What’s up? So we finally made it. After many delays, all my fault, we have finally made it to the grand final of our bracket in the search for the greatest sports movie of all time.
We started with 64 movies and are down to the final two. On one side, we have a basketball comedy starring Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson. On the other, a golf comedy starring Adam Sandler. That’s right! It’s White Men Can’t Jump vs Happy Gilmore.
Before we get into this final matchup, here are a couple of quick stats:
– Kevin Costner is the most represented actor in the bracket, starring in five of the 64 films in this bracket; Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, Tin Cup, Draft Day and For Love Of The Game.
– Gavin O’Connor and Ron Shelton are the most represented directors, each with three appearances. Gavin directed Warrior, The Way Back and Miracle. Ron directed Bull Durham, Tin Cup and one of our finalists, White Men Can’t Jump. If you want a tiebreaker though, Ron Shelton also wrote Blue Chips, another film in this bracket.
– The most represented sport is basketball, with 11 films. It was followed closely by baseball and american football, each with 10 and boxing with 7.
– Our poorest performing film was the fourth seed Creed, which got mollywhopped in round one by the 61st seed, The Waterboy.
– The latter film, The Waterboy, was the best performing film for it’s placement, making it all the way to the quarterfinals before being eliminated by White Men Can’t Jump.
Alright, onto the final matchup (and our third and fourth place matchup.)
25. He Got Game vs 34. Cool Runnings
3rd Place Matchup
He Got Game
Stars: Denzel Washington, Ray Allen
Directed by: Spike Lee
RT Score: 82% (81% critic, 83% audience)
Path So Far: Beat 40th seed Invictus with 62.5% of votes. Got past the 57th seed BASEketball on a tie-breaker. Beat 41st seed Coach Carter with 63.6% of the votes. Beat 17th seed The Karate Kid with 61.9% of the votes. Eliminated in the semifinal by White Men Can’t Jump, garnering only 32% of votes.
Cool Runnings
Stars: John Candy, Leon
Directed by: Jon Turteltaub
RT Score: 78.5% (76% critics, 81% audience)
Path So Far: Beat 31st seed Caddyshack with 83.3% of the votes. Beat 2nd seed Raging Bull with 69.2% of the votes. Swept the 15th seed Field of Dreams with 100% of the votes. Beat the 23rd seed Remember The Titans with 57.1% of the votes. Eliminated in the semifinal by Happy Gilmore after a revote due to a tie, garnering 36.8% of the votes.
While He Got Game is the higher seed here, I might have to lean to Cool Runnings on this one. It beat arguably harder competition, even eliminating the 2nd seed Raging Bull. It also got a clean sweep of the 15th seed Field of Dreams and took the current finalist Happy Gilmore all the way to a tiebreaking vote round. Whether it’s the serious Spike Lee joint, or the more fun Disney family film, either film is deserving to be in this matchup.
44. White Men Can’t Jump vs 43. Happy Gilmore
Grand Final
White Men Can’t Jump
Stars: Wesley Snipes, Woody Harrelson
Directed by: Ron Shelton
RT Score: 72.5% (77% critic, 68% audience)
Path So Far: Destroyed the 21st seed Friday Night Lights with 90% of the votes. Beat the 53rd seed Any Given Sunday with 77.8% of the votes. Beat the 60th seed Space Jam with 75% of the votes. Beat the 51st seed The Waterboy with 64% of the votes. Beat the 25th seed He Got Game with 68% of the votes.
Happy Gilmore
Stars: Adam Sandler, Christopher McDonald
Directed by: Dennis Dugan
RT Score: 73% (61% critic, 85% audience)
Path So Far: Swept the 22nd seed Major League, getting 100% of the votes. Dominated 11th seed Love & Basketball, getting 80% of the votes. Beat 6th seed The Fighter with 75% of the votes. Beat 30th seed Rocky with 64% of the votes. Beat the 34th seed Cool Runnings after a revote, with 63.2% of the votes.
Here it is. The final matchup. It’s all come down to this. Something that is interesting is that for the most part, voters leaned towards the comedies and more uplifting films, rather than the heavy dramas. Here we have two comedies, one a basketball comedy about two conmen, hustling players in streetball. The other, a story of a hockey player turned golfer who takes the world by storm with his crazy drives and crazier antics. Both films are absolutely deserving of being in the finals. I’m not even mad that Space Jam didn’t make it now.
There we have it. Thanks to everybody who voted and followed along with this. Keep an eye out by following thesportcodex on Twitter to see what our next bracket will be. If you have any ideas what you want to see, hit us up as well.
Until next time, PEACE!