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[Hulk_Smash]

After watching Brady spank another team in the Super Bowl it brought me back to a thought I've had many times in the past. There will come a point where all professional sports records can't be broken. Think about it. As long as

1. Things stay relatively the same in regards to the rules of a professional sport
2. a society is free to play said sport (wars/politics don't interrupt them too much).
3. something new isn't introduced like legalized PEDs. or woke shit like letting men play in women's pro leagues.

Then, I propose that records will get to the point where they are unbreakable.

Here are some random examples of records that I think will be impossible to break:

NFL Football:
A single player making it to 10 Super Bowls, winning 7 of them, with 2 different teams, and 1 of them at the age of 43. You know.
Longest field goal: Matt Prater, 64 yards. Harrison Butker made a 70 yarder in practice. I doubt it's humanly possible to go farther than that.
Most interceptions in a season: Dick Lane, 14. Record has stood for 70 years.
Longest throw: Baker Mayfield 70 yards. Mahomes claims he can throw over 80 yards but hasn't done it in a game.
Career receiving yards: Jerry Rice 22,895
Sacks in a single game by one player: Derrick Thomas, 9.

NBA Basketball:
Most Final wins: Bill Russell, 11.
Most 3 Pointers in a single season: Steph Curry, 402. (he will most likely go down as the undisputed king of 3 pointers in the next two years)
Most points in a single game: Wilt Chamberlain, 100.
Most single season points: Wilt Chamberlain, 4,029


MLB Baseball:
Most no-hitters, Nolan Ryan, 7.
Most World Series Wins by a single player: Yogi Berra, 10.
Most Grand Slams in a single inning: Fernando Tatis, 2. He's the only one to ever do it.
Most Doubles in a career: Tris Speaker, 492. Record has stood for 90 years.
Most Strikeouts: Nolan Ryan, 5,714.
Highest career batting average: Ty Cobb, .366.
Most consecutive games played; Cal Ripkin Jr, 2,632.
(I love baseball records! They can get so bizarre and oddly specific.)

Other sports would be equally as fascinating to research to see if any records are unbreakable.

And as you noticed, I focused only on single athletes and not team records. I also only focused on 3 popular sports in the USA. Golf, boxing, track & field, gymnastics, and soccer are all very old sports and I'm sure have records that are now unbreakable. This is where younger pro sports like Ultimate Frisbee, MMA, beach volleyball have an advantage because records can still be broken from time to time.

Names like Wayne Gretzky, Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, Pele, Secretariat, Richard Petty, or Tiger Woods conjure up many of the kinds of records you know are going to be nearly impossible to beat.

Which records do you think will likely be unbroken? And you can mention women, of course. Many of them have set impossible-to-break-records in their professional field.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

That's not how odds work.

 

[Hulk_Smash]

That's not how odds work.

Uh... okay? Are yourself least going to follow that up with an “Actually...”

 

[PSYGN]

I think they will be because of all three of your points. Plus there will always be changes for more performant gear, etc.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Uh... okay? Are yourself least going to follow that up with an “Actually...”

I'm no mathematician, but I think the more dice you roll, the higher the chance strange outcomes occur.

 

[ManaByte]

Peyton Manning did an episode about the NFL records that won’t be broken on ESPN+. The rushing ones will stand for a long time because the modern game is all about passing.

 

[Hulk_Smash]

I'm no mathematician, but I think the more dice you roll, the higher the chance strange outcomes occur.

Yeah I get what you’re saying. This is just a friendly conversation.
It is possible some sports will die out before a record will be broken.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Yeah I get what you’re saying. This is just a friendly conversation.
It is possible some sports will die out before a record will be broken.

Yeah, I can see that.

I ask people all the time "If you could create a new sport from the ground up today, what would it look like?"

They always just look at me funny and say "You mean like football?"

I assume the major sports are in trouble over the next 100 years, but we'll see.

 

[dorkimoe]

The baseball starting pitching ones will probably never be broken. Starting pitchers go like 5-6 innings now. The cal Ripken streak won’t be broken either

 

[Erdrick]

Gretzky with 50 goals in 39 games.

Unless the league just tosses out goalies, I don't see this ever being surpassed.

 

[German Hops]

Gretzky with 50 goals in 39 games.

Unless the league just tosses out goalies, I don't see this ever being surpassed.

dude, that accomplishment is insane. He's certainly earned his nickname.

 

[bender]

With the NFL, I think Emmitt Smith's rushing totals will stand. Not only has the sport changes philosophies, but teams just don't hang onto backs that long.

 

[HoodWinked]

NFL is going to take a dump on the records soon by increasing the number of games in a season.

So all the records are about to be broken

 

[Hulk_Smash]

NFL is going to take a dump on the records soon by increasing the number of games in a season.

So all the records are about to be broken

Record number of injuries is first on the list.

 

[Cutty Flam]

If Wilt’s 100 ever gets beaten in today’s NBA I will be speechless

 

[German Hops]

If Wilt’s 100 ever gets beaten in today’s NBA I will be speechless

Who do you think could potentially come close?

 

[bender]

Who do you think could potentially come close?

Curry

 

[German Hops]

Curry

Seth is good, but I don't think he quite has the chops. Especially playing with a guy like Embiid.

 

[bender]

Seth is good, but I don't think he quite has the chops. Especially playing with a guy like Embiid.

Still can't believe we trade him. FUCK

 

[xrnzaaas]

Sebastien Loeb winning the WRC championship 9 times in a row is going to be very difficult to beat. Seb Ogier had a good streak which was destroyed when Ford decided to leave the sport. You'd need an extremely talented young driver paired with a great team planning to stay in the sport long-term to make it happen. And a lot of luck, of course, because in rallying many things can go wrong outside of your control.

 

[UnNamed]

Records are meaningless if they aren't put in the right prospective. Rules change, approach in sport change, rivals change.

Some record can't be broken cause age limit changed (artistic gym), rules changed (figure skating), rivals are not the same (F1). Can you compare Nadia Comaneci with Simone Niles? Or Ascari with Schumacher? Or Pelé with Cristiano Ronaldo? No because different time, different rules, different strategies, different opponents.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

It's true, some records will remain, but a lot of records are an aftereffect of the particular rules used during that time-period of the sport. Also a lot of records depend on the performance of the team and not the individual. Records aren't all that important in professional entertainment sports anyway. Joe Rogan broke a punching-strength record last year (maybe a kick record too) yet he does not actively compete in MMA or boxing, and he's in his 50s.

I think part of the fun of a game is exploring the theoretical ceiling (meta) while also attempting to see where you personally fall in that meta. Chess is "solved" but every year new people get into it and enjoy learning it.

 

[German Hops]

Records are meaningless if they aren't put in the right prospective. Rules change, approach in sport change, rivals change.

Some record can't be broken cause age limit changed (artistic gym), rules changed (figure skating), rivals are not the same (F1). Can you compare Nadia Comaneci with Simone Niles? Or Ascari with Schumacher? Or Pelé with Cristiano Ronaldo? No because different time, different rules, different strategies, different opponents.

You failed to mention PED's.
I think they've tainted some pretty pristine baseball records.

 

[Mistershine.]

Usain Bolt's record is likely to stand for a long time and Flo Jo is never likely to be bettered.

 

[Dural]

You failed to mention PED's.
I think they've tainted some pretty pristine baseball records.

As long as there's sports PEDs will be around, athletes will always be looking for a way to get an edge on the competition. People like to talk about the roids in the 80s and 90s tainting baseball records but amphetamines were far more prevalent and for way longer. Hell, they would have bowls of them in the clubhouse and players would pop them like candy.

 

[The Hamburglar]

Yes. once I stop eating.

 

[Hulk_Smash]

Records are meaningless if they aren't put in the right prospective. Rules change, approach in sport change, rivals change.

Some record can't be broken cause age limit changed (artistic gym), rules changed (figure skating), rivals are not the same (F1). Can you compare Nadia Comaneci with Simone Niles? Or Ascari with Schumacher? Or Pelé with Cristiano Ronaldo? No because different time, different rules, different strategies, different opponents.

This is true of course. I mean baseball for example lengthened their season at one point so some records are forever changed.

it’s also true that some sports are effected not by the outcome of a player’s performance but on the opinion of a judge (diving, figure skating, gymnastics) so I can see the argument made that you can’t compare records.

However, some sports have hard, measurable numbers that can be shown scientifically and statistically that the human being can only achieve so much.

Track and field/running is probably the best example of this.

 

[Cutty Flam]

Who do you think could potentially come close?

Bradley Beal, Devin Booker, Karl Anthony Towns, Luka Doncic. If anyone will come close, I can see it being one of them

 

[spawn]

We may not ever see another Tom Brady again

 

[nkarafo]

Well, men just started breaking records in women's sports. There's still a lot to be done.

 

[Stouffers]

Until they let women compete. It’s the secret reason women aren’t allowed to play in the MLB/NBA/NFL.

 

[Rayven_king]

Lionel Messi's 91 goals in a calendar year, I just cant see it happening again and I like these new kids like mbappe and haaland

 

[008]

Peyton Manning did an episode about the NFL records that won’t be broken on ESPN+. The rushing ones will stand for a long time because the modern game is all about passing.

which is interesting because I can’t see anyone passing Jerry Rice’s record for career yards.

 

[Kamina]

That depends.
Since men can now claim to be women they have some records to break in that field.

 

[Neo_Geo]

NBA 100 points in a game? Yeah, that will probably never be broken unless something fucking crazy happens.

Things like the longest pass and longest field goal for football, I don't believe those have been maxed yet with human evolution and will eventually be broken.

 

[I collect VHS tapes]

Gretzky with 50 goals in 39 games.

Unless the league just tosses out goalies, I don't see this ever being surpassed.

this doesn’t even sound that hard to do but I know nothing about hockey

that’s less than 2 goals a game

 

[Erdrick]

this doesn’t even sound that hard to do but I know nothing about hockey

that’s less than 2 goals a game

To put it in perspective, in a typical NHL season in modern times, that consists of 82 games, there might be one 50 goal scorer, period. You are lucky to get 40 goal scorers these days.

In the 1981-82 season, Gretzky had NINETY TWO goals in 80 Games played, and 120 assists for an insane 212 total points.

It was like he had a permanent cheat code enabled when playing. He was *that* good. I despised him because he racked up a lot of said points against my team haha

 

[Futaleufu]

In less than 50 years there will be a pro cyborg league of your favourite sport. Never say never.

 

[Pagusas]

I mean NFL records are already going to have to get tossed out thanks to the season increasing in length. All those single season passing, rushing and scoring records will be blown out now.

 

[OmegaSupreme]

In men's sports for sure. In women's sports, we are going to see many records broken.

 

[Allforce]

If Wilt’s 100 ever gets beaten in today’s NBA I will be speechless

I actually think this is one of the more attainable ones that will leave people speechless, but it's not going to be toppled by some amazing player just going off it'll be some garbage game where the whole team decides that one of their players is going to go for it and just feed him the ball non stop.

Didn't some rookie or 2nd year guy on the Suns score like 80+ a few years back? It'll be something like that when it goes and it'll kind of suck to have Wilt toppled.

 

[jason10mm]

They will start striking down old records because the player that earned it will be "problematic" in some fashion. If no new records are made and IDpol can't invent some "first XXX player to hit a ball going over 100 mph"...etc then they will have to clear the old books and start new just to keep interest in the game.

 

[jufonuk]

Not until the aliens arrive.

 

[DeepBreath87]

Emmitt Smith’s rushing record and DiMaggio’s games with a hit streak are 2 the come to mind immediately.

 

[highrider]

Every time I hear unbreakable record I think of my son’s mom. Me and my son have a running joke with her because years ago she said she ran a 4 second flat 40 and she was a legit track athlete and Jamaican lol but we were like no that would make you like the fastest person in the world so of course we razzed her a little and she was hurt a little I think so to this day she won’t budge from it.

Even now when we need something quick, we’re like well better get mom

 

[RoboFu]

Just wanted to come in and say..

the world record triple jump is held by a white British guy.

That’s all.

 

[infinitys_7th]

I'm no mathematician, but I think the more dice you roll, the higher the chance strange outcomes occur.

It doesn't effect the chance of outcomes because normally-distributed systems (i.e. Gaussian distribution or the Bell curve, which most natural phenomenon that build upon many, many simpler events follow) have independent outcomes, meaning the value of one outcome is not related to the value of other outcomes, but as more occurrences happens it becomes increasing unlikely that you will not have seen some "extreme" outcome. So it would just take longer and longer for a record to get broken, assuming the underlying systems that form this normal distribution are constant, but records would still be breakable.

 

[Taxexemption]

I have the opposite perspective. More records will be broken in the future. There is a lot yet to be fully understood about optimal nutrition, optimal training, and what role genetics plays into it. We are also still learning things about a number of sports related topics.


Also, in some cases the person breaking the record came from a family that supported them specifically to be in sports from a young age and got them into serious training programs with coaches. Things are learned in these processes. You don't think the biggest pros and their coaches haven't learned anything in a lifetime of pursuing this that they could pass down in a similar fashion if that's what they decided to do?


Some athletes are genetically gifted. What happens to the records when you can pay enough money to have a few of the genes that are known to make a difference in the particular sport? Genes aren't everything, but if gene therapy could be used to give anyone who was trying to become a serious athlete the optimum genes for competing in that sport, you could see a whole new world opening up.


My expectation is that at the point that you can do significant genetic modification to get or alter known genes that are helpful in a particular sport, there will be a huge amount of athletes doing it before it's widely known about, and that after this is discovered there will be a big controversy. The arguments will go something along the line of "Why is it fair that X athlete holds the record in part due to them being born lucky with X gene,"


The only thing you should really be sure about in life is that things are changing. Even if nothing happens with genetic alterations, I would still expect to see lots of records broken in my lifetime. We know a lot less about optimum nutrition and training than you might think.

 

[MastAndo]

I actually think this is one of the more attainable ones that will leave people speechless, but it's not going to be toppled by some amazing player just going off it'll be some garbage game where the whole team decides that one of their players is going to go for it and just feed him the ball non stop.

Didn't some rookie or 2nd year guy on the Suns score like 80+ a few years back? It'll be something like that when it goes and it'll kind of suck to have Wilt toppled.

Devin Booker scored 70. I agree with you though that a 100 point game is attainable, if the whole focus of the game is to get that one particular player to reach that mark.

There are other records that will never ever be broken, like Cal Ripken Jr's Iron Man record. The nature of the game has changed. Ball players don't just rub dirt on their injuries and head back out there. It's treated as a long season, and injuries are nursed rather than playing through them and possibly costing them more time. You've only got a handful of guys playing the full 162 games per year, forget doing that for 16+ seasons. It'll never happen.

Also, many of those records involving starting pitchers won't be touched, since pitchers are rarely allowed to throw the full 9 innings anymore.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Breaking records is apart of sports there’s still fans that think Babe Ruth is single season home run king.