously tried to break two which was helped along with a lot of scientific research and not a sanctioned event. If you guys haven't seen the documentary Breaking Two I would highly recommend it. Yeah, the National Geographic one, the actual Breaking Two that Nike kind of produced. Yeah, it's fantastic. It's quite amazing. Australian involvement, Collis Birmingham was one of the pacers. There you go. Yeah, good old Collis.

Get around him. Share that with Collis. See if you're listening. It's coming up against surfing and I know Veritas has a lot of surfers. We do. Also, it probably has a few marathon runners as well. We do. I might be a little bit biased here so I'm going to have to let you probably decide. I've done a little bit of surfing but... Oh look, surfing is an incredible sport. I think to be able to do what they do on the board is pretty incredible. Like I said before, two fairly imitative sports. You kind of get into the zone and get to reconnect with your subconscious a little bit.

Something about the water. Yeah, being in the water and being out there by yourself. I think too, with the marathon and having run two, even proper ones, if you ever lose touch of what the human race is about, go watch a marathon. Everyone getting up and around each other. Yeah, it just makes you feel a lot better about yourself. Not a lot but you have faith in the human race after witnessing one of these events. Yeah, I like it. That's a good quote. I don't know if I've got it right. I'll verbatim correct but I'll find it and we'll pop it in the show notes.

Goosebumps. Yeah, they're amazing and hopefully when you go out there in a couple of weeks time and witness it around, you'll probably feel it too. I think marathon has to win. I apologise to all the surfers but... House currently by it. You've just been dumped. Oi. Hey. Yeah, I think marathon, you've got the 100 mile races, so 160k. Oh mate. Surf Coast Century, that's just pure, that's just pure man versus man. There's kind of a bit of a growing collective in the US starting to go further and further and it was called the Bigfoot 200, which is 200 miles, which ended up being 230 but they called it the 200 because I don't know why the hell not.

There's some good stories out there. Let's go further and further. If anyone wants to look up guys like Cam Haynes and guys like Courtney DeWalter, it's pretty crazy to see how far they run. Tick the legs over, eh? Australian guy, Madge Backhausen. He's a local, yeah, he's going well. He just took up running and now he's doing that kind of full time. Takes a different kind of person to be able to... Out on the trails too. There's a lot of good books out there on that kind of stuff. Good for you. Good for you. Alright, surfing loses.

Marathon's up. Yay. The next one, field hockey and swimming. I think it's pick one, I don't care. I think field hockey. Swimming, yeah. Swimming. We did come from the ocean once upon a time. Yeah, I think take swimming in terms of mass appeal, you've got to be in a privileged state to be able to swim. Not all countries have swimming pools or access to swimming pools. It's hard to forget about Eric the Eel from Sydney Olympics. That was outrageous. I used to train in a river or some shit with crocodiles in it. But I guess, yeah, field hockey I think is an underrated sport here in Australia.

Yeah, agreed. The athleticism. I played at school a bit, left wing, get around me. Watchability. I think the skills they have are very underestimated in terms of what they're able to produce. Once again, more of a Commonwealth style sport, but slowly branching out into other countries. So you've got countries like the Netherlands. You've just seen the pictures of the girls team, haven't you? Argentina, Malaysia, who's in the Commonwealth, so probably should take that one back. Oh, look, I think field hockey wins for the... Yeah, swimming is great, but once again, I think we live in a pretty privileged...

My geographical location for us to think swimming is a good sport. Yeah, hockey sticks aren't cheap. Swimming is not social. It's pretty boring to watch. Imagine... Open water swimming? Have you seen much of that? Oh, I've, no. I don't, but watch your tongue. Yeah, I think field hockey wins. I'll always watch field hockey come Olympics. Yeah, and they go nights for 70 minutes. I think they're down to an hour now, but it's crazy. Their athleticism is quite amazing, and they're fearless. Fearless, in terms of that ball. Yeah, no, I think field hockey wins. The next one's an interesting one for mine, because it's rugby union and soccer.

Rugby union is the better of the two rugbys, in my opinion. League lost to tennis, so it's not coming from an incredible place. I struggle with soccer. I think we talked about soccer in the last podcast I was in with Tommy. It would have been about World Cup time. I know it's quite a popular sport, in terms of its mass appeal. It's probably one of the most played sports in the world. I think it is categorically the most watched sport in the world. Yeah, it's played throughout the world. The ball's pretty boring. It just bounces up and down normally.

Straight, yes. It's a sphere, spherical. I think they're quite skillful. They are incredibly skillful, but to watch a 90-minute game for no result can be quite frustrating. Yeah, and that's the tactical nature of the sport. And it obviously is a very tactical game, with outside plays and formations. Rugby union, I think, is great to watch. I've been to the rugby sevens. That's amazing. That's something that you can watch. To be honest, I was probably going to throw my vote in the soccer ring until you mentioned rugby sevens. Rugby sevens is amazing. From a mass appeal point of view, soccer wins.

But, however, from a wow factor watchability and athleticism point of view, I think rugby union wins. It's hard. Mate, we're going to ruffle some feathers. I tend to agree with you. About ruffling feathers? About rugby union being a better sport than soccer, particularly with the introduction of sevens. I'm not one that just blows it off and doesn't watch it. I've tried to watch it. Being a self-confessed sports coach, I've actually never been to a live soccer game. And that will shock some people. And I just can't find myself wanting to. This is coming from a guy that would watch most things.

I'd potentially, if finances and time away permitted, would love to go to a World Cup. Because I think that would change my mind. That's like the Olympic effect, though. It's only once every four years. I struggle to watch it outside of those things. Yeah, that's true. I think rugby union wins, soccer loses. Sorry to the four billion people on earth who watched the last World Cup or whatever it was. Next one. This is your end of the world. We've got triathlon versus surf life-saving. Surf life-saving, obviously, a multitude of sports. But the old Uncle Toby Classic, whatever it was called back in the day.

Yeah, so I grew up as a kid really watching on a Sunday afternoon watching the Uncle Toby's online. I did come back from footy and I'd watch it. I remember. Loved it. Sunday afternoon in summer, Channel 10. I watched the surf life-saving. I watched Trevor Hendy catching bombs out the back. Predictability, it always threw up some interesting results. It'd be at the call of Mother Nature. It could be a big wave brewing out the back. And it just rolls someone from eighth to first. At first, yeah. And blocks like Kai Hurst and Shannon Eckstein. And nothing better than them.

And the women too. I've first seen a little bit of bias here because I've only named male athletes. Beach flags. Yeah, beach flags. The ski. The surf boats too. Yeah. But I still think triathlon, obviously it's a combination of three sports. I think it's a fantastic sport. I'm not going to try and pry away from this. I think surf life-saving is exceptional. But triathlon, the sheer ability to go from the swimming to the running to the riding. I think they do a better job at making it watchable with the introduction of the team events at the Olympics coming up.

So you're going to have those super fast events or super sprint events with four athletes from each country. Two males, two females. Oh, hello. It's exciting to see a triathlete kill themselves for 20 minutes and then pass over to the next people. So that would be interesting. And I guess watchability at an Olympic or a standard distance triathlon is over in two hours for the pros. So it fits nicely into a little television package. It does. It does. Whereas surf life-saving. Surf life-saving wins on watchability 100%. Yeah. It's the wow factor, I think. And funnily enough, both use the term Ironman.

Yeah. Who coined it? I don't know. I can track that. Who coined the phrase to coin a phrase? That is a question for another time. I think that concludes round one. That does conclude round one. So I think, because we've already spoken about the sports at length, I think this will be slightly quicker. Yes, indeed. We'll expedite the process for the final for '16. Yeah. Sweet 16, as they say in America. And the NCAA basketball tournament. So we go back to the top, I assume, to the left-hand side of the board. Round two of match one, ice hockey versus skiing and boarding.

I think it's ice hockey for me. Ooh, because I probably won't jump on the TV to watch ice hockey, but I do enjoy watching some skiing and boarding. I've never played ice hockey. I have slipped down a mountain on a board a couple of times. It makes it hard, because obviously we just discussed this before. Yeah, we fucked it up a bit. I'm okay with it. Ice hockey being a more pure sport. It's obviously a little bit more history behind ice hockey than there is around skiing and boarding, possibly. Maybe. Maybe. But I think the availability...

Ice hockey is like a predominantly North American kind of style sport, though. Yeah. I've played in some European countries in here, in Australia, but it doesn't have a lot of mass appeal. But you could probably argue the same thing with skiing and boarding. Oh, you've just got to have snug. Yeah, obviously coming from a location where there's not a lot of it. Oh, there's a bit going on at the moment. Yeah. Down at Hotham and Falls and whatnot. I mean, some areas. I don't know, it's a hard one for me. This is where the hard decisions are made.

I'm going to go skiing and boarding. I think it's ice hockey. I think we bring out the tiebreak. The rock off. I think in terms of sports, skiing and boarding is a group of sports, whereas ice hockey is a true sport. So pick the most impressive or the best sport within that group. Skiing and boarding. Yeah. What would you say? Because personally, I think it's going to be the half pipe or the freestyle terrain. We haven't even talked about cross-country skiing or the biathlon. They carry guns and just shoot stuff or shoot targets. Yeah. Drop their heart rate.

Yeah. I'll still think ice hockey because that skiing and boarding one is too broad for me. Okay. I don't know about you, but I'm happy. What are you thinking of skiing and boarding? I think aerial skiing. What do you think of that? And half pipe. Yeah. So I am more than happy to concede and ice hockey is the winner. Yes. Handball and cricket. Cricket. Losers. No, cricket wins. You reckon? Yeah. I reckon handball wins. Losers. I'm not a big cricket fan. I enjoy the enjoyment other people get out of cricket. So many people love it. I think 2020 is quite enjoyable.

Haven't watched enough handball, so to be honest, you've got the final call on this. You've got the final say. Oh, fuck that. It's probably cricket for our fellow hemisphere viewers, listeners. I would argue handball, but what do you reckon? I think cricket wins. You think? Yeah. We're in Australia. Yeah. Okay. AFL tennis. I think it's AFL. AFL wins, surely. Track and field and basketball. This is a 10 minute conversation for you. As much as I love basketball, I think still track and field wins. Track and field is the purest. As I said before, it's the purest that was put.

I think things like javelin and long jump and hurdles and things like that aren't... They're not the things I think about when I think track and field. I think your 1500s and your 5Ks and obviously your undies. I think everyone has... And everyone... Everyone has a different favourite event too. Yeah, I know, but what do people most remember about Olympics? Is it going to be the 100 metre sprint? Probably. Is that probably going to be the most viewed event in the Olympic Games? That's a really good question. We haven't done much Googling today, but I'm going to Google that.

I think it was. Most watched... I can remember back to the last Olympics when it was Usain versus Gatland. Yeah, that was pretty heavy. That was good. I remember watching it at school. It was crazy. Everyone was going to think it. Everyone was on Usain. And I think it's the blue ribbon event of the Olympics. And that's track and field. I'm a bit biased. I love track and field. If Twitter is anything to go by, Usain Bolt was the most talked about athlete at the last Olympics. There you go. I think that answers the question. I think basketball is great.

Unfortunately, it just fell... 2.1 million billion people watched the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games. In total? Yeah. It's kind of interesting. That is interesting. London Olympics is heading the list at the moment. More people watched the Olympics than watched the World Cup. I'd say track and field day of the week. I agree. Ooh, ooh. Other side of the board. Yeah, other side of the board. We've got 12 sports left. It's getting exciting. This is getting exciting. UFC and cycling. We're going to be split on this one, I reckon. It has to be UFC for me. I think it's cycling for me.

Okay. How do we decide? Are you going to let me throw out a rock, paper, scissors? No, that's just luck. Cycling is more variable. It's got different disciplines. UFC is just two guys. So the 18 different martial arts that can make up a UFC fighter's repertoire. Yeah, but that's still under the one. You've got mountain biking. You've got velodrome. You've got road racing. You've got jiu-jitsu. You've got karate. You've got tae kwon do. You've got striking kickboxing. You've got to combine them. No, I think you combine it to basically be within parameters but almost a

more pure sport because it's just, "Well, don't let that guy beat the hell out of you and you try to beat the hell out of him." I think for UFC, it's such an interesting sport because your strengths are going to be variable to the next person you fight's strengths. So it is quite difficult to find the best fighter because fighter A might be better than fighter B but fighter B might be better than fighter C and fighter C might be able to beat fighter A. I know if it had a choice, I'd be watching cycling. So what's the pinnacle event in cycling?

Tour? Probably the Tour de France. Do you think more people would watch the Tour de France or more people would watch Conor and Khabib in a couple of weeks? I don't know. Because I don't know the answer to that question. It might be the Tour. I don't know. How are we deciding? I think if you go by that, UFC wins that in terms of the amount of people watching it. You have to be really into cycling to watch the Tour de France. Yeah. I don't know the actual ratings of it. Yeah. Obviously, at its height, Lance fucked it up for everyone a little bit.

There's still questions about its validity. But obviously, UFC hasn't certainly not been free from doping allegations. It's obviously seemingly been... As I said, I'm in cycling squad, but I can understand why UFC beats it. I'm happy to take the lead on this one and pick UFC. Yeah. Okay. But gradually, I probably have to agree. UFC is going to dive deep, I think, after this. So motocross and gymnastics. Gymnastics wins simply for me. Simply? Simply. Simply. Yeah, I think gymnastics... I think with that, gymnastics, motocross wouldn't exist. Oh, good. Oh, the freestyle motocross. Anyway. Yeah. So I think gymnastics is...

And I think your argument against motorsports before it comes into this, when we're trying to pick from purity of the sport. Obviously, that wasn't one of our criteria. But I think what gymnasts are able to do with their bodies, and obviously what motocross athletes are able to do with their bodies and the bike, I think gymnastics has to win. Yeah, I agree. Marathon and field hockey. In terms of wow factor, it's field hockey. In terms of watchability, you'd probably argue that it's field hockey. Athleticism? Marathon. Has to be. Yeah. Obviously, since the dawn of time, mankind has been hunting beasts.

Yes, very true. Mass appeal? Oh, marathon. How's it? Everyone can do it. Everyone can do it. Like you said, it's something that we can all train for if we want. It's not something we can just go out and do. Predictability? Predictability, I think. Marathon, you know your best couple of marathon runners and how they're going to finish. But you need a bit of luck along the way, too. Yeah, we've got like, I can't remember the guy's name from breaking into the half marathon runner who kept blowing up in marathons because he just couldn't get it on.

Get it to his body and stuff like that. Yeah. I think marathon wins for me. Field hockey, I wouldn't really know it exists outside the Olympics. Marathon, it's something that's a constant undertone, obviously having athletes that train for it and pure. Very pure sport. I would say marathon. Yeah, I agree. Good. Marathon wins. Rugby, ooh, the last one of round two. Rugby union and the triathlon. You can have a bias to it, I get it. Being an iron man yourself. Yeah, um, going to our five criteria though, wow factor. I think rugby union wins on our criteria.

Watchability, rugby. Athleticism. Athleticism. It's probably two ends of the spectrum, really. Strength, speed, power and endurance. Just endurance. Mass appeal. Rugby union is quite elitist. Yeah. It has that kind of feel to it. It does, but it's not necessarily the cheapest sport to jump into triathlon. No. Isn't it toughy? Predictability. There's obviously a lot can happen in the water and the bike and the run. It's a hard one. Yeah, obviously bias is going to come into this a lot, but I find it hard to not pick triathlon, because I just don't have too much interest in rugby, but I think if we're being true to the criteria, rugby wins.

What are you thinking? Yeah, I'm just looking at the bracket. Two of triathlon goes into the next one. Does it matter about the next one? Oh no, but it would make it very difficult to kind of discern between the two. Obviously triathlon, marathon is a big part of what it is. I think rugby union does win. I think if we're, like I said, staying true to the criteria, rugby union wins. Elite eight. Yeah, the incredible eight. Down to an AFL final series. Ice hockey or cricket? Wouldn't have picked ice hockey again this far, to be honest.

It's had a soft draw. It has, but I think it beats cricket. We've never played it. It's fun to watch. I don't think we can, I don't think our bias towards the mighty ducks growing up in our childhood should really come into this. Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack. Don't even get me started. I could do a whole other podcast on the mighty ducks. Quack. Favourite quad? There's too many to choose. Give me one. Nah. Favourite character? Favourite character? That has to be Goldberg. Good. What are we going? I reckon ice hockey.

Ice hockey, watchability, athleticism, you'd probably say ice hockey. Mass appeal, probably cricket. Predictability. Probably ice hockey. Unpredictability is probably a better way to frame it. A bit more unpredictable, yeah. I guess 2020 is a bit more unpredictable than the test cricket. Yeah. This is a toughie. Mass appeal. That's a tough one. I'd just probably say cricket would get that one. Just because of the fact it's from the subcontinent. Does cricket win? Cricket beat ice hockey? Yeah. I think it has to. It makes it mockery of our system if it doesn't. We've probably just gone against everything that we've said over the past, I don't know, how long we've been in here.

Yeah, it's been a bit. But we've got to wrap it up sometime. Yeah, we're getting there. I fell on track and field, so, you know, I agree. I can't not say AFL. Play it. I love it. I watch it. Straight rules. Don't call AFL. You don't play Australian football. Shut up. You don't play NHL either. You play ice hockey. Exactly. We wrote ice hockey on it. It is the week of grand final. The Collingwood Football Club is going to win this week by 17 points. Read it on week. 17? 17 points. Take it to the bank.

Put your house on it. We'll be five points up. Gamble responsibly. We'll be five points up and the boys will just kick two quick goals and history will be made. I'm going to argue it's track and field. Mass appeal. Athleticism. Unpredictability. AFL probably wins on watchability and wow factor. That's three to two in my books. Which? Track and field beat athleticism? Yes. Because it depends, like athleticism, is it being elite, like properly elite at one part of athleticism being speed or? How about decathlete? Yeah, fair. However, tackles, hangers, Cyril. Yeah, that's wow factor. What about Cyril?

That's wow factor. He's so athletic. I understand that. Is he though? What events could Cyril go to and be good at? Oh, probably none. What athletes could probably go into AFL? Probably blitz arms. He was a 1500 metre runner. Not a steepler. Many people think. Really? Yeah, he tried to steeple like twice and realised it wasn't for him. It's a common misconception that everyone thinks he's a steepler. A lot of your junior athletics, little lass. Nick Reawoldt could have been an elite 400 metre runner. Could have been. Could have. Yeah, I don't know. I find it hard to not bet for AFL because it's the sport I like.

Yeah, that's a bot. That's a bot. That's the whole point of doing this. It's all in our opinion, so I'm allowed to be biased. You have to... So we've got... We've got... I am... We have a factor on watchability. AFL gets it. Yeah. I'm going to argue athleticism is athletics because it's in the name. Mass appeal. More people in the world play, perform athletics. And unpredictability. I think... And I think because it's almost like the skiing and boarding incidents from before. There's so many different events. Like track and field, we talk about... You could almost class the marathon as part of that.

I know it's not. Oh, it should be. But we could have classed it as that. Yeah. What are you saying if you want to... When you think of track and field, what do you think of 100 metres? Oh, track and field I think of anything 1500 and lower in terms of races and events. And I think of eudiscuses and shotputs and things like that. So you're telling me that AFL wins based on the fact that track and field is a collection of sports, whereas AFL is a pure sport. Correct. It's hard to argue on that logic then, isn't it?

Because that's how we rule out skiing and boarding. Yeah. Australian rules footy it is. Oh, yes. Begrudgingly. Begrudgingly. And I think it's an honourable mention of track and field because it probably would have gone close to all the way if AFL had a picture at the post. Maybe you have to think about if we were to do this again. I'll put an asterisk. A team sports bracket. Oh, yeah. That would have made it a little bit... Individual sports. Individual sports. Yeah. Obviously 400 metre relay, quite entertaining. Yeah. Four by four. Yeah. Very interesting. Mixed four by four or so the other day.

It was pretty cool. They're trying to make it a bit more exciting. But yeah, no, AFL. AFL wins. UFC and gymnastics. I think gymnastics. I would probably agree with you just. Here's why. Athleticism. Oh, Jesus. It's hard. I don't know. If we go and... There's going to be more wow factors in gymnastics than UFC. You reckon? Well, think about it. Standard gymnastics competition. Yeah. There's five apparatus. Yeah, fair. Five athletes performing. Six athletes performing at once. Whereas UFC is just two male or female. Two athletes just beating their legs. Punching each other in the head. Punching holes in one another.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I agree. Watchability. It's probably USC. Yeah. If you like that kind of thing. Yeah, it tickles your pickle. Athleticism. I'm probably going to say gymnastics. Gymnastics is definitely for athleticism. So... Mass appeal. USC. Predictability. Even. Yeah. I think gymnastics wins. Should ask. Who wins out of rugby union and the marathon though? If we go down that path is what we agreed on before. It's rugby union. And if you were going to tell me rugby union was going to get all the way to the final four, I would have just spewed up. I might spew up now.

We're up to four. We're down to four. Final four. Final four. Cricket and AFL? AFL are good out of the week. Um. It's hard to make an argument for cricket to be honest. Because that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to get on the other side. Strange. What does it say? Ricky Ponting. Yeah. I think he played a bit of AFL Australian rules football. He was playing a Tasmanian boy. We've got him on the line. No we don't. Imagine that. He's into his golf and his greyhounds. Yeah. I wonder what he'd pick out of golf and cricket.

I think AFL has to win. Australian rules football. If you say AFL again I'm pretty serious. It's written as AFL. Put it up. Aussie. Aussie rules. Alright so Aussie rules is in the final. Shocker. Could have just skipped forward an hour. You could. If you were listening at the start just. It doesn't work. Because we're at the end. Yeah. Don't. Just forget I just said that. Hopefully you'll edit that out. No I won't. Gymnastics and rugby union. Gymnastics wins for mine. Ah yeah. I agree. So. We finish up. This is, yeah this is going to come out like it's.

I think it's a cool tool to finish on. Yeah. Because for me track and field would have been cricket, ice hockey, UFC, gymnastics, marathon, rugby union. If track and field was on the other side of the draw I think it would have come through all the way. No I think gymnastics would have pipped it to be honest. Ooh. Yes I would argue for track and field. As I said it's hard to set, it's hard to group all the track and field sports. It's just hard to find enough criteria to rate the best sport ever. Which is why it's a beautiful subjective exercise we get to play with.

Take part in. Yeah. I don't know. So gymnastics, Olympic sport, incredible athleticism. So it goes mass appeal is gymnastics. I don't know. It depends how you quantify mass appeal. Is it just the number of people watching it? I think that's what we came up with earlier. It's worldly. Worldly. So that's where it's hard because we spend so much of our time surrounded by Australian sports. We have access to gymnastics. We do. We do. So, okay, wow factor, Aussie rules went to me. Yeah. I would probably argue gymnastics probably got a bigger wow factor than footy. Like a triple forward somersault on the ball.

It's just crazy. Yeah, it's cool. I think watchability goes to Australian rules football. Okay. So wow factor is, yeah, gymnastics is probably, but what about, you know, house sitting on someone's head? It's pretty wow. It is wow, but that's a rare occurrence for gymnastics. It happens all the time. Have you not seen Colin McLean? He takes like four for a week. Yeah, I understand that, but still it doesn't happen every time someone steps out onto an apparatus. Okay. Fair. Watchability is AFL. You're right. Yeah. Gymnastics is hard to watch too because there's a lot going on.

Athleticism, because this is one where Aussie rules is like, say 100% is the world's best. Aussie rules sits at like 75% for everything in terms of endurance, in terms of speed, power, and obviously different players and whatnot. So you've got to be a jack of all trades. Gymnastics, you are probably the 95th percentile in terms of flexibility, mobility, strength, body control, strength, relative strength is probably in top percent. Coordination. Coordination. Proprioception. Yeah, no balls. They suffer balls. I would, unless you're rhythmic. Yeah. I would pick gymnastics for athleticism. I think pound, I think, yeah, if you the one comes back to that question, who's the fitter athlete?

I think, I think a gymnast. You're still fitter than an AFL player. Well, yeah, then it depends what fitness is. Cause like anaerobic capacity, anaerobic capacity would be Aussie rules, but I think strength, speed, power would be gymnastics. Flexibility. Flexibility is obviously important. Coordination is important. Proprioception. Flexibility counts. Coordination. Yeah. And they're individual athletes rather than a team. And I know it's hard to, to bank that against each other, but obviously the communication side of being in a team sports important, but gymnastics is still a team element, but individually. Individual scores. Yeah. Okay. I would say gymnastics wins the athleticism.

I think with that though, I think it's gymnastics cause mass appeals gymnastics. Or do you think mass appeal, particularly in Australia, I don't know, how do you take this in Australia? You probably argue it's Aussie rules, but worldly sense. How much, how much of an appeal is taken to Aussie rules outside of Australia? To be honest, so last week someone shared a video of the Daily Telegraph, which is one of the ones up in Queensland possibly? Yeah. Well, it struggles to get range outside of Victoria. But AFL got nothing after the pre, if Collingwood beat Richmond in the pre, they had nothing in about AFL on a Saturday.

And I think for that reason, gymnastics wins. So gymnastics is the best sport? But it's not, I don't think it is, but on our criteria, it probably is. It's an amazing sport. It's an incredible sport to watch. Did gymnastics just win or can we call it a draw? Is that allowed? That would make the last, however, minutes, 82 minutes, useless. Not useless, got us thinking about sports and stuff. Does it make you want to watch more sport, this conversation, or does it make you want to watch more, some certain sports more? Because I still am not interested in watching cricket.

I kind of really want to watch, how did cricket make it all the way to the last sport then? Because it was against handball and rowing and golf. Yeah. How would you do it differently next time? I don't know. You'd have to maybe find one parameter that ranked them and then seeded them accordingly. I wonder what Google says if I say, "What is the best sport ever?" How do you do best? According to our five criteria, I think that gymnastics wins 4-1. Because you're one slip off the balance beam away from it, you're not winning. Yeah.

Oh, and Ultimate Frisbee didn't get a run either. I'm a bit upset about that. About Froth. Froth, Frisbee golf? Yeah. It's that guy on YouTube that throws a... I googled the greatest sport in the world, and you know what? It's coming up with Ultimate Frisbee. That's not true. That's rubbish. Huffington Post. Go away. Is that even a true newspaper? I don't think it is. Yeah. The chick who runs it was on Rogan. Anyway. Paul, thanks for coming and talking sports with me. Did we come with a definitive answer? No, it was a draw. It can't be a draw.

It was far from it. I think according to our five criteria, gymnastics wins that. But obviously, what your favorite sport is... According to my common sense, it's stupid. But if we were in another existence, and we say we lived in China. Yes. They love volleyball. They love gymnastics. Volleyball is a bigger sport, I think. Volleyball? I believe so. Soccer? I don't think so. We have a geographical bias here, because we believe Augie rules is the best sport. Oh, of course we're going to have a geographical bias, but... It's hard to really quantify this. It is. But according to our five criteria...

We knew that at the start. I think gymnastics wins, but I think we're wrong. So that just makes the last 90 minutes just worthless. It was fun. If you accidentally skip to the end, don't continue to listen. Just move on to the next one. Good for you. Thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO]