Excellence is boring

If you're a world class athlete it's hard to please everyone. You pride yourself on excelling, outperforming, dominating and winning. But people will deride you for it. Roger Federer for the longest time was the best tennis player in the world, and he was also - to me at least - extremely boring. Guys like Nadal, Roddick were more fun to see play, and root for.

The Spanish football team is without question the best football team in the world. They have the playing style that few if any can emulate. And by now their games are probably the most boring to watch. I'd rather watch England, Portugal, Brazil possibly. They are flawed, far from perfect, but much more entertaining to see.

LeBron James is arguably the best basketball player in the world, but after making some dubious decisions - the Decision for one - he's the basketball player everybody loves to hate... until this past week when he won the NBA title after several failed attempts.

Point is, excellence is boring. Domination is not entertaining. People root for people they can relate to, and - unless you're from the country or region a superstar or a team is from - athletes who are flawed are more recognizable to the general audience than the ones who are seemingly transcendent.