Talk:March 2007 in sports

Is it notable?
2 cases from this weekend:
 * FA cup QF
 * NCAA tournament semis with no ranked teams

Is there any policy regarding which scores should be included in this article?--Nitsansh 21:49, 11 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The FA Cup is now at the point where it really matters and tensions are at fever pitch (no pun intended). Now as far as the unranked NCAA conference semifinals, these are major conferences (ACC, SEC, Big Ten, etc.) and in these tournaments, anything can happen as was the case Thursday (3/8) when all four lower seeded teams won their games.  Ergo, only major conferences should have their semi-finals listed. NoseNuggets 6:25 PM US EDT Mar 11 2007


 * I see your point here... and since there are only 2 matches in question, it doesn't worth a debate. But in the FA cup case, if you allow this, then any major soccer country has a claim to include its cup matches. And what's the reason to start with the QF? Or maybe it was done also in previous rounds and I didn't notice...--Nitsansh 22:33, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
 * BTW... I don't have any personal agenda in this discussion and I hope you don't as well... I try to keep this article well balanced and set the threshold for items... this discussion was long due...--Nitsansh 22:38, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I should add that I've been editing this article for only about 2 months, and there may be previous discussions on this issue I'm not aware of...--Nitsansh 22:42, 11 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Nitsansh, I thought you were referring to this Thursday and Friday's NCAA tournament games, not the conference tournaments. I don't think there's much point relying on the AP rankings in the NCAAs, since those rankings kind of go out the window when the tournament is on. My suggestion would be either to list all scores or to list only significant upsets (like Northwestern State over Iowa last year) in the first two rounds. -- Mwalcoff 02:31, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

What's in, what's out
In the spirit of selections Sunday...

Which scores should be included in this article regularly?

Let's start with men's Soccer:


 * National teams matches:
 * World Cup finals and qualifying - no doubt about that, I guess...
 * Continental championship finals and qualifying - should this be applied equally to all continents?
 * Friendly matches?


 * International club matches:
 * European champions league, UEFA cup - all matches from 1st round proper onwards (perhaps also CL qualifying 3rd round since big teams are involved there)
 * How about other continents?


 * Domestic leagues and cups:
 * This is very complicated... there are 200-something FIFA members... how do we decide which are important and which aren't? It's a slippery surface...

And so far this is about men... what about women, juniors etc? --Nitsansh 22:55, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

One contributor's take
This is exclusively for football (soccer). I have my own ideas on other sports. As always, I would make exceptions for individual matches that make MAJOR sports headlines. — Dale Arnett 00:25, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
 * World Cup qualifiers and finals
 * Men — Both absolutely in.
 * Women — Finals only.
 * Juniors — Knockout rounds only for men; final matches only for women. I would make an exception next year for the opening match of the U-17 Women's World Cup, only because it will be the inaugural event.
 * Continental championships — Men's finals in for all confederations. I'd say include UEFA qualifiers; neutral on any other confederations. Women, include UEFA knockout rounds only.
 * Friendlies (men)
 * Because the host of the next World Cup isn't involved in any qualifiers, its friendlies should be included once its confederation's qualifying process begins.
 * For the host of the next European Championship, include all friendlies beginning with the start of qualifying, for the same reason.
 * Otherwise, do not include unless highly newsworthy for some other reason, with reference.
 * Friendlies (women)
 * Don't include at all unless highly newsworthy—say, Kristine Lilly's 300th cap (which happened in a friendly tournament), or the farewell match for Mia Hamm (the same match was also the farewell for Julie Foudy and Joy Fawcett). In the foreseeable future, about the only thing I could see rising to that level of notability would be if Birgit Prinz, or in the more distant future, Christine Sinclair were to break Hamm's (or Prinz') international goals record in a friendly. I seriously doubt anyone will ever get to Lilly's record for caps. THAT record may be the most unbreakable in sports—even more than 56, 99.94, 2,632, or any number of Gretzky records.
 * International club matches
 * UEFA Champions League — All matches from 3rd qualifying round on.
 * UEFA Cup — All matches from first round proper. Also include a note whenever the overall Intertoto Cup winner is decided, which now occurs when only one team from the Intertoto is left in the UEFA Cup.
 * UEFA Intertoto Cup — Final round only.
 * All others — Knockout rounds only, but I won't object if the consensus thinks the Copa Libertadores is worthy of more coverage.
 * Domestic leagues and cups
 * Leagues
 * Include only the clinching match for the title in European "major leagues" — Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, Portuguese Liga, Eredivisie for sure; perhaps Scotland (mainly because of the Old Firm). You could make a case for one or two more leagues.
 * Outside the big UEFA leagues, include only knockout phases in countries that employ such a system (e.g. US, Australia, Mexico) and perhaps huge matches in Argentina and Brazil.
 * Cups
 * Include all cup finals in the major European countries. Don't bother with earlier rounds except for the FA Cup, which I'd start at the Third Round Proper, when the Premiership clubs come in maybe the quarterfinals. A possible exception would be if a "big club" (on the level of a Barça, Real, Milan, Inter, Bayern, Man United, Chelsea, Arsenal or the like) loses to a team outside the top flight.
 * About the only other countries for which I'd consider including cup finals are the US and Japan, which have a long history and well-developed articles.


 * On football (soccer), I am not as well versed. Living in the US, it is hard for me to have a feel for what is important, even though I do have interest.  For instance, I know that the UEFA Cup is a big deal even though I see no press coverage of it and I have been pre-posting matches in comments for future dates.  Still, even though I live in the US, I haven't seen news coverage on ESPN, etc for the CONCACAF Champions' Cup 2007, even though the quarterfinals 2nd leg was March 1 and semis are this week.  Also, I haven't seen anything for the 2007 CONCACAF Gold Cup, but it has just been qualifying so far, maybe I will see coverage once the tournament starts in June.  Frankly, I would like some guidance in this area, specifically, should I be putting these CONCACAF events in here? I have not done so yet. --After Midnight 0001 01:44, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm an American also. As much as it may pain me, I don't think Gold Cup qualifiers are notable enough to include. The final tournament is another story; I'm neutral on how much of it to include. — Dale Arnett 02:27, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Britain vs. everywhere else
Not being a soccer fan, I don't really know what counts as "notable" in that sport. However, I'm not averse to covering English and Scottish domestic soccer somewhat more than other leagues of comparable competitiveness. This is the English-language Wikipedia, after all, and there's no question we cover American and Canadian (and Filipino) sports more than they would be covered based strictly on those countries' share of the world population. -- Mwalcoff 02:25, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

In my opinion, this is Wikipedia in English rather than English Wikipedia. You should be aware that English is the 2nd language of most of the people (who have a 2nd language) around the world. When someone doesn't find the info in Wikipedia of his own language, he often looks for English Wikipedia for help. Also many Wikipedians in other languages translate articles from English, and generally takes it as example. For these reasons, I think the English Wikipedia should have a global point of view and try to avoid being an Anglo-American Wikipedia. Also it should be noted that Anglo-Americans (inc. Canadians) are not even a majority of English speakers as mother tongue.

There's no doubt that North America and Europe are the leading news- makers in sports, and a true well-balanced coverage doesn't mean all news are equal. The big European soccer clubs such as Manchester United and FC Barcelona probably have more supporters in many other countries than the leading teams in these countries. Champions League matches are broadcasted around the world and often get better ratings than the big matches in the local leagues. The same can be said about the NBA vs the local basketball leagues.

I can tell you that in my country, there's no sports news bulletin which doesn't include an article on the major European soccer leagues and the NBA. But college basketball is hardly ever covered, except the NCAA tournament, or in case there is a local player who makes the news.

In principle, notability of news items (and this article is sort of news bulletin rather than a classic Encyclopedia article) is measured by 2 criteria: Is it important, and is it interesting. In both cases, the view of the readership population should be considered. In journalism, mass papers go almost only for the interesting news, but quality papers try to ballance both factors. In Encyclopedia, the importance criterium should be even more dominant IMO. --Nitsansh 02:16, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

We did this before, already
And the sort-of-agreement was that anyone is OK to post anything, and if anyone challenges it, just add a source. -- Howard  the   Duck  10:19, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
 * There is no question of verifying here, the question is notability.--Nitsansh 19:36, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Every sporting event as long as it's on the internet is notable by default here. If we'll be using the notability criteria, then we'd open a host of problems, what could be notable for the UK would unnotable for Indonesians, and so forth, so the "sort-of" agreement was to let anyone post anything as long as its verfiable. -- Howard  the   Duck  04:11, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Regular-season updates of Taiwanese baseball?
User:Ludahai has entered an update on the first week of regular-season play in the Taiwanese baseball league. I don't think this is notable, although I think it would be fine to report the result of the championship series in the fall. -- Mwalcoff 20:53, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I think only the opening day games in Major League Baseball in the US are notable, but putting up scores every day would be a chore.  That's why it should be noted that unless something big happens (four home run games, historic milestones, no-hitter or perfect games, etc.), EXCEPT for the last two weeks of the season (when teams in contention are noted), only the All-Star Game, the Home Run Derby and the entire post-season (LDS, LCS, World Series) are reported. NoseNuggets 8:24 PM US EDT Mar 25 2007.
 * I only post updates of the Philippine Basketball Association if it's the semifinals and the Finals, or in the opening day. -- Howard  the   Duck  07:24, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

April 2007 in sports now open
I just started April 2007 in sports for the record. Feel free to add to it. --NoseNuggets 10:46 PM US EDT Mar 27 2007
 * FYI, because of the way that these articles are moved and redirected at the start/end of each month, the new article will end up needing to be deleted to allow the proper replacement later (I can explain more about the mechanics of this if you want, but I'll not belabor it here unless requested). I believe that the best way to handle this is to actually place the future entries in the commented area above March 31 and then they can be split out after the new month starts.  I will clean up what I can of this, but as I am not an admin, I'll need to get help to finish the job.  --After Midnight 0001 07:33, 29 March 2007 (UTC)