Edit: ahhh apparently he changed the date of the tweet somehow.
I'm a twit
It’s the highest profile shock one. Ali is the highest profile though.
He was one of the basketballers I could name.
Michael Jordan
'Shaq'
Kobe Bryant
Wilt Chamberlain
Kevin Durant (only 80% sure on this one)
somebody Abdul Jabbar
That's it I think.
Yep I know them although hadn't heard the name Magic Johnson for about 20 years.
I only know him because of aids in fairness. Was a big story at the time.
The only other one I could offer you is Scotty Pippen and that’s only because he was the guy who wasn’t MJ.
Someone Barkley was in space jam too I think, but no idea on his first name.
I'd only ever heard of Rodman because it was in the news that some mad basketball player with best pals with Kim Jong-Un.
Like I said originally. The biggest sporting name of our internet era. Who else has there been?
Nearly Schumacher.
Obviously I know the name, but I've never seen any basketball with him in, and do not have any interest in it whatsoever. For that reason, for me, a more shocking death would be Marc-Vivian Foe or Antonio Puerta dying on the pitch.
It probably wasn't in the 'internet era' being 1999, but the one I remember for where-were-you shock value was Payne Stewart.
That's the first time I've heard of Payne Stewart and I'm quite keen on golf. Three majors too. Odd.
He was a current major champion and well known for his garish trousers etc. It was a massive thing at the time, partly because of the grisly nature of the plane ghosting hundreds of miles on live TV before crashing.
He was a much bigger name in the US than here though.
I was big into golf at the time, and it was a huge deal for me. He'd been on the US Ryder Cup a few weeks before.
Yeah that was a big one at the time.
Senna is the biggest one I can remember, it happened live and during competition so it was that much more impactful. Rather stretching the definition of 'this generation' though.
He must be the only black man without a decent chopper.
I have Airplane! to thank for knowing who Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is.
I've never chosen the fish.
Charles Barkley but I'm not sure if he's real because I only know him from Shut Up And Jam.
He's also famous for being one of the 'whales' Tiger Woods hung out with during his downfall period.
And maybe he's in Clerks Animated?
Senna would surely be way more famous worldwide than Bryant.
Kobe is a god in Asia, though.
Is that why they named a steak after him?
Precisely my boy.
Kobe is a million times bigger in terms of name recognition than Senna was.
Basketball does seem to produce the megastar names that people in slums 10,000 miles away wear on their backs. Maybe because the nature of the game lends itself to personality cults.
If I do the same player-naming exercise with the financially bigger American football I'm coming up lower than the basketball names I think. About 8 quarterbacks and Jerry Rice. Before I got into baseball, I would have had Jeter, Pujols and then all the others would have been from 50+ years ago. Ice hockey, just Gretzky I think. I'm thinking, but nah, just Gretzky.
If you swap it around, I bet there is a lot of America who can name zero soccer players except maybe Pele or Beckham.
Last edited by Jimmy Floyd; 27-01-2020 at 10:52 PM.
Kobe is a household name in the slums because basketball is more accessible than Formula fucking 1.
Anyone below 30 has heard of Ronaldo and Messi at least. I'd say Ronaldinho still has the biggest name recognition for over 30's for Americans.
Ronaldo and Messi are the only ones that everyone in America know.
Yeah, I was trying the same thought exercise and hit the NHL wall. I want to say there's a player (the best one) who plays (probably played) for the Penguins with a girly sounding name Stacey or Tracy or something but other than that I have no idea.
Baseball's not much better but there are more broad cultural references to that (The Simpsons alone can probably provide half a dozen . . . Daryl, Daryl, Daryl) so that'd be safer ground. Reckon I could get to at least 20.
I couldn't name 5 baseball players in a minute and i doubt i could get 8 NFL-and-Jerry-Rice players. Basketball I could maybe name 20. I could name a few hockey players besides Gretzky and Sidney Crosby (that's the one niko) but they're all Czech.
Cricket I can name one. Rugby 0.
Yeah, that's him. Probably attests more to my having grown up with the Scream film franchise than to my knowledge of ice sports.
Baseball = Manningly, Conseco, Ken Griffey, Steve Sax, Homer, Ozzie and the Straw.
Don't forget Roger Clemens and Wade Boggs.
I asked my mum how many footballers she knew recently and she came up with Ronaldo and Snodgrass.
The NBA is as popular as the football down here.