All sports tournament -- who wins?

Factual Questions
21

Thanks for the replies, everyone. I do realize the preposterousness (or at least extreme infeasibility) of this “tournament”.

But the general idea is that, yes, no one can step in and hit a 90mph fastball like a baseball player can. But, a tennis player might have more of an aptitude than a boxer. A runningback would never outrun a track and field sprinter but he could probably outrun a boxer. Who would win in a 3 on 3 basketball game, 3 soccer players vs. 3 hockey players? It’s a horribly complicated matrix of players, sports, and skills.

I guess my OP ultimately boils down to: Which sports have the most transferable skills to other sports? Yeah UFC guys are tough, but I’d say hockey players have more transferable fighting skills than UFC guys have transferable hockey skills.

22

Boxers might be the best conditioned, but nothing leads me to beleive that would necessarily carry over to the skill sets needed be good at another sport. For example, let’s say the sports are Boxing, Basketball, Baseball, Football, and Golf. There are a lot of pro Football/Basketball/Baseball players that were very good at both of the other of those three sports in highschool, some who were competitive at the colege level and some who could play pro at more than one (e.g. Charlie Ward). In fact, a lot fo those athletes were most likely three-letter athletes in highschool. Having been at the University of Florida student gym when the football players were on the “A” court, it’s pretty clear to me that a lot of those guys were perfectly competent ball handlers and shooters. I bet some of them could even fight (not, necessarily box). It’s been my experience as a golfer that natural athletes can becomes pretty competent golfers (low 80’s, high 70’s) quickly, as well. My bet is on a basketball player being best overall, though maybe losing in boxing.

23

[QUOTE=Jayrot]
A runningback would never outrun a track and field sprinter QUOTE]
What elevel track and field sprintier. Serious question, could a 4.3 40 Reggie Bush not compete with an “average” track and field sprinter?

24

Pole vaulter Bob Seagren was the champ of ABC’s Superstars the last time this was done.

25

With a slight amendment to the OP, the question becomes more valid.

Don’t let the pros play at their own sport. Instead, the football games would be between all the various OTHER athletes (the OP did say round-robin!).

With that variation, who would be the best football players, who would be the best tennis players, who would be the best golfers… oh, wait, they did say athletes, my bad… :smiley:

26

[QUOTE=whole bean]

Dunno. But that comment of mine was based on my original presumption that we’re not picking the absolute best of the best from each sport. Just a couple above average players.

27

Yeah that’s not all that much of an amendment since that’s what I was envisioning from the start. Players might get to play their own sport, but since it’s assumed that every professional athlete would win at their sport, the net result (in tournament “points”) is zero.

So yeah, it’s all about people playing other sports.

In my mind, the major skillsets are:

Power/Strength
Speed (running)
Speed (reaction time)
Hand-Eye Coordination
Balance

and so forth.

Different sports have different mixes of these skills. Some have more than others.

28

You can’t leave hockey out of your premise. It is a major sport and very well may have some of the finest all-around athletes who could translate their ability much better than some of the others. (for instance, Chris Drury was the star pitcher in winning the Little League World Series.) They are strong in their upper and lower bodies, incredibly well conditioned, have great eye-hand coordination, have incredible quickness, have excellent fast twitch muscles while still having endurance (and they love to play golf).

I read a long time ago that amateur wrestling was the most demanding sport in all areas of quantifiable characteristics while hockey was second. Maybe more recent studies have dubunked that but prove me wrong before you dismiss the athletecism of the hockey players.

29

If I were to set up an all-sports tournament, I’d say you take a team of the best potential all-around athletes from each of the nine major sports (going by American standards) and pit them against each other in the eight sports they don’t play.

Football - I’d think the basketball players would beat out the hockey players in the finals of this event. Both sports could wield well-rounded teams with speed and size and quickness. But which hockey players are going to cover the three 6’10" wide receivers? The boxers would be tough, but they don’t have to run around on an open field, so they might lack the necessary speed. Soccer players would probably lack the size to play NFL-style football. NASCAR, golf and tennis would probably all forfeit this competition.

**Basketball **- Football players, easily. Football players love basketball, they play it all the time. (Much like whole bean, I observed this in UF gyms.) I think the boxers could field a decent team, but they would still get run over by the football players.

**Baseball **- This is tough to say. If you can find two good pitchers in your team, anyone could have a shot. I would think you could find the most ex-baseball players in football, and the ones with experience are going to be the best at the intricate skills that baseball requires. So I’m going with football in this sport.

Hockey - I think football again, as long as they can find enough players who can skate. Maybe there’s some tennis and soccer players with hockey experience.

Nascar - This one is a toss-up, though I still cannot see any golfers doing well. Maybe Tiger Woods.

**Golf **- I bet you can find a few good golfers in every pro sport. Hard to say which one would have more. But it’s just a skill, general athleticism won’t help much here.

Soccer - Hockey has the most Europeans, so they would probably have the most experience. I think basketball could field a decent team as well.

Tennis - The only sport where golf might have a chance, as I can see lots of golfers having grown up playing tennis as well. I could also imagine hockey players doing well.

**Boxing **- Football would dominate the top weight classes. I can see some soccer and hockey and basketball players winning the lower weight classes. But I think football wins overall.
So I think the final standings will be:

  1. Football
  2. Basketball
  3. Hockey
  4. Soccer
  5. Boxing
  6. Baseball
  7. Tennis
  8. Golf
  9. NASCAR
30

Fastball…maybe. But I think if he can put the shot and throw the javelin, he could put some significant air under a football.

31

HowieReynolds, great reply and very thorough. I’m think that is what the OP meant.

I wonder if we were to add a twist (hopefully not too much of a hijack). Which would do the best in ONE event. You picked a great athlete in each:

  1. Football
  2. Basketball
  3. Hockey
  4. Soccer
  5. Boxing
  6. Baseball
  7. Tennis
  8. Golf
  9. NASCAR

And had all 9 go head to head in a Decathlon. Each sport would send a realistic competitor; not a relief pitcher in baseball, not a center in football, etc.

I would still give the edge to the football player.

32

Keep in mind, football is the least skilled of all sports. The reason is that the nature of the sport only allows it’s participants to play only about 20 truly competative games a year. In other sports, the participants play over 100 games a year. 10 year old hockey, basketball, soccer and baseball players typically play over 60 games.

The nature of football precludes practice in true game situations. That is not the case in other sports. While football is a demanding game, the skill level is low compared to other sports.

33

Remember the old “Superstars” competitions on ABC TV? I still remember Joe Frazier almost drowning during the swimming competition.

34

And they didn’t ask any of those stiffs to put on a pair of skates. The race car driver looked like a total wimp but nobody else was asked to drive at 200 mph.

Trying to make a comparison if futile. As I said before, they get paid to do their thing for a reason. They excel at something that is very difficult, whatever it is. That’s why they are professionals and they get paid.

35

Skill level has zilch to do with number of games played. :smack:

Football is a very specialized sport; as to “skill” level, I might agree with you in the sense that passing or running or catching are not that difficult, compared to batting or shooting a basketball accurately from distance, to say nothing of what a hockey player can do with a puck. But let’s keep the issue of skill and the issue of stamina/staying power separate. :slight_smile:

36

You could just as easily turn that around and conclude that because there are only 20 games, every minute of every game counts, which requires more practice and more skill.

Personally, I wouldn’t make either argument because I don’t think you can adequately determine what it means to require “more” skill.

If you look at number of starting positions for each sport compared to the number of people that would like to play/have tried, I think it’s easy to conclude that the level of competition is extremely high in all major sports and thus the skill level also.

37

You can only compare those activities relative to the game environment. All of those activities involve quick decisions and possibly contorted physical maneuvers while skilled opposition is attempting to prevent your move, none of those are “not that difficult” when played in the pros.

38

Japan had a weekly program on for several years called “Kinniku Banzuke (Muscle Ranking)” which put 20-odd competitors through a series of general athleticism contests week after week, with the point leader at the end of the season winning the grand prize. Some of the events were pure power, some were endurance, some were sprint speed, some were coordination. Often, they would bring in pro athletes from many different sports (baseball, track & field, sumo, gymnastics, swimming, etc) to compete with the regular non-athlete competitors.

Of the athletes, the ones who usually did best were the baseball players, since they seemed to have a good balance of strength, endurance and quickness. The guy who usually whipped all of them, however, was American-born wanna-be actor and martial artist Kane Kosugi, who was the season champion at least five of the ten seasons the show was on. The guy who started dominating after him was a model.

39

I vote for curlers, as long as the curling event is held first. You see, all the other athletes will fall asleep by the end of the event, allowing the curlers to effortlessly squash them in every other sport.

Curlers > all