This is a controversial subject in all kinds of sports in every league. Some people believe it is unfair to run up the score because it makes the other team feel inferior and others believe that a game is however long it is for a reason and that reason is to finish the game and play and coach every down like its your last.
If you ever played popwarner football or little league baseball and either your team was great or terrible, you would remember them turning off the scoreboard after a team got over a certain quota. Many people believe this is the proper thing to do because you’re not making a kid feel bad. If the team who is winning by a huge margin keeps trying to score, the coaches and parents will most likely start to get upset of the opposing team. Even in the NFL and College, running up the score is look down upon and coaches get heat for doing it.
In my opinion, however, running up the score shouldn’t be looked down in any type of organisation. You play to win the game, and if today wasn’t your teams day, it shouldn’t be sugar-coated, instead it should be something to a team learns from. A score is just numbers after all. Of course it indicates whether a team wins or loses, but it’s still a score. What I mean by this is any person knows how great or poorly they’re playing. The score isn’t the only thing that tells you that.
Kids have to learn in life that sometimes they’re not better than anyone else. They shouldn’t baby them by saying oh, you only lost by a such and such number (only because of slaughter rule). And in the NFL, well come on, these are not only grown ups, but people who make millions of dollars. An old expression would best describe if anyone on a pro-team gets upset about being blown out – “If you cannot handle the heat, get out of the kitchen.”
What also not running up the score does is give the other chance a comeback. It only takes a few plays and a shift of momentum to do that. Plenty of teams in even professional sports have lost games because they stopped fully playing.
It also ruins people’s bets. In my opinion, it is a honor for a person to bet on your team. They are telling you that they trust you. So, say if a spread is 10, and they’re winning by 9 with 1 second left, and the team a person bet on allows a team to score just because they already won, that’s a huge slap in the face to the person who bet on you.
Ultimately, running up the score should be part of the game. A team is ready to play a full game each week, so we should see a full game. The media looks down upon it only because it affects their ratings. That’s a sacrifice you have to take if you put sports on your channel. You don’t see NBC trying to change their games because they didn’t get the full Colts team they weren’t expecting this year. Players and coaches make millions of dollars. For them to be upset because their own team didn’t show up to play and/or was inferior to the other team and the other team is showing how much effort they put into their week of practice and preparation is just ridiculous. I’ve always went by this and I’ll stick by it forever – if you don’t like the other team scoring, then stop them from scoring; don’t get mad at them, instead get mad at yourselves.
What do you think?
