It is becoming popular for sporting fans to get together and fly around the world to support their team. Why pay so much when you can do it yourself for much cheaper? There is a big market for these tour groups and people pay way too much for the privilege. People pay thousands of dollars to join a cricket tour of India, where you can get by on as little as $10 a day. However, I admit that you do get plenty of extras from joining such a group, for example meeting some of the sports stars, getting priority entry, and good seats organised/guaranteed. You also don’t have to buy your own travel tickets and organise hotels. It is fun either way you go, but if you want to save money and make it an adventure, then do it yourself. I may even come along and do the self-guided tour with you! Careful, if you get too many of our mates together and it will become one of those tours you are trying to avoid!
Related Pages: About Cricket
Tags: Cricket·events·india·Spectators·tours·travel
Is the Mexican Wave really from Mexico? I did some searching. Its origins are disputed, but may be traced across different sports in three North American countries. It’s said that it was created by chance at a National Hockey League game in Canada in 1980, and was introduced to a wider audience at a major league baseball game in the US in 1981. It gained international notice at a FIFA World Cup game in Mexico in 1986 – hence its name. The largest recorded Mexican wave occurred at the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000 where 110,000 people did a Mexican wave, with two simultaneous opposite direction waves racing around the stadium. Now some officials in Australia have banned the wave at certain sporting events, citing the danger of thrown objects to spectators. It is not a popular decision and difficult thing to stop, and like the wave itself, once it starts it just keeps going.
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A new book by Robert Tuchman, who works in Sports promotion and management, is called, The 100 Sporting Events You Must See Live: An Insider’s Guide to Creating the Sports Experience of a Lifetime
. He has used live appeal as the main criteria for his selection. There is a US bias, which is not surprising considering that many Americans think that they are the centre of the sporting universe (which in true in some sports). I don’t doubt his top four, but am not sure that the UNC vs. Duke Basketball Game at Cameron Indoor Stadium deserves top 10 status. I have not seen such as game, so maybe I am not qualified to comment. I have ticked off two of the ten, quite a way to go. Check out the complete list of 100.
Here are the top 10 events you must see, according to Robert Tuchman. What you think?
1. The Golf Masters
2. FIFA World Cup
3. Super Bowl
4. Summer Olympics
5. Army vs. Navy Football Game
6. New York City Marathon
7. World Series Baseball
8. Winter Olympics
9. Red Sox vs. Yankees at Yankee Stadium
10. UNC vs. Duke Basketball Game at Cameron Indoor Stadium
Tags: events
By all accounts the TV coverage of the Olympic Games in Australia by channel 7 was disappointing. The TV coverage is not made for the sports fan. They spent too long interviewing the families of athletes, devling into the stories behind the stories, and about China and Beijing. What the sport fan wants is educated commentary of whole events, without breaks at crucial points in the events. The alternative on Australia TV was SBS, which was better as it showed continuous coverage of some events, but the mainstream sports were not given to them to show. What we did hear on the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) radio coverage was excellent. I wonder why they cannot take lessons from radio for the TV coverage. The radio is able to convey the excitement of events as they are happening, cross from one event to the other when they are on at the same time, and be thoroughly entertaining.
Related Pages: Summer Olympic Games, Australia at the Olympics
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The Olympic Games have come and gone, and I practically missed it. I have been traveling around Australia in a campervan (see website) with no TV and mostly out of radio range as well. We stopped at caravan parks that have a TV room a few times and dropped in for a beer at the pub to catch a little bit of the highlights, but there is so much on you need to sit in front of the TV all day to get a good viewing. We did manage to regular buy the newspaper to read about what was going on, and to check the news updates on our mobile phone. On a positive note, we did miss a lot of the disappointing TV coverage, and what we did hear on the radio coverage (ABC) was as usual excellent.
Related Pages: Summer Olympic Games, Australia at the Olympics
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Yesterday at the Australian Tennis Open we were witness to a Mexican Wave out on one of the smaller courts. An audience wave can come around pretty quickly in a small tennis stadium. They also had a double wave going, the wave going in alternate directions and seemingly passing through each other – I had not seen that before. I have also heard of crowds coming up with combinations, changing speed, and bouncing back in the direction it came. A few stadiums are discussing the option of stopping audiences from making the wave, as it is considered dangerous. Although this wave at the tennis was just a ripple as far as waves go, I would have to agree that they can be dangerous when people start throwing objects and drinks as the wave passes, and it can be distracting if you are trying to watch a game being played. If they can control it so that waves are only done during breaks in the games, and stop people from dangerous trowing of objects. It may be easier said than done, as a log day at the cricket or tennis, after a few beers, people will think they can get away with whatever they want.
Related Pages: Australian Open, Grand Slam Tennis, About Tennis
Tags: australian open·crowds·grand slam·Tennis
