Individual Sports Vs. Team Sports

Jake Yono 

JY Journalism

7/1/23

In the world of sports, you are either playing with a team or by yourself. Team sports are self-explanatory, the team works together and tries to win, in an individual sport, the athlete plays the sport by themself and mostly do their best to help their team win. In this article, I’m going to be going over what sports are less or more respected by fans, athletes, and coaches in the world of sports, and playing individual and team sports for fun and not professionally.

Let’s begin with sports fans, generally, I think without fans sports would be nowhere near where they are today. In America, the popular team sports are American football, basketball, baseball, and hockey. The popular individual are tennis, golf, boxing, MMA, and maybe track and field. In my opinion, in America, the most popular sports are American Football, basketball, Baseball, MMA, golf, and hockey. Out of these sports I named 4 team sports but only 2 individual sports. I believe a fan enjoys a team winning more than just one person winning because they have more to relate to, such as different positions on the playing surface, what each player on that team was known for, and the coach of that team because coaches matter a ton in team sports way more than individual ones. In individual sports only one athlete can win, also I believe fans like team sports better than individual sports because they have more action than individual ones. For example in a track meet an athlete wins a golf tournament, but all they are doing is playing golf, you can recall back on his or her magnificent shots but they are only doing one thing which is playing golf. In team sports for example there is offense and defense, quarters and halves, different positions making exciting moments happen throughout the contest, and much more. This leads me and fellow sports fans to surely say that team sports are better to watch as fans than individual ones. To be frank, here, would you rather cheer on one person or a whole team including a coach, this proves my point.

Now let’s get into the content of sports which are the players and the coaches of them. In Individual sports, coaches do not impact the contest as much as they do in team sports. I guarantee that whoever is reading this cannot name me one coach in an individual sport, for golf it’s caddy’s, for tennis and endurance it’s coaches but they barely have any impact, and for combat, it’s cornering. When an athlete wins a championship in an individual sport the coach is not mentioned or anything like that. But In all team sports coaches are a huge part of how the team performs because there are game plans and plays that can help a team win. Also, the organizations in team sports have a way bigger following than the teams in individual sports. For example, millions more people know of the Los Angeles Lakers. the most successful cycling team of all time, Team Jumbo Visma. In other individual sports, athletes are required to build their brand and legacy within the competition as they do not have a team around them. When you are watching an individual sports competition it is a tournament format that can take a few days such as cycling, golf, and tennis. I’m each of these competitions it’s everyone by themselves trying to get to the top. In a team sports contest, you know what two teams are playing and you sit down and watch it and the contest ends right there on that same day. In all, I think team sports are better in this category because the coaches make it more enjoyable to the game.

Our last and final category is playing and competing in these sports, how easy they are to access, how enjoyable they are, and how long you can play the sports for. For most people like me and like most sports fans, people play sports in high school with their friends and that’s it. Every single high school sport has a team aspect to it, athletes can qualify for state championships on their own in individual sports just like professional individual sports, but for team sports in high school, there is a tournament leading up to a state championship. After high school, some athletes play in college but most don’t, everybody’s career comes to an end at some point. If an athlete still wants to play his or her sport after school I believe individual sports are easier to access and how can perform at them for longer. For example, there are golf courses and tennis courts everywhere, only there’s combat sports gyms, and only competitive fun runs, cycles, swims, and triathlons in a lot of places. Playing a team sport after school it’s much harder, some cities have pickup basketball, soccer, and softball leagues but sadly most do not and you half to get with your friends to play but that is extremely hard because public fields, courts, rinks, and Diamonds are rare to find around town. This leads me to the conclusion that you can play individual sports for longer and they are more accessible to play than team sports after you are done playing them in school.

These 3 topics I talked about today all lead to my conclusion. While I do think playing individual sports is better after you finish school, most sports fans watch team sports more than individual sports and it is harder for them to play team sports after school is over for them. I believe team sports are better than individual sports overall but individual sports are more accessible to play after an athlete finishes school. My final statement is that “overall, team sports are better than individual sports”.