One can get really technical, but the more obvious splits would be cars vs motorbikes, rallies vs track races, and oval/tri-oval tracks vs "road circuits".
Americans tend to distinguish "open wheel" (F1, Indy, etc) from other forms (particularly NASCAR).
Open wheel should really be road courses vs. ovals. Yeah, Indy is an oval and yes NASCAR races on a couple road courses, and arguably should race on more according to their fans, but that's the cultural split. A lot of good ol' boy types can't stand road courses, and while GT racing is basically sporty stock cars, far more F1/Indycar fans follow sportscar racing than NASCAR fans. And most of Indycar's great names from the 1960s on came through sports car racing - Roger Penske, Dan Gurney, Paul Newman (yes, that Paul Newman), Jim Trueman, Bobby Rahal, etc. CART doesn't exist without the sports car guys.
So really it's F1/Indy/sports prototypes/GT racing vs NASCAR/dirt track/sprint car racing.
Football (couple times, no big games though)
Basketball (Olympiakos - Maccabi Tel Aviv in the 2006 euroleague quarter finals)
Canadian football (B.C. Lions @ Toronto Argonauts)
Hockey (three times, including N.Y. Rangers @ Philadelphia Flyers in the 2014 playoffs)
Lacrosse (rinkside seats for Colorado Mammoth @ Philadelphia Wings)
Rugby union (Australia - Fiji in the 2015 World Cup, in Cardiff)
Flynnie, I agree that that is the major cultural fault line, but I'm not sure that one should adopt a binary taxonomy, particular given the fact that the split (and even the choices) are much different outside the US.
There is also the whole question of whether Demolition Derby and/or Figure 8 Racing are "sports".
His rallying days were before we were born but he had a couple of Minis he used to race in local events in South Wales during the sixties. I've got a vague recollection he may have taken us to some events when we were kids as he still had the bug for the sport.
Interesting, cheers RdG - probably road rallies at night if we're talking about the 1960s but there were some forest events and blasts around Llandow going on by the end of the decade.
My clearly defined top 3:
Football - everything from 11th tier non league to a Champions league final - probably close on 1000 games
Rallying - well into the hundreds of events
Stock car/banger racing - high double figures, probably 15+ different tracks
Then in descending order from 40 odd down to low single figures:
Horse racing (about a dozen or more different racecourses)
Rugby league (inc. a World Cup Final)
Motor racing - F3, GTs, Touring cars, Historics, clubman racing
Motocross (inc. Supercross)
Athletics
Speedway
Tennis
Ice hockey
Baseball
Track cycling
Motorcycle trials (probably free, though I did buy a programme at a World championship round in Merthyr)
Motorbike racing (on asphalt circuits)
Road cycling
Once only:
Ski jumping - 4 Hills tournament at Bischofshofen
Powerboat racing
Jetski racing (didn't pay)
Badminton horse trials
Motorcycle enduro
Hockey - Commonwealth games
Diving - Commonwealth games
Cricket - 1979 test match at Headingley
Golf - B&H international at York in the early 1980s
Wrestling - in Crosby town hall
Most glaring omissions are probably rugby union and basketball, and F1 I suppose.
Football - Mostly Division 4 football, but seen Premier League right down to Tier 4 of non-league.
Rugby Union - Twice - Saracens v Gloucester at Vicarage Road in 2003 and a few years ago I paid to watch the Gloucestershire Combination Cup Finals at Kingsholm as my brother was playing.
Darts - The BDO World Trophy at Lakeside in 2016, and tomorrow I have tickets for the Cheltenham Masters at Cheltenham Racecourse (which is actually just an exhibition).
I used to live in Crosby or to be more accurate in the posher area of Blundellsands. We had a big house but very little furniture. A schoolmate of mine kept asking me to go along to the wrestling (which probably wasn't in Crosby but in Liverpool itself) but I never took him up on the offer. He was a bit of an oddball to be honest with a penchant for firing off air rifles at night not knowing who or what was within range.
Football
Cricket
Rugby Union
Speedway
Basketball
Volleyball
Baseball
American Football
Canadian Football
Athletics
Stock Car Racing
Banger Racing
Horse Racing
Greyhound Racing
Quite a few notable absences there. No tennis, despite growing up in the Wimbledon area, or golf, despite being surrounded by golf courses.
Football - Barnsley games, two Euro 96 games, Forest home games because a mate went, Leicester home games at university, Leeds UEFA Cup games, Darlo v Plymouth playoff final 1996
Boxing - my dad actually paid. I was 11 (!). 3 round bouts. Never felt a desire to go since.
Horse racing - Doncaster and York work outings
Dog racing - again I think a relative paid when I was a kid. I though it was shit.
Tennis - Henman v Bjorkman, Nottingham, 2000
Cricket - England v ODI, 1980, and first day of Headingley 1981 (I can say I attended the dullest day of the most famous Test in England history), various Yorkshire games
Ice hockey - Canucks, Sheffield Steelers
American Football - NFL (Seahawks), CFL (Lions), College (UCLA), Britain (Leeds Cougars and the short lived Barnsley Bears)
Basketball - Grizzlies, Supersonics
Rugby League - Featherstone (3 or 4 times in the 80's)
Stock car racing - once
Horse racing - once
Baseball - Mariners, Vancouver minor league team
Volleyball - Olympics
Football
Cricket
Cycling - not paid as such, but have been to some right weird places to watch it
Rugby union
Snooker - world championship, UK championship, English Open
Horse racing
Baseball - Cubs
Greyhound racing
Archery - Olympics at Lords
Athletics - Paralympics
first day of Headingley 1981 (I can say I attended the dullest day of the most famous Test in England history)
This sort of reminds me of the time when I went home at the tea interval of a not-very inspiring Essex - Surrey game at Chelmsford in 1983 only to discover the next day that Surrey had been bowled out for the grand total of 14.
Football (hundreds of matches, at all sorts of levels)
Cricket (Middlesex v. Lancashire 1-day match at Uxbridge, about 20 years ago)
Rugby Union (one match in the German Rugby Bundesliga)
Ice hockey (very sporadic attendance in the past, becoming more regular now that we live in a country where it is such a massive sport)
Horse racing (once, at Iffezheim)
Motor racing (DTM at Hockenhein, and a race day at Brands Hatch where Johnny Herbert drove an F1 car)
Golf (Dunhill Cup at St Andrews in 1998(?), it was only a fiver to get in for the students if I remember right)
Last edited by JVL; 12-04-2019, 19:56.
Reason: Forgot golf...
Football
Two- and four-wheeled motor racing (the British Moto GP when it was at Donnington Park, and various car things at Castle Combe with parents when we were small)
Rugby union (a Pilkington Cup final, I think in 1996, and at least one other match at Twickenham although I can't remember what it was; again when I was small)
Tennis (not paid, in fact, but we went along to a bit of the qualifying for this year's Argentina Open, where the qualys were free entrance but we still made the effort to go, so it feels a bit different from having covered a few Fed/Davis Cup ties as a journalist for the official website)
Polo (because I live in the only city with a polo stadium actually inside the city limits, and it's really easy to get to. As well as far cheaper, far friendlier and a way higher standard than the football in these parts)
The ones I'd most like to add to this list are snooker and various of the American varieties of pocket billiards, or Chinese 8-Ball (actual Chinese 8-Ball, not the bar game known as Chinese 8-ball in some parts of the USA, which is the only version you'll find details of on Wikipedia and is totally different). But I'm very much in the wrong place to do those any time soon. There are a few Brits and other Europeans in the upper reaches of the rankings for the US sports at the moment, though, and events are held there quite often, so if I pay attention maybe I can get to something when I'm next over. Having said that the world no. 1 at Chinese 8-Ball is English, but it's only played professionally in China (although I went in to a pool hall in Bristol last year that had a couple of tables).
Speedway
Cricket (Test/ODI/T20/County)
Field Hockey
Track Cycling
Road Cycling (not paid as such but ticketed/accredited)
Football
Rugby
Rugby Sevens
Boxing
Golf
Gridiron
Ice Hockey
Netball
Athletics
Para-athletics
Baseball
Basketball
Ice Speedway
Darts
Tennis
Greyhound racing
Horse racing
Gymnastics
Motor Racing
Swimming
Rowing
Taekwondo
Beach Volleyball
Goalball
Wheelchair Rugby
Archery
Shooting
Dressage
I'm racking my brains for anything else I may have seen decades ago but can't think of any more for the moment. Pretty sure I saw Stock Car/Banger Racing as a kid but will need to check
I didn't pay (which I think is an arbitrary condition for the thread) but am adding Water Polo to my list, as per the matchgoing thread.
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