Top Five Fridays: Sporting Events to Attend

This is my regular feature called Top Five Fridays. Here I'll list some of my favorite things like, Top 5 Ways to Annoy a Michigan Fan or Top 5 Most Overrated Athletes (cough cough, Brett Favre, cough cough)..... Have no fear, we'll get to both those topics in good time. At the end there will also be a section for those that just missed the cut.

This weekend is one of the premier sporting events in the world and also one of the most unique, the Kentucky Derby. Horseracing isn’t a sport that is in the spot light on a daily basis like football, baseball, and basketball. It’s not even like golf or car racing where there are events almost every weekend, but most people just tune in for the major ones. It’s really just one major day (the Derby,) one semi-major day (the Preakness Stakes,) and one typically unimportant day (the Belmont Stakes.) Let’s be honest, the only way I’m watching the final event of the Triple Crown is if there is a horse that has already won the first two legs. And other than the enthusiasts and gambling addicts, nobody is watching a run of the mill horse race.

Personally, I’ve always wanted to get to the Kentucky Derby, but so far I’ve had to settle for going to “Derby Parties.” This is where we get an inordinate amount of guys coming into J. Crew to find an outfit that screams, “I’m a yuppie asshole.” Seersucker suits, madras ties, white suede shoes, and leather moccasins. And for the girls? Pretty sun dresses and big hats. We all descend upon a bar or an apartment and sip mint juleps and spend an entire day getting drunk and acting like rich people. It’s something you would find on Stuff White People Like. We have entire parties like this for a race that takes two minutes to finish. Good times.

As much as I want to actually head to Churchill Downs one day, it got me to thinking. So now, I present you with the…

Top 5 Sporting Events that I Want to Attend

Note: For this list I decided to exclude things like OSU-Michigan football, Duke-North Carolina basketball, etc. I’m sticking to the major championships, races, all-star games, etc. where billions of people tune in. As always, feel free to chime in with comments about what events you’d want to attend. Without further Freddy Adu….

1. World Cup Finals

I’d like to think that this is a no-brainer if you’ve ever met me. Soccer has been the love of my life for a quarter century and this is the most watched single sporting event in the world. And for you knuckleheads that think it’s the Super Bowl, you are so wrong that you should be committed. An estimated 715.1 million people viewed the 2006 Final match compared to the roughly 140 million people that tuned into the Super Bowl, and that’s just the final. The entire event draws in over 26 billion viewers.

One thing that makes it unique is that it only happens every four years. Another is that it’s truly a “World Championship.” Only the best players for the best nations in the world get to compete. And almost every country plays the beautiful game, unlike football, baseball and basketball. This is the one championship game that I really wouldn’t care what teams are competing. I wouldn’t care how crappy my seats where either, just being in the building would be enough. There have only been 18 World Cup Finals in the history of the event. It’s the culmination of two years of qualifying matches, and then a month long 32-team tournament.

And here is one final nugget for you: the reason the World Cup was invented in 1930 was because the Olympics didn’t host a soccer tournament in the 1932 Los Angeles game. The reason? They didn’t think it would be popular enough in the United States. The Americans went on to finish third in the inaugural event.

2. BCS Championship/Rose Bowl

I decided to lump these two events together and place them at number two. It’s my list; I’ll do as I please. While I would honestly rather attend either of these events before anything else other than the World Cup Final, I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to get there if Ohio State or Miami University (never going to happen) weren’t in the game.

Next to soccer, however, college football is my second favorite sport. In January of 2003 when Ohio State upset the Miami Hurricanes I had several offers to go. It was my first year out of college and I was just finishing up my internship with the Chicago Bulls. I didn’t yet know that I would be hired full-time and I didn’t have the cash to get there and stay in a hotel. This past year, after Ohio State beat Michigan, Mrs. Sizemore and I thought for a second about trying to get to the Rose Bowl. Ultimately money, and an outside chance that the Buckeyes would still be in line to go to the National Championship again, swayed us not to.

The ideal scenario for me would be to have the Bucks in a BCS title match being played in the Rose Bowl. I think I would spare no expense to make that happen.

3. The Kentucky Derby

I’ll be honest about this one; I don’t really know the first thing about horse racing. I know a few things about betting and I always pay attention during the week of the event to the starting gates, the odds and the genetic lineage of the favorites. Maybe if I knew a little more I would pay closer attention and actually watch other horse races besides the Triple Crown. Maybe not.

In the mean time, it remains one of the events that I would love to get to. It seems to be one of those places that people go to just to be seen. It’s kind of my dream to head down to Kentucky with a seersucker suit and a beautiful girl with a pretty dress and a big hat on my arm.

It’s too bad that horse racing has suffered in recent years. I feel that it became popular because of the gambling, but as our country has advanced technologically and socially, gambling has become widespread in other areas and legal all over. As this happened, the American gambler drifted to other sports betting and fantasy sports instead of the tracks.

However, the Triple Crown remains a coveted feat and being the first leg of the event, the “Run for the Roses” has become the most popular. I believe I heard this morning that this year’s event at Churchill Downs will be the 134th running of the race and that it draws over 150,000 fans into the venue.

Here is a fun story to leave you with. As I mentioned in the intro, every year during this week men flock to J. Crew to purchase outfits for Derby Day. Last night we had this Asian lawyer named Jonathan come in who was flying to Louisville first thing this morning and going to the track. By this point, we have flat out run out of sizes of all of our seer sucker, madras, chino suiting, you name it. He told us that he wore a seersucker suit to the Derby last year, so this year he was looking at our Italian Chino Suit in the wheat khaki color. We had the pants in his size, but not the jacket.

After calling all of our Chicago area stores with no luck for a 40R, our next thought was the Louisville store. He could pay over the phone and pick it up when he got to town. Unfortunately, we were told, they don’t carry ANY men’s suiting. WHAAAA? I mean, it’s Louisville, right? The city where the Kentucky Derby takes place? If I were Mickey Drexler, I would make sure this store was stocked, if only for the month of April. Seems like a tremendously missed opportunity, no?

4. Tour de France

“Le Tour” has lost some of its luster in recent years. Lance Armstrong retired from professional cycling after a record seven consecutive wins. Doping scandals have rocked the sport to the point where a champion has been striped of a title and another has been banned from defending his title this year. Entire teams have been removed during the race. The French media have made it their personal mission to bring down Armstrong and have accused him of more rampant performance enhancing drug use than the American media has done to Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds combined.

Still, as an amateur cyclist and the son of parent who was killed by cancer, I love the story “Mellow Johnny” and have become enthralled by the sport in recent years. My biggest regret from college, aside from not partying more and having more “relations,” is that I never participated in our national fraternity’s biggest charity event, the Journey of Hope. JOH is a 63-day cycling event that takes the boys and their support vehicles on three separate routes from the Pacific Ocean all the way to the Capital Building in Washington, D.C. all in the name of Push America. Push is our philanthropy, started by Pi Kappa Phi’s, which raises money and awareness for people with disabilities.

Back to the Tour, I’m not sure if there is one particular stage I would like to visit. Cycling is a difficult spectator sport because you can really only watch your rider for about 15 seconds each day. If I had a chance to see Lance, I would have loved to see him on the Champs-Élysées in Paris or in an individual time trial stage. Of course I would want to try the time trial myself the following day. I’ve also had a dream to get the route and ride a mountain stage in the Alps, though I imagine that would be very painful and take an entire day. Maybe just the ascent.

5. Stanley Cup Finals, Game 7

There are plenty of other great sporting events out there that I could have put in the fifth spot, but to me, there is nothing as exciting as a game seven. And there is no professional sports tournament in North America that compares to the excitement of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. I know that hockey isn’t what it used to be, and I know that it isn’t the best TV sport out there. But being there and seeing “Lord Stanley’s Mug” enter the building carried by the men with the NHL suits and white gloves…that is excitement. Of course, if the St. Louis Blues ever make it back to the finals, I’ll probably try to get to a game, but game sevens are rare and the tension is unmatched.

The Cup itself is the only trophy of the major team sports in North America where they don’t present a new one to the winner every year. The winning team will drink their champagne from it, skate the rink with it, and then each member of the organization gets to take it home with them for a period of time before returning it to be presented to the next winner. The names of all the players and coaches are also engraved on the rings. When the bottom ring is full, the top ring is removed and taken to the Hall of Fame. A new bottom ring is then installed as the others move up one spot.

The Governor General of Canada Lord Stanley of Preston donated the Cup in 1892 and the NHL has been using it as it’s trophy since 1926. Prior to that it was awarded to the top-ranking amateur ice hockey club in Canada and then for about a decade to the winner between the various professional leagues starting in 1914. There have only been thirteen game sevens in the NHL era, but four of the last six have been decided that way.

"Juuuuust a bit outside. He tried the corner and missed."

Daytona 500 – I know, it’s NASCAR. It’s considered the “Super Bowl of Stock Car Racing,” but its also the first major event every season. Interesting.
Super Bowl – Okay, I’ll probably take from flack for not including this in the top five, but I like watching this on TV for the replays and the commercials.
World Series – The Indians and Cubs in the 2008 version. I hope. Go Tribe.
PGA Masters – Following Tiger around for the day would be pretty cool. Or just camping out on the 18th for the Final Round.
Final Four – I love the tournament, like college basketball (for a month or two,) and I imagine this would be a fun thing to be at. It’s at the bottom because it’s the easiest major event to get a ticket for. Just camp out at the semifinal and buy tickets from the losing team's fans.