Watchability – A List of World Championships to be Contested in 2007

Below is a detailed list of all the World Cups and World Championships that will take place this year along with a ‘Watchability’ rating of between 1 (avoid like a bad case of Ebola of the crotch) and 10 (skive off work, take the phone off the hook and install a urinal in your living room).

Note: Some of these events are tournaments, some are annual leagues and some are one off events every four years. You can work out which is which for yourself because this is already feeling like a hard working idea for a post and I don’t want to invest any further effort into it.

Also I have not included any youth events because, really, nobody cares.

2007 INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION of AMERICAN FOOTBALL WORLD CUP:- Watchability? – This is the third IFAF World Cup but it’s the first one that the U.S will take part in (which pretty much makes it the first World Cup if you ask me…) Its hardly the SUPERBOWL but, if you can find it, then it’s a 7

2007 RUGBY WORLD CUP:-
Watchability? – Easily a 10 despite the fact that New Zealand should dominate. Plenty of tough, close fought physical contests.

2007 NETBALL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS:-
Watchability? – Hot women in short skirts. Does the sporting genre even matter? 8

FIFA WOMEN’S WORLD CUP 2007 (soccer):-
Watchability? – Butch women who want to be guys, playing in a tournament that nobody cares about. In China. Not like Netball at all. 2

2007 WORLD ICE HOCKEY CHAMPIONSHIPS (men’s and women’s):-
Watchability? – Perhaps unsurprisingly, international ice hockey is far more entertaining then the NHL. Both the Men’s and Women’s championships should be worth a watch. 8

2007 UCI CYCLO-CROSS WORLD CUP:-
Watchability? – I have no idea what the hell this is but if its anything like the drug riddled, sausage fest boredom of the ‘Tour de France’ then it’s a definite 1

The 2007 UCI TRACK CYCLING WORLD CUP CLASSICS should be much better, a 5 here.

2007 CRICKET WORLD CUP:-
Watchability? – *yawn*… Sorry, did you say something? There must be something else on surely. How about some BASEBALL WORLD SERIES …then again… 1

2007 INTERNATIONAL BADMINTON FEDERATION WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS:-
Watchability? – In the Olympics Badminton is awesome. Outside of the Olympics Badminton is not awesome. 6

SPORTS ON ICE:- 2007 World Figure Skating Championships (Go Johnny!), Bobsleigh World Cup, Luge World Cup, Short Track Speed Skating World Cup, Skeleton World Cup and Speed Skating World Cup

Watchability? – The Figure skating World Championships (Go Johnny!) is always pretty intense and even if you don’t like figure skating, there are always the hot female skaters to watch. A solid 10

Other then that, well… there sure are a lot of things you can do on ice these days but not many of them make for thrilling viewing. 5

SPORTS ON SNOW:- Alpine World Ski Championships, Alpine Skiing World Cup (they need two events ‘cause Alpine Skiing is that good), Biathlon World Cup, Cross-Country Skiing World cup, Freestyle Skiing World Cup, Nordic Combined World Cup, Ski Jumping World Cup, Snow Boarding World Cup.

Watchability? – well, it depends. If you live in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France or Switzerland (or if you’ve got a serious snow-fetish) then it’s probably going to be about an 8 or a 9 but for the rest of the world we’re talking about a solid 3 with perhaps a point or two more for the Snow Boarding and the Biathlon (you know, with the skiing AND the shooting… it’s weird but at least it’s watch-able)

SPORTS THAT AREN’T SPORTS:- FIDE World Chess Championship, the BDO World Darts Championship and the PDC World Darts Championship, World Series of Poker.

Watchability? – If you can actually find a channel that shows the whole FIDE World Chess Championship then I’ll give you five bucks. (If you can find it and then watch it intently for more then an hour without falling asleep, you get $10). This is a 1

With the darts it’s touch and go. If there’s nothing else on then it can be pretty entertaining, especially if Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor is playing. On the other hand, if there is some other sport on, you’ll probably be switching over. This scores 5

Unfortunately we can’t watch the WSOP live but when it is on it’s a slam dunk for the old Tivo. 9

All in all this looks to be a pretty slow year in sports don't-cha think?