Mark Madden: Sports are oversaturated. That's ruining the games and viewability

How we ruin sports (one in a series):

We are saturated with sports: Too many sports, leagues, teams and games. Demand (or lack thereof) doesn’t matter. All we ever get is more. Not better. More.

How many times does spring football have to fail before it never gets resuscitated again? But as long as there’s somebody to sponsor it, televise it and bet on it, it will return.

The WNBA has been around since 1997 and still isn’t self-sufficient. It is subsidized by the NBA. Its attendance (pre-Caitlin Clark) is on par with the American Hockey League, a Class AAA operation that doesn’t have many big cities or modern buildings and isn’t televised nationally. Beyond games involving Clark, that attendance hasn’t increased this season. But there’s a perceived obligation.

Same goes with women’s hockey. Yet another attempt at a pro league launched in 2023-24. The average crowd was 5,448. (Yawn.) It’s reported that players will need to take pay cuts next season.

Two golf leagues aren’t needed. There aren’t enough good golfers to go around. The elite don’t compete against each other enough anymore. (The situation has made the four major tournaments mean more. They should play those and eliminate everything else.)

Examples abound. Too much is never enough.

Every schedule is too long, too cluttered.

Every pro sport has too many teams. The talent is spread too thin. But expansion fees are free money.

When domestic leagues break, international competition takes place.

Athletes, especially the best, don’t get enough time off. Their performance suffers. Or load management robs some crowd of a rare chance to see a visiting megastar. (That happens frequently in the NBA.)

The NFL frets about player safety but keeps adding more games.

Saturation trickles down to the fan.

You’re possessed by sports. You watch too much. What are your kids’ names again?

You’re in thrall to gambling.

Why be in one fantasy league when you can be in five?

Do you ever not wear a sports logo T-shirt? (Guilty as charged.)

You discuss sports on social media constantly. It’s not civil discourse.

The latest victims of this saturation having negative effect are the ongoing European Football Championships and Copa America, two international soccer tournaments.

These competitions have reached their semifinal stages and have been rotten so far. Slow, sloppy and clumsy.

These tournaments feature the world’s best players: Kylian Mbappe, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Vinicius Junior, etc. You know the names (or maybe you don’t).

The Euros and Copa should be showcases.

But it’s hard to describe how bad these tournaments have been. How such big-time talent has been betrayed.

But soccer’s premier domestic leagues (as in, not MLS) segued right into the Euros and Copa. When those tournaments are completed, those players go right to preseason for their club teams.

It never stops. The top players never get more than a few weeks off at a time.

The result is soccer declining deeply in all of its forms. Not just increased fatigue but more injuries.

Many don’t see the degeneration because they don’t want to or because disappointing is the new normal.

It won’t stop. Greed never stops.