A True World Championship

Can you imagine calling Ranji Troply as World Championship Cricket or think of calling Nehru Hockey Tournament as World champion Hockey Cup. No way right!! We can't really name that way because its all local trophies played within a country and between different states.

Only in America, you hear about World championships all the time. Let say their American Football. Hold on, its not soccer :-) I am right on saying it. Its american football which only people live in america can understand(i am slowly getting into it). If you watch, it similar to rugby but more physical than that.

Then comes Baseball World championship. They play Baseball leagues from Apr till Oct which overlaps with Football season from Sep - Feb. You might have a slight thought that they are playing with some other countries who knows how to play basefall and football. No, they are not. Its all played between different sponsored and well payed teams only in Americas.

When I got to know(7-8years back) about the World championship for football, I immediately asked my american friend. How many countries do they participate in this tournament? He is like, Did you ask how many countries ? No, its all inside America. We play between different teams all over America and who ever gets to win the final game are called World Champions.

I am like WHAT ?! My question as you all can guess, then why do you call World champions if you don't play with any other country. He is like "I don't know ?" The usual word I don't care answer which you hear from any american. They been calling it that way because the media calls it that way to get more sponsors and publicity.

Then he asks me about CRICKET. You play a game similar to baseball with Wicket. And I tried to explain to him more in detail. He is like, "You guys play for the 5 days or one full day". Thats too much work and too long of a play. I said, may be. I know, you want everything easy and simple.Thats what makes it more exciting. So I figured they don't like our CRICKET. I think they don't like it not for game sake, they won't like because its from Britain.

Truely speaking, are these Football and Baseball world championship up to other worldcup level ? May be the hype, publicity and money floats around can match up to the other worldcups but I don't think these cups can't be truely compared to other worldcups. The other aspect of it, you only have people from America watching these football & baseball championships. Compared to other worldcupls like Soccer and Cricket are watched by people all over the world.

Why do they call World Championship? I guess because nobody in this world plays these games and they don't have anybody else to beat outside their terriotory. Most of all, they don't open their eyes to see outside world. Funny fact of the matter is most people in America don't know anything outside of America. They always think America is their only world.

When President Bush was asked in 2000 election campaign about India, he couldn't able answer. May be he might have answered like, 'Is it in Europe?!. Who knows. Yeah right, It was in Europe now its in Africa. If the President itself couldn't answer about the outside world, how can we expect others to thing outside America. I know its changed a lot since then.

A True World championship is anything but a true fight between different countries from all over world to take away a CUP worthy of lifetime. There is more than the sports aspect in the world championships. It has sharing of culture between different countries, spreading the sport, bringing people and players together from different countries and much more..

Thats what I call a World Championship and thats what it's all about.