It's a way people try and organize groups of people who share a common area, and makes it easier(but not necessarily more accurate or sound) to draw comparisons and assess performance. It's not just sports we rank things in, it's a lot of different areas, like movies, movie stars, ranking cars, or animals(for example that top 10 most extreme animals show that used to be/perhaps still is on animal planet).
Frankly, I think rankings are fine as a way to try to assess where people fit in their respective field in comparison to counterparts and to try to organize stuff. But rankings aren't meant to be fixed because conditions are constantly changing in the field, and then rankings have to be adjusted or otherwise they seem to fit even less than they usually do. And then there's the fact that the ranking itself is put in a vacuum. It may not consider, for example in football, that one player may be a better fit on one team than another and thus may look better,but depending on the definition, the other player may actually be "better". This can be factored in, but it's just an example of the many,many, many factors that can be used to assess a player. It becomes so complex that it seems quantifying does it far from justice.
I think it's just a natural thing for us to make rankings or lists, because quite a few things in society use this kind of methods, and it seems to appeal to us. The appeal is why sites like bleacher report put out so many god damn useless rankings, it's because it gets HITS, it gets interest.
As for applying the rankings, i think people like to live by it so much because we are intellectually lazy. Rather than making well-thought-out assessments,comparisons,and adjustments in evaluating players, it's just easier to line up people by a simple ranking and then reference it any time you need to make an argument. It's a way of simplifying. But of course, I agree that there is absolutely no correct ranking, and no one should take their respective ranking or anyone's ranking as such. It can be a very very good or qualified ranking if it is developed and backed up with evidence, however. But again, as the players in the field evolve in their performance, then the rankings should evolve too right? Rankings seem like they're trying to statically qualify something that is changing, because players are constantly tooling their game, and it would seem that maybe even after two weeks, a player may have leapfrogged another player as a better performer. But how can we know for sure? The whole concept ranking has a lot of complicated questions, and there are different ways to answer them.
as for me, i like putting things in tiers...just seems easier :shrug:
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