2022-12-17, 09:30 PM - Word count:
The SSL cup some seasons is more interesting than the league. While the league gives a stream of comparable skilled teams It is often a march to the end of one team just being better than others. Tournaments now thats something else. They make people feel like any team in the world has a chance as long as they just believe in each other and string together some fantastical series of games.
The FA cup has a long storied tradition that stretches back before the days when the players were paid (or before when they were not supposed to be paid). But like a lot of commercialization in sports, the modern hype around tournaments in leagues can be traced to America. ESPN couldn't afford the college basketball games of the NCAA tournament but they could get rights to the early-round games that no one else was bidding on. Suddenly the pool of games that you could track or at least keep up with exploded. Multiple games were watched at once and you could see the stories of the tournament from the start. Packaged by media types at first but then adopted by fans it became not just a few games a day to find out about but a unique event to experience. To be overwhelmed by sports hitting you all at once. Where you would watch some games to find out what team you were playing against next or might play against down the line. Suddenly the other games mean a lot to you.
Sure being an ultra of a team you want to watch every single moment and almost only the moments of your team when your team plays. but for everyone watching at home (and none of us can watch an SSL game in person) every game just has immediate and clear stakes, survive and advance. On top of this with a tournoment like the FA trophy or NCAA you have matches against teams that would never normally play eachother. A tiny 8th tier team can be easily drawn with a first division giant. A tiny team no one has ever heard of, can play with nothing to lose against a team that has nothing to win.
Tournaments are just a story factory like nothing else.
The FA cup has a long storied tradition that stretches back before the days when the players were paid (or before when they were not supposed to be paid). But like a lot of commercialization in sports, the modern hype around tournaments in leagues can be traced to America. ESPN couldn't afford the college basketball games of the NCAA tournament but they could get rights to the early-round games that no one else was bidding on. Suddenly the pool of games that you could track or at least keep up with exploded. Multiple games were watched at once and you could see the stories of the tournament from the start. Packaged by media types at first but then adopted by fans it became not just a few games a day to find out about but a unique event to experience. To be overwhelmed by sports hitting you all at once. Where you would watch some games to find out what team you were playing against next or might play against down the line. Suddenly the other games mean a lot to you.
Sure being an ultra of a team you want to watch every single moment and almost only the moments of your team when your team plays. but for everyone watching at home (and none of us can watch an SSL game in person) every game just has immediate and clear stakes, survive and advance. On top of this with a tournoment like the FA trophy or NCAA you have matches against teams that would never normally play eachother. A tiny 8th tier team can be easily drawn with a first division giant. A tiny team no one has ever heard of, can play with nothing to lose against a team that has nothing to win.
Tournaments are just a story factory like nothing else.
