The Ultimate* Sports Tier List

A golfer watches the trajectory of a shot; image from Pexels

Because I, too, am not immune to occasional Buzzfeed-style listicles.

I usually present as (and indeed am) a nerd, so it may surprise you that I'm a big sports fan. Something about sports—whether the mathematical side of it or something as mundane as the emotions involved—had a strong visceral hold on me even as a kid. I grew up loving, even obsessing over all kinds of sports and learning all kinds of useless stuff. That obsession is weaker now but still fairly strong.

Since it's been a while since I published something more lighthearted on here, I decided to postpone my planned contemplations on death and life for some time. This list obviously isn't going to review every sport (I mean, have you seen how long the Wikipedia page is), but it's to cover all the major ones. Of course, "major" is entirely defined by me, but this is a listicle and no one cares about objectivity anyway!

F Tier

Curling

If it were up to me, curling would not even be on this list of sports. But I know there's at least one person out there who's going to jokingly (jokingly?) assert that curling is a sport, and I will forestall that by arguing to you that curling is glorified shuffleboard. I won't argue it's not fun to watch (at least at the Olympics), but I don't think it has enough sustained physical exertion to count as a sport.  For that alone, it's in the F Tier at best.

D Tier

Archery

I just can't see the appeal. It can sometimes be fun to watch, but there's so little action involved that it makes it hard to really get into archery.

Figure Skating

It seems like a lot of people really like figure skating, but I'm not one of them. I find the music garish and the routines impressive but nothing world-shattering. I can understand that it's impressive when a skater does a quadruple axel or whatever, but it doesn't really make me go wow in a way that other sports are able to. I was honestly considering putting figure skating in the F Tier, but I don't want to downplay the abhorrence of curling and I did enjoy some of Nathan Chen's routines at the 2022 Olympics.

Gymnastics

Honestly, I never got into it. It's obviously impressive at the high levels, but I never found gymnastics to be that enjoyable, for whatever reason.

Soccer

Hear me out. I am admittedly an amateur when it comes to playing soccer, so I can understand if people with more soccer experience disagree with me. But I despise sports where scoring is relatively rare, and soccer is probably foremost among those. In a lot of matches, it seems like goals are relatively sparse, and just watching people run back and forth across the field feels like a waste of time. 

Not to mention that in most matches, it's considered an acceptable result (by the rules) for there to be a 0 to 0 draw! Think about that. Contrary to what youth sports coaches desperately assert, the point of sports is to win. Allowing for draws seems to defeat that point. Sure, draws don't exist for the really important matches, e.g. World Cup playoffs, but what about all the other matches that aren't elimination games in a major tournament? 

Now, I do like playing soccer with friends, but that's because I'm actually involved in the back-and-forth running. My enjoyment comes from my sense of agency, not the actual sport.

Running

I don't like to run.

Swimming

I don't like to swim. Also—especially for longer events—I find it hard to tell what's going on and who's winning, and confusion is generally not the path to enjoyment of a sport.

A  swimmer; image from Pexels

C Tier

Ice Hockey

Ice hockey doesn't have a lot of scoring, like soccer, but it feels like the scoring is more frequent. I'm not going to say that I could sit through 60 minutes at once, but it feels a lot more unpredictable. A team might score twice in the span of thirty seconds or within the first minute of the game, and that happens enough that it doesn't feel strange. 

My complaints with ice hockey are mainly that the puck is hard to spot and there are too many fights. But other than that, I'm perfectly fine with it in smaller quantities.

Baseball

Yes, I'm slandering America's game as an American!

I enjoy watching baseball highlights and baseball's emphasis on statistics, while intimidating, is also appealing to me. That said, I usually find it boring to watch and boring to play. Since a baseball game is essentially a long series of mini-duels between batter and pitcher, if I'm playing, chances are I'm not involved in most of the game. If I'm watching, the chances of the batter actually doing something aren't great, and each at-bat takes several minutes, which means spending a lot of time watching minimal action. Baseball is just not that entertaining for me unless I'm watching the World Series or something.

Snowboarding

I wish I could put snowboarding in a higher tier. I always love watching it at the Winter Olympics. That said, it's less exciting than a lot of other sports, and I'm not that into acrobatics in general. Maybe I'm just ignorant, though.

Skiing

Like with snowboarding, I enjoy watching skiing at the Winter Olympics, but I'm still putting it in the C Tier. I think it gets repetitive after some time since you're watching skiers go down the same course, and I think it would be fun (though probably dangerous) if there was more direct head-to-head competition. All in all, I'm kind of lukewarm on skiing.

Badminton

Great to play, less fun to watch. Something about the long nature of a match (in terms of points) drives me away. Other than that, though, it's a solid sport.

Volleyball

Volleyball would be in my A or B Tier for sure IF it was shorter. I love the action and all the twists and momentum shifts in a single point, but I find that it loses flavor in large quantities (particularly the five-set monstrosities). As with badminton, I'm forced to rank it in a mediocre tier because of its length.

Silhouetted volleyball players on a beach; image from Pexels

B Tier

Tennis

Although tennis matches are also pretty long in terms of points, I think it's mitigated by the game-and-set system. Each game feels more truncated yet more important. I also love the atmosphere of tennis! I wouldn't be able to watch a tennis match from start to finish, so I'm keeping it in the B Tier, but I feel like tennis improves on a lot of the shortcomings badminton and volleyball have.

Golf

Golf broadcasts are fascinating to me because of how they always seem to be cutting to somewhat exciting stuff that's happening. Golf also has a pleasant atmosphere! It would not be my first viewing option, but if there was nothing else on TV, I just might be willing to watch adults use glorified ladles to hit a ball across a gigantic lawn.

Rugby

Violent and unsafe, but kind of fun to watch from a distance? I'm more of a football fan (spoiler alert), but I have to admit that the continuous nature of rugby is a nice change. I don't have too many other thoughts on rugby, though.

Rugby players playing rugby (I love tautologies); image from Pexels

A Tier

Australian Rules Football

As a longtime (read: a couple of weeks) fan of the Collingwood Magpies, I am obligated to endorse Australian rules football! There's a lot of action going on and the sport feels like a fun mix between rugby and soccer.

Warning: It also happens to be violent, as one could expect from a sport with no safety equipment.

Handball

Although it sounds like a game that was invented by edgy soccer players, handball is arguably much funner than soccer or many of the members of the soccer family. After all, most people can probably throw things better than they can kick things. 

Also, I find handball's step constraints actually make it more fun!

Cricket

My enjoyment of cricket is very dependent on the format. It's all good if I'm the one standing out in the sun batting, but like with baseball, there are only a few people who are truly involved at any moment. The difference is that there's a lot more action... IF it's T20 cricket or maybe ODI cricket. Test cricket, on the other hand, is painfully slow; it's fun to follow along at the end of the day just because of the huge scores involved, but there seems to be little happening minute to minute.

Children playing cricket; image from Pexels

S Tier

Basketball

Over the years, I've come to treasure basketball for its intensity, action, strategy, and awesome atmosphere, in addition to it just being fun to play! There's really not much more that I can explain. Would I watch an entire basketball game from start to finish? Maybe not, but I've done it before and still not felt my thirst for basketball quenched by the end of it.

Obviously, basketball isn't for everybody, but I genuinely believe it's worthy of being in the S Tier.

Football

Football was the sport I first loved, and is the sport I continue to love. I actually feel a little guilty for being so into football, given the physical harm involved. I guess it's easy to overlook that when you're watching on TV from an overhead camera that isn't meant to show what players are experiencing.

It's hard to explain why I'm drawn to football. I think it might have been the way that objectives are framed: four tries to get a first down, keep advancing, get to the end zone, balance the risk of passing against the potential gains, etc. Every time my cheering interest gets a first down, it feels like something was accomplished and like there's progress being made. Or maybe it's the numerical nature, and how you need to get a certain number of yards each down. 

The action also compels me, even if a lot of time is wasted in between downs. It feels like anything could happen, especially in college football. And that keeps me coming, down after down.

Chess

You didn't think I could get through this without at least one hot take, did you?

Okay, look. Chess is a sport. Even the International Olympic Committee considers it a sport. The premier body for deciding what is and isn't a sport thinks chess is a sport. Seriously.

I could make an entire blog post waxing prosaic about chess, but honestly, no one wants to read that. So instead, let me just say that the level of strategy is amazing and you can't beat the elegance of a grandmaster's endgame sequence. Is chess worthy of the S Tier? Probably not, but I'm a dirty blogger who needs to include at least one edgy take per post to keep the clicks coming!

So what do you think about this list? Where do you agree or disagree? Let me know in the comments!