The weirdest, most forgettable Olympics since the last Olympics (That still wasn’t enough to push Herschel Walker into the end zone, though.)Ĩ. None of this has really affected what happens on the field yet, but there was a memorable story there too: The Georgia Bulldogs won their first national championship since 1981, to the delight of their long-suffering fans. Coaches cashed in with salaries that consistently made them the highest-paid employees in their states. Desperate universities sold their broadcast rights for billions of dollars (with serious “last helicopter out of Saigon” vibes), transforming the entire landscape of the sport in the process (UCLA is in the Big Ten now?). “Name, image, and likeness” contracts have allowed players to, at last, sell their services to the highest bidder. No sport has experienced a more dramatic upheaval over the last couple of years than college football. I am relieved to say that I’ll never have to mention it again in one of these year-end wrap-ups. Put it this way: I rank the top-ten biggest sports stories of the year for this publication every year, and for the past two years, COVID has been the obvious, slam-dunk choice for No. Stands were full throughout every major event - with one exception, which we’ll get to in a couple of spots. Despite various surges throughout the year, there were no major disruptions to the sporting calendar, and scenes of packed stadiums became a sign that we had returned mostly to normal. But in sports, it has been for a long time. Yes, yes: The pandemic is not, in fact, over. Here, a look at the ten biggest sports stories of 2022. Sports tried to stick to sports this year - but it’s not always so simple. Golf welcomed back huge crowds, and Tiger Woods all but had to stave off a rival tour backed by the Saudi government. Wimbledon had fans again but no Russian competitors.
The World Cup returned in thrilling fashion but was played in stadiums built with slave labor and hosted by a country that forbids homosexuality. There wasn’t a fan who, for better or worse, didn’t breathe a sigh of relief. Sure enough, after the madness of 2020 and a 2021 that featured continuous cancellations and political upheaval (remember when MLB pulled the All-Star Game out of Georgia? That seems like decades ago), 2022 felt much like every other sports year between World War II and COVID-19.
The past two-plus years of the pandemic, combined with social unrest, unsettled things in a way that was never going to last the sports world generally snaps back to a familiar shape at the earliest opportunity. The story lines that make sports fun - stories that can last our entire lives - require a basic foundation and structure we all can trust. To be a sports fan is to value consistency.
Photo: Manan Vatsyayana/AFP via Getty Images Russian athletes competing at the Winter Olympics.
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