10. Wife-Carrying Races

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This list comes from Ishaan Thardoors story in TIME, and he writes: "The Wife-Carrying World Championships are held every year in a small town in Finland. The race may be done in good spirits, but it's channeling generations of oafish hubris and sexual slavery. That's not quite something worth cheering for."
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9. American Football

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Ishaan Thardoors writes: "To an outsider like your humble scribe, the U.S.'s most heavily marketed sport seems a Hobbesian parable — play on the field is nasty, brutish and comically short. The number of recent incidents of ex-players' dying of mysterious brain injuries ought to have raised enough alarm."

8. The Hunt

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Ishaan Thardoors writes: "The tradition of the hunt perseveres, both in the form of utterly needless, twee spectacles like this and purer, more elemental examples of what hunting is really all about — like clubbing baby seals."

7. Poker

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Ishaan Thardoors writes: "Some say it's just a fun card game, particularly useful in film scenes brimming with tension and metaphorical meaning. But poker is no innocent bystander. With its addictive online mega-industry, poker now commands an enormous slice of the world's gambling revenues."

6. Golf

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Ishaan Thardoors writes: "A sport in which the only person getting any exercise is the guy who has to carry your clubs for you."

5. Bullfighting

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Ishaan Thardoors writes: "Since the dawn of civilization, human beings have entertained themselves by making animals fight."

4. Boxing

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Ishaan Thardoors writes: "For every champion prizefighter, there are countless others wrestling with the headaches and traumas of a career brutally played out in the cacophonous din of the ring."

3. Camel Racing

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Ishaan Thardoors writes: "Beyond the fact that all races involving animals carry a certain element of cruelty, camel racing has a particularly notorious legacy of recruiting young boys, in some cases children abducted and trafficked from destitute villages in South Asia, to be jockeys."

2. Female Gymnastics

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Ishaan Thardoors writes: "Olympic-level, elite female gymnastics are spectacles of ethereal grace and poise. But they're built on a foundation of brutality. To win a gold medal, girls have to retain a childlike slenderness, develop rubber for bones and accept a life in a veritable boot camp from as early as the age of 4."

1. Soccer

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Ishaan Thardoors writes: "No other sport comes close to commanding such universal love and devotion. More than religion, it is the true opiate of the 21st century's masses. In return, though, what does soccer give its legions of fans? For most, just misery and frustration."