The Sports Room
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Art by Kaiju Bunny.
Introduction
Have you ever been frustrated that your favorite soccer/football club lost a crucial game or wanted to rejoice at the fact that your rival team lost a game and display that enjoyment on the simulator? Well, today might be your lucky day, as you can do exactly that in the Sports room on Pokémon Showdown! Here you can talk about any sport, crucial games, and some off-topic conversations we allow to keep a nice, closely knit community and help it grow.
The Room
As one of the many rooms on PS!, the Sports room is a place where people who enjoy playing or watching sports can come and chat about them. Do you play soccer/football for a team? Tell us about it! The best part of the room is the freedom to talk about anything sports relevant that interests you without getting judged, as one of the biggest rules in the room is to, and I quote, "respect each sport equally, whether or not you like a sport does not give you the privilege to spread hate." Following this golden rule opens many doors to what sport you want to talk about and discuss with the room's regulars, as well as enabling dialogue about your favorite teams. Yes, that also means you can bash your rival clubs with other users too. Grow closer with the room's community by participating in our plug.dj sessions. The Sports room sometimes watches some famous sport game highlights of a range of sports together, as well as occasionally watching anime or listening to music. Another cool quirk the room likes to use is the Supporters list, which can be found here. The Supporters list is where the room regulars can identify another person's favorite sports team, whether it be football/soccer, basketball, or the NFL. With every room on Pokémon Showdown!, the Sports room has a list of rules that have to be followed and can be found here.
Live Chat & News
As I might've mentioned, the room hosts chat around many different sports. Is your favorite club playing a game today? Then most likely someone else in the room is talking about that game. Chat along with the community while a game is currently taking place; whether that be soccer/football, the NFL, basketball, or another sport, we're all giving our input and opinions on the live game. Make sure you look out for the community screaming "GOAAAALLLLLLLLLL" once a team scores; that's the best indicator if you ask me. March Madness is one of the biggest, most exciting, and most fun events in all of sports. This is a yearly basketball event you can talk about with fellow basketball fans in the room. Even the Olympics, Rugby World Cup, Wimbledon, and other sporting events can be talked about! The room once had over 600 users during the 2014 World Cup, all discussing and enjoying the competition. With live games being discussed, we also discuss live news as to what's happening currently in the sports world. If transfers between teams happen, someone gets injured, or even some famous sportsman sadly passes away—in which case we pay respect to them—then we discuss it in chat in the same way as we discuss live games, giving our input and opinions where we can.
Fantasy League
Right now, you're probably wondering what a fantasy league even is. Well, a fantasy league is an internet "game" using real stats and real players on real teams to come up with points based on how well that player performs in real life. For example, if Tom Brady throws for two touchdowns in real life and the point setup in the fantasy league gives players three points per touchdown, then Brady would have six fantasy points. This is for most of the popular sports around the world. This is one of the many benefits of the Sports room: our interactive leagues. During each respective season for a sport, we create a new fantasy league for you to partake in. This current year's (2019/2020 season) one is found here.
Room Owner's Testimonies
Here are some things the current Pokémon Showdown! Sports Room Owners had to say about how they joined the room and what it's like:Arsenal:
I first joined this room in 2014 while the 2014 Football World Cup was going on. Back then I knew almost nothing about football (my favorite sport) or the internet in general. This can be seen by an infamous quote in our room "[13:56:19] Arsenal: What does taking the L mean?" I have been here for a very long time, seen a lot of different users, and talked about a lot of sports, but I never stopped having fun. For me, the best part of the room is during live matches where the atmosphere is very intense. After that comes post-match of course, where you can celebrate results with your friends or banter with friends whose teams just lost. The Sports room is my favorite room on this website, and I look forward to spending more time here in the future.
Biggie:
I joined the Sports room at or near its inception, being one of the very first room owners in its history. I have a long love for most sports, primarily baseball, basketball, and American football. At first, the room was looked at mostly as a necessary quarantine for sports banter that would occur elsewhere on the site. We were a pretty rowdy group back in the day, though I know we sometimes still have our moments. Over time I know that we have firmly established ourselves as a small but dedicated niche room on the sim, and though the focus of the room is primarily soccer these days, I don't see myself separating from what I view as the most spirited room around.
Fraser Gehrig:
I joined the room I think in 2014 looking to discuss the AFL. That kinda failed, since no one followed the sport. I had somewhat of an interest in the NBA, so that kept me returning to the room. I like how the room is now; it's a big reason why I've started to follow boxing, and it's still interesting discussing the similarities and differences of different sports.
Conclusion
After this article, I hope I've tempted you to pop in and visit us sometime because we always love seeing new faces join the room and get involved! We look forward to seeing you guys in the near future. Thanks for reading and have a great day!
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