Tuesday, March 12All That Matters

ESPN ranked the degree of difficulty for 60 different sports from hardest to easiest. Do you agree with the list?


ESPN ranked the degree of difficulty for 60 different sports from hardest to easiest. Do you agree with the list?



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39 Comments

  • ToyMachine471

    Thinking about it, each sport has their difficulties so it’s hard to tell for some. I think swimming should be higher though.

  • RussellZoloft

    Hockey should be #1, you have to do everything from every other sport, sometimes including boxing, all on deadly sharp ice skates.

  • theycallmeasloth

    If they’d considered Australian Rules Football it’d be guaranteed top 10

    Edit: Also combining both Rugby’s into one is just lazy

  • Mecha_Hitler_

    Top of the list seems about right, but I’m struggling to understand how alpine skiing beets our lacrosse or rugby.

  • imVision

    Baseball is harder than soccer? Compare the average athletic builds and BMIs for baseball players and soccer players lol. ESPN once again proving how much of a joke they’ve become

  • isadotaname

    How can you measure difficulty in a sport played against other people?

    Winning is only a matter of being better or worse than your opponent, so difficulty isn’t related to the sport at all.

  • polywha

    The fact that golf is considered more difficult than cheerleading, which actually requires you to be somewhat fit, makes this list invalid.

    I play golf. It’s one step above billiards. Most people on the green couldn’t do a fraction of what a cheerleader could do. Hell, most of them can’t climb stairs without getting winded.

  • PM_ME_A_FUTURE

    They think speed and power matters more in baseball than in rugby??? What in the fuck even is this? Sure there are some baseball players that are strong/fast, but also like 40% of any given roster is either pear shaped or bordering on immobile.

  • RedNeckBillBob

    It feels like they are interpreting difficulty to only physical difficulty. Nothing of note to technical skill required, strategy, and overall difficulty to learn.

  • Synthwoven

    Water polo is too low. It is basically water-based wrestling while playing hockey/soccer. The ratings seem to be done by someone who watches sports rather than plays them.

    I have played many of these and a noob can walk into a boxing ring and at least have an idea of what to do (even if he will get his ass beaten by an experienced boxer pretty instantly). Some of the other sports take significantly more training to just know the basics of what to do (like all of the specialization in football). In boxing, if you can grapple your opponent up, you can get breathers though which lessens the required stamina a bit in my estimation.

    I think a noob is probably going to drown playing water polo against experienced players. The only sport I have tried that was more physically demanding than water polo was triathlon.

    Baseball is terrifying. If you have never taken an at-bat against someone who throws in the 90s, I don’t think you can judge it fairly (I thought I was going to die). The curve ball was even scarier than the heat.

    There is a reason soccer is a lower scoring sport than baseball. It is extremely difficult to score. There are no fat soccer players (baseball and boxing have had fat pros).

    The list tried to quantize attributes required to play, but I think it missed some intrinsic aspects of the various sports. Team sports require some understanding of complicated tactics that just isn’t required in individual sports.

    I have never tried it, but biathlon looks extremely difficult. Do brutal cardio then do something that is easiest with a super low heart rate. No thanks.

    Decathletes impress the crap out of me.

    It is a fun debate.

  • trelos6

    I’d say boxing is the easiest. Stand there and punch someone. Not too hard to do that.

    Agree with ice hockey though. Skating can be hard, then try holding a stick and trying to hit a puck.

  • crazyea

    I think the list looks pretty good overall. Everyone will have a personal bias, but ultimately if you look at how it’s all broken down it makes sense. At least to within a position or two.

  • bsblguy21

    If this list is ranking based on how hard it is to be a professional, golf needs to be way way higher. Like maybe #1. The difference between a PGA tour golfer and even a scratch player is remarkable.

  • rdldr1

    I remember the old Spike TV show Joes vs Pros. When the sport challenge was ice hockey, the Joes would get their ass whooped. Imagine having difficulty in standing or moving while trying to win a challenge.

  • OkBodybuilder418

    Why golf gets any points for endurance makes no sense. The best golfer I knew was a 409lbs guy who was always drunk and smoking on the course. He held records at three pretty big courses, and was always being told to go pro

  • vivekisprogressive

    Hot take here, but cheerleaders should be much higher. Competition cheer is intense. The stunting and towers are incredibly dangerous and require a lot of skill and practice, as does the tumbling, It should be much closer to gymnastics than it currently is.

  • whynotlikemike

    Don’t care what anybody says baseball is the absolute hardest sport it is so difficult to become a pro people spend years trying to be a pro and they have to put in so much work if they even want to be half good. And most of the professional baseball players were multi-sport athletes meaning they could have done anything they use their skills to do something that most can’t

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