It’s almost 2016, which is actually quite sad. 2015 gave the sports world so much, and given some time, it’ll likely go down as the best sports year in history so far.
Think about it. What year even comes close? There was the Super Bowl and that painful, game-ending interception from Malcolm Butler. There was the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight of the century which, for all its subsequent disappointment among general boxing fans, still captivated us all in the moment.
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There was the Golden State Warriors’ win streak, the Kansas City Royals winning the World Series, and the U.S. Women’s National team winning the World Cup. Jordan Spieth and Serena Williams also made serious Grand Slam runs in their respective sports, and Holly Holm’s stunning upset of Ronda Rousey. Wait, did we mention American Pharoah? Oh, yea, American Pharoah won the Triple Crown for the first time in 36 years.
Even putting aside the conventional win-lose spectrum, what made 2015 so great was the emergence of other stories. It may be gliding under the radar in the U.S., but Leicester City’s rise in the English Premier League is putting to shame anything Billy Beane’s Oakland A’s could have hoped for. The winding-down of Tiger Woods’ career. Sepp Blatter. Ron Hunter. Cam Newton. Bartolo Colon. Deflategate. 2015 always gave us something, and it was always so fascinating.
There have been other good sports years, of course, but none like this.
2008 was a good one. Tiger Woods won a major (his last, by the looks of it) on a broken leg. Michael Phelps won eight gold medals and, of course, the Giants destroyed the Patriots’ hopes of going 19-0 with a ridiculous catch.
And there were others. Rod Laver won every tennis grand slam event and the Mets won the World Series in 1969. The Bulls-Suns series in 1993 might have been the greatest NBA Finals ever. The 1972 Dolphins were historically great.
But take a holistic view, and you’d have to give the edge to 2015.
Great sports years like 1993 were largely carried by an amazing event in one sport — like the 1993 NBA Finals — and depended on the other sports’ finals being not bad. 2015 hit us from every angle. Golf fans could put up the solid argument this was golf’s best year ever. Soccer fans the same. Horse racing fans could point to the triple crown. Football fans, the Super Bowl and Cam Newton. NBA fans, the Golden State Warriors.
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There was something for everyone, if you liked it all, you had everything.
So farewell 2015. You’ve been too good to us, and when the time comes to look back, we’ll realize how much we miss you.
