Loshersh whine about doing their besht, winnersh go home and fuck the prom queen

Which is to say, one form of pure loss I found I discovered was getting your bike stolen, just dissappeared, without a trace, I didn't get to say goodbye, it was gone, I locked it to a steel hoop in the ground and I came back and it was gone.
But that's the middle of nowhere.
Let me talk about competition, as my mind was coiling around the idea of a sports league that worked like Semco, as in players set and declared their own wages, ticket sales takings were open and transparent, fans rated the games and there was no salary cap.
It would make a good double blind type experiment to determine what makes content interesting to watch.
I read an article where some dudes had thought they'd devised a mathematical formula to access how good an event was... but I think it deviated from what I would call exciting as it could be predicting the greatest sporting moment by said formula was an olympic mens rowing gold for England in 2004.

Maybe it was but the founder of the modern olympics said the point wasn't to win or lose but to show the true essence of sportsmanship, struggling to be your very best all that shit...
'Pierre de Coubertin Medal' is considered the highest honour, better even than a gold medal. It only occasionally gets awarded by the IOC.
Anyway I have my own theories about what make a contest exciting or not:

1. Emotional Involvement - if you care it is ten times the experience than if you don't.
2. Uncertainty of the outcome - a close contest gauruntees tension and tension builds to inevitable climax
3. Unlikelihood of the outcome - a one sided match is dull but if one by an underdog it gets more exciting.
4. Skill level - as players are pushed to the limits of their abilities the entertainment value goes up.

And that's basically it, I mean hollywood gets it. And yet most free market sporting clubs go the opposite way, they want 100% winning records. They want their players to dominate so thoroughly that they are 'in a league of their own'
I would contend that the games I enjoy the most, infact if anything are the ones where I am simply pushed to my limits. My brain trips out, my muscles fail and I just want to collapse.
And generally they are right, whilst winning is fun and bragging rights should be tradable in the market place, its not important at the end of the day.
Because of a strange compulsion possibly from the depths of natural selection.
But I like to play against a strong competitor, much, much more than dominating a weak competitor.
Third preferance goes to being dominated by a much much stronger player.

See I would have thought that the contest, the competition is what makes the players better, and increases the fun, that being said rather than having Lennox Lewis and Hollyfield punching on the same team is a lot less entertaining than Lennox and Hollyfield punching eachother.
Similarly Jackie Chan fights are often a lot more drawn out as he the underdog attempts to overcome some fighter with a physical advantage over him until eventual triumph are a lot more entertaining than Bruce Lee kicking some poor extra around like a rag doll.
But that highlights a point in itself, I guess players like Bruce Lee and Jordan are a phenomena of their own, pushed themselves so hard as to ascertain another plain of existence. But they are only created because of that insatiable lust to compete.
In summary it is the drive to be our best and to do so by pitting ourselves against the best competitor we can find.
Crushing ants is fun but only for a while. I say in life it should be about a constant pushing upwards, making other people better through our desire to be the best, and not the best there is but the best we can be. By surrendering no quarter. Giving no inch. Unshakeble unstoppable resolve.

High 5's all round.