More of Our Money Pissed Away on Sports Days

From the Daily Telegraph:-

Mr Cameron said: "I don’t want anyone to be in doubt. We want to bring the World Athletics Championships to London in 2017. The government is behind the bid. Our althletes and sports fans are behind the bid. Our country is behind the bid.

Right, and who's going to pay for it? We are. Yet again, the productive bits of the economy are going to pay for more folly from the supposedly prudent "cutting" party of this country.

"For London and for Great Britain, there is no better way to follow the Olympics, and to build on its legacy, than by welcoming the world's greatest althletes back to London for the 2017 World Championships.

"We have what it takes to host a spectacular Championship…With fantastic facilities, full of passionate fans…In the most exciting, multicultural, sports-mad city in the World.

What "legacy"? Look, just about no-one cares about athletics. When people are sports-mad in this country, it's for cricket, rugby, football, and motor racing. Try and get a ticket for Twickenham. There are events held at 15,000 seat Crystal Palace and the main stand is half empty. This isn't like building up our internet industry, or even the bits of sport that make money. Building up our prowess in a sport that is a subsidy junkie is just nuts. East Germany were fantastic at athletics, and where did it get them?

We want our stadiums to bear witness to World Records….That's why we have invested in state-of-the-art facilities for 2012 and beyond. We want to inspire the next generation of althletes…

What? What the hell is the value of having World Records in our stadia? Honestly, who really cares? Most of the world will watch it on TV. Are we going to get richer because they saw some doped-up Bulgarian she-male throwing a discus 2cm further? No, we're not, are we?

Golden rule: if a politician supports the Olympics or any major athletics event, they're probably not the best people to vote for. I'll give Major a pass because there wasn't enough data on how much wealth the Olympics destroys when he backed the Manchester bid, but there's no excuse now.

Olympic Stadium

From Metro:-

World athletics chief Lamine Diack has warned Britain’s reputation in sport will be ‘dead’ if they abandon their promise to retain an athletics track at the Olympic Stadium after the 2012 Games by letting Spurs redevelop it. 

Diack, president of the International Association of Athletics Federations, insists London must have an athletics legacy – as they vowed to do when they won the vote for the 2012 Olympics.

Yeah? You got a contract to back that up, maybe some divisions you can send our way? No. Well, tough.

Asked about the effect on British sport’s future if Spurs win the bid, Diack said: ‘You can consider you are dead. You are finished. There will be no credibility. They will have made a big lie to us in their presentation. And after that it is a betrayal.

No-one outside athletics or the Olympics is going to give a damn, and once the public realise that the Olympics isn't going to deliver sugar-coated unicorns then they won't give a toss about the Olympics. I'm pretty sure it's going to make sod all difference to the sports we actually care about (tennis, golf, cricket, football and rugby)*

Oh, and Spurs' solution makes perfect sense. Use the stadium every week and pretty much fill it..

*You can tell the sports we care about because someone other than the BBC puts a bid in for them.

Football

I was amused by the reaction to Thierry Henry's "Hand of God" goal by football supporters.

The thing with football is that it is the sport most prone to luck of any sport out there. It has insuffient judging (considering the space), lacks episodic play (so it's not easy to check refereeing decisions) has low scoring and lacks scoring requires on confirmation of victory.

Its opposite is tennis. Tennis has judges, computer judging and the tournament referee can be called in. It has plenty of points and has 2 levels of confirmation (win game by 2 points and set by 2 points). So, the person who wins the match is extremely likely to be the best performer of the day.

Rugby doesn't have enough judging nor action replays, but does have high scoring. So the luck evens out across a match and while the best team may lose because of luck, they would still have to be quite close to the better team to win.

But the level of luck in football is its attraction. It's why fans will turn out for matches - their non-league club might, just might put that one goal in the net against a league club and win by defending for the rest of the game. It also, I believe, explains it's near religious and tribal following.