Which sport has the biggest talent gap between fans and athletes?

You're an idiot. The only track fans are...get ready for it... RUNNERS.

Football? Good luck with the fan swap when your audience is a bunch of drunk, overweight, older men. It wouldn't look a million miles away. It would look a billion miles away.

Basketball? Are you kidding?!?

Baseball? Zero chance. Who's going to even be able to pitch?

Combat sports have to be the most extreme. It wouldn't look like a fight, more like murder.

I'm guessing you've never been to a NASCAR race.

Motogp. The amount of people who can even ride a motorcycle like that is limited to the actual guys who race Motogp and a handful of others. Smallest talent pool of any sport in the world. What they do on a bike is amazing.

For mma its the opposite imo. Ufc is the only major sports league i can think of where guys who pucked up the sport in their twenties are still present (not many but some).

I would say hockey is up there. Your average person cant even skate let alone handle the puck

Shillac wrote:

I think if you took a random spectator from the crowd of football/basketball game and subbed them in they would look bad but not a million miles away from the pros.

In a typical diamond league meet, a random spectator would look like a complete idiot if they raced a 1500m. I think maybe track, tennis and boxing have the biggest talent gaps.

Track and boxing for sure. Weightifting too. Watch the weaklings walk on stage and fail to even move the stack one millimeter in maximum beet-face deadlift position while guys like Suleymanoglu lever the extraordinary mass overhead and lock out in just over one second.

All of them.

I went to a Patriots game in Foxboro and the gap between us and the field made the athletes look like ants.

Probably just about all of them.

Within track and field, the biggest gap must be in the pole vault. 99% of the people in the stands, including those who participate in other events, would kill themselves if they attempted to pole vault.

The least talent gap has to golf. There are a lot of duffers out there who could hang with the pros for a few holes at least before fatigue and (or) nerves would cause them to wilt.

Deadman Running wrote:

I'm guessing you've never been to a NASCAR race.

I've never seen an athlete at a NASCAR race.

Odd Oldie wrote:

The least talent gap has to golf. There are a lot of duffers out there who could hang with the pros for a few holes at least before fatigue and (or) nerves would cause them to wilt.

I'm no fan of golf, but your assessment is way off base. Local so-called scratch golfers would cry if they had to play the same course, from the same tees, with the same pin placements, as the touring pros.

Same situation in bowling. League bowlers with their 300-game coffee mugs would struggle to make a single spare on a lane oiled for a PBA event.

My vote for biggest gap goes to boxing. In most cases the ref would have to stop the fight after the first right-hand punch landed. Next up is American football. The amateurs would take one snap, and the entire offensive line would be taken off on stretchers.

Ski jumping

I'm not sure if NASCAR has the biggest talent gap between fans & participants, but definitely the biggest literacy gap.

Spankbaby wrote:

Ski jumping

That's even better than pole vaulting.

Spankbaby wrote:

Ski jumping

Good one!

More in that vein:

Spankbaby wrote:

Ski jumping

The OP was referring to sports with fans.

Motogp wrote:

Motogp. The amount of people who can even ride a motorcycle like that is limited to the actual guys who race Motogp and a handful of others. Smallest talent pool of any sport in the world. What they do on a bike is amazing.

I wasn't impressed with Moto GP until I relented to some friends bugging me to go to Laguna Seca in 2006 (incredible heat wave that year btw). After seeing the race in person I have nothing but respect for the abilities of the riders. It's amazing. The average person wouldn't stand a chance no matter how many years of "practice" they were given. It takes talent just like any other sport - it's people with freakish talent who are at the top of any sport.

Track fans would look better than in most sports because there is no technique involved. It's just a matter of how many times they would get lapped, depending on the race.

Put some random guy on the high bar in gymnastics, high dive, downhill ski course, figure skating, etc. and they would look ridiculous at best, or end up in the hospital.