As I look around the sporting world, there are always people who get some sort of merit like they are a sports expert.
Sure, a person who studies sports all day may have more information than the casual fan, but that’s all it is… information. What all this “knowledge” really leads to is an educated guess about who will win what game, who will win what conference, and who will win the title, etc, blah, blah, blah.
Have you ever heard of the person at the office job who wins the march madness pool because they picked teams based off of their favorite jersey colors? Well guess what: There are really instances where things like this happen.
In the 2017 NCAA tournament, a 12-year-old girl picked a perfect final four in her 1st attempt filling out the march madness bracket. She said, “she watches basketball sometimes because her parents and brothers are fans.”
I am here to tell you why there is no such thing as a perfect sports expert.
For my first example, let’s look at last year’s Seattle Seahawks. Didn’t most experts claim that this was a rebuilding year?
The Seahawks were projected to be 8-8 or 7-9 at best, by most analysts and writers throughout the country. As the season unfolded, the Hawks turned out to be pretty damn good and finished the campaign with a 10-6 record; they even made the playoffs. All that expert analysis turned out to be real valuable, scoff.
What about the New England Patriots?
Seemingly every year, New England gets off to a slow start. This previous NFL season, the Pats were all but written off at 1-2. When turning on every major sports station the analysis was the same. The Pats are done, Tom Brady is old, and it’s time for him to ride off into the sunset and eat grapes with Gisele.
But then after they win the Super Bowl, these same analysts talk about the fact that Brady is the greatest quarterback of all time and say things like you can never count of the heart of a champion, all while ignoring the fact that they had him written off in week three.
What’s even more frustrating is that most of these experts never admit they are wrong. They never say sorry, Tom, I thought you were washed up. Instead they now kiss his ass more than ever before.
To be fair, some good analysts do admit when they are wrong, but they are few and far between.
What about this year’s NCAA tournament?
I’m sure that a couple of so called experts picked Virginia to win the championship, but this is not the narrative I heard whenever I turned on the TV. All I heard was how unbeatable Duke was; Zion, baby, he’s super-scintillating-sensational.
Sorry, Dick Vitale, I’m not poking fun at you. I just really wanted to use your legendary quote.
As it turns out. the Blue Devils couldn’t even make it to the Final Four. They were knocked out in the Elite Eight. I guess all that expert analysis didn’t mean anything.
To be fair, the NCAA Tournament is realistically one of the hardest sporting events to predict. This year, only 0.3 percent of people had Virginia vs Texas Tech in the championship game.
Alright, so far we’ve covered football and college basketball. Now it’s on to the NBA.
Pretty much everyone and their mom thinks the Golden State Warriors are the best team in the NBA. That’s really not a hard conclusion to come to. I will even admit myself that over the last couple of years I have overwhelmingly believed that the Warriors are the best squad in the league.
However, I believe they won’t win this year’s NBA championship because DeMarcus “Boogie” Cousins is a monstrosity in the locker room. Team chemistry dissipates whenever he is in the building.
But guess what: This is just an educated guess. I don’t know, you don’t know, and Steve Kerr doesn’t know.
For my last example, I am going to use this year’s Seattle Mariners. Three weeks ago, sports experts throughout the country thought that the Mariners were going to be a terrible team. The analysis was the same throughout the PNW; there is no way this team could possibly win after losing the likes of Robinson Cano, Nelson Cruz, and Jean Segura.
Well guess what: They are off to a 12-2 start and sports writers throughout the country are flipping their opinion faster than hotcakes on a grill. And the funny thing is, it’s still way too early in the season to form a solid statistical argument one way or another. The M’s could lose the next 10 games and be back at .500 in the blink of an eye.
When are the experts going to flip their opinion again?
Every drunk guy at a bar has an opinion on sports. There is no opinion that is more right or more wrong than anyone else, even though the talking heads on TV would like you to believe otherwise.
Half of the people who talk about sports on TV are only there because they were athletes themselves. Just because you played the game doesn’t mean you’re all of a sudden an expert on analysis. They got where they are because of their physical prowess, not their mental fortitude. (Although that’s not to say all athletes lack mental fortitude.)
The other half know how to make sports talk ENTERTAINING, because that’s all it is: entertainment. Entertainment enhances ratings, and ratings brings in revenue. In layman’s terms, they help their companies make money.
And good for them; if they can sell their own brand, they deserve to be exactly where they are. They found their niche and ran with it. I’ve listened to enough rap music to know that that’s called perfecting your hustle and cashing out.
Alright, my rant is over. Deuces.
Sources
https://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/12-year-north-carolina-girl-picks-perfect-ncaa/story?id=46491561
“12 year old girl picks perfect final four.”
0.3 percent
