i wonder which of the "mainstream sports" demands the most from its athletes? football? hockey? soccer? basketball? something else?
i think it's kinda hard to say cause each is so different from the other. i'll start with hockey...in hockey, the players play a 60 minute game(that is 60 minutes of game time on the clock...games always take longer due to stopages and breaks) the game is split into three 20 minute periods with two breaks of 20 minutes between each period. Hockey is a very fast paced game, with the players constantly moving, constantly skating, and usually skating quite hard. now there are many players on each team and there are multiple lines that are regularly rotating to give the players a chance to rest between shifts. so in hockey, the average elite player...did i just write that? average elite...figure that one out...let's try this a different way. defencemen usually get the most ice time during a game and the best ones generally play 25-30 minutes in a game. most players play less than that. but on top of just the skating, hockey is a contact sport and besides football hockey probably has the most contact. in a hockey season there is 82 total games and teams usually play at least 3 times a week, often 4 or 5 times.
next there's basketball. basketball games are the shortest of the "mainstream sports", at least in terms of time on the clock. basketball games are a total of 48 minutes, split up into four 12 minute quarters. there is a short break between the 1st and 2nd and the 3rd and 4th quarters and a longer break at halftime between the 2nd and 3rd quarters. basketball is another fast paced game, and players are constantly running up and down the court all the time. the only break they get are if there is a foul and a player is shooting a free throw, or if they get substituted off for a rest(and of course the between quarter breaks). though basketball is supposed to be a non-contact sport, there is still plenty of physical contact throughout the games. There are also 82 games in a basketball season and they too play around 4 games in a week.
next there is soccer. Soccer games are both the longest games in terms of time on the clock, and they are played on the biggest playing surfaces. soccer games are played continuously with no clock stoppages except for half time when there is a 15 minute break. games are 90 minutes long(split into 2 halves) and usually have a few minutes of "stoppage time" added onto the clock at the end of the game. most players play the whole game as teams are only allowed a maximum of 3 substitutions per game. the players are running up and down the large field for the whole course of the game, and if it ever looks like it is a slow game where the players aren't running much that means 2 things. first, they are likely running more than it appears(the bigger field may make it seem like they are moving less or slower because it takes a long time to get anywhere) and secondly it just means that the team is very good and very organized and therefore doesn't have to run as much because the players are always in the right position. soccer is another theoretically non-contact sport, though again there is plenty of contact throughout the game(though not nearly as constant as basketball, hockey or football). the top european leagues tend to have around 38 games in a season and generally play 1 or 2 games a week. it is common though for a team to be involved in mutliple tournaments and leagues at the same time and thus sometimes playing as many as 4 games in a week. as well, most of the players belong to national clubs and will play in a national game a few times each month on top of their club's season schedule.
lastly there is football which is kind of an anomoly among the other sports. i say this because football games are played very differently than any other sport. The games are made up of 4 quarters of 15 minutes each for a total of 60 minutes. each team, though has an offence made up of one group of players and a defence made up of another, and it is very very rare for any one player to play on both. offensive players will play for as long as they can, and the defence will try to play as little as possible. (theory being that the defence will stop the other team's offence as quickly as possible giving their own offence more time with the ball). a good game for an offence is to have over 30 minutes of possession with the ball(or over half the game), but this is somewhat misleading, because the players aren't playing for that whole time as the clock regularly(though not always) continues to run between plays. football is easily the most physically demanding of the sports in terms of physical contact and effort put forth on every play, but the players in football generally get longer breaks than any of the other sports. the offensive players get to rest, usually for at least a few minutes, sometimes upwards of 10-15 minutes, while the defence is on the field and vice versa. plus the break at halftime and short breaks between the other quarters. football is also unique in that there are only 16 or 18 games in a season(american and canadian leagues respectively) and teams generally only play 1 game in a week and each team has at least 1 bye week per season where they don't play a game at all.
so i pose the question...which of these sports is the most demanding for it's athletes? or are they maybe all fairly equally demanding in their own different ways? i don't really know mayself, though i'm always biased towards soccer players being superior to all other athletes, but that's just me...
oh, i guess i forgot baseball...but let's be honest, as much as i like baseball(and i do, quite a bit), if there is any athlete that comes close to taking the term armchair athlete literally, it is the baseball player. these guys stand(sometimes sit) around for 2 hours+ at a time with the occasional burst of activity every once in a while. the idea of arguing for baseball as one of the more demanding sports is laughable. (with the exception of the pitcher and catcher who are involved far more than any other player on the field, especially the catcher as he plays every game not every 4th or 5th game like the pitcher)
