Meet Pat Martin, a former industrial chemist who started traveling the world for work, but is now on a quest to experience the biggest sporting events around the globe. From the Pan-Am games, to the Rugby World Cup, and now the upcoming Olympic Games in Paris, Pat loves anything and everything sports.
Pat has been to 48 UN countries, 237 NomadMania regions, and is ranked 4th as a Sports Museum Explorer, but is focused around traveling to the next sporting event, stadium, or experience around the world.
Tell us something about your early life and how you initially became involved in sports and travel.
Growing up in an extremely small rural village with my twin brother, our childhood was centered around family. This often involved watching sports. My dad loved Football, Rugby, Cricket, and Athletics, while my mum was more interested in Tennis, Gymnastics and Skating and of course the Olympics. I also loved watching the Wide World of Sports every week (to this day there are very few sports that I do not enjoy!) Our parents also introduced us into travel, whether it be camping all over the county or the odd trip abroad. They also made sacrifices to pay for us to go on school trips including those in Europe. Having never travelled my mum loved to see the world vicariously through our stories and photos.
Which sports did you practice? Did you compete in any of them internationally?
Though I enjoyed playing many sports recreationally, the highest competitive level I ever achieved was when I rowed for my college at University! Once I graduated, I joined a local squash league, started playing pub league cricket and began watching live football matches. I worked near Aston Villa’s ground, though lived closer to Walsall and West Brom. With all three playing in different divisions, I would pick games depending on their opponents and anticipated entertainment value. Eventually this grew into full day trips attending away matches throughout the midlands. We would have a pub lunch, watch the game, and then do a pub crawl all the way back home (we had a designated driver!)
How were you able to travel so frequently to attend sport events? What is your profession?
As an industrial chemist for a multi-national company, I was given the opportunity to travel for work and would always add weekends or vacation on the ends of work trips. I was fortunate to travel to Germany, Spain, USA, and Australia, though none of those involved any sports. In 1988 I emigrated, transferring to their Canadian subsidiary. After emigrating, live sports were based on convenience and proximity. When the 1994 World Cup was hosted in the USA, a group of friends and did weekend road-trips to watch matches in Detroit, New Jersey and Washington, unencumbered by an obligation to follow England as they had failed to qualify.
In 2007 Toronto were awarded an MLS franchise and I became a founding season ticket holder, and started to incorporate the occasional away match into vacations. In 2015 Toronto hosted the Pan-Am games and I took the opportunity to get tickets to ten different sports, using a combination of weekend and evening sessions with a few days off work for the others. It was here that I was introduced to watching live tennis and rugby sevens for the first time. By then I had joined a large chemical distribution company in sales and subsequently product management. Now with limited National responsibility, work-trips to Vancouver were conveniently scheduled to coincide with Rugby Sevens in Vancouver. It was on one of these trips during a vacation that I had tagged on at the end of the trip, that I sustained a back-injury after being bounced around in a 12-foot zodiac in a two-foot swell while whale-watching in the Juan de Fuca Straight. This ultimately led to my early retirement and withdrew time constraints on my travels and allowing to me to attend longer sports tournaments.
What do you think is the biggest challenge in terms of sports?
One of the biggest challenges facing sports is making their games accessible to the genuine sports fans. In many cases the price of tickets has risen beyond the means of the average fan and in particular families. In addition, predatory ticket resellers further reduce availability by scooping up a substantial number of tickets which are then marked up to take advantage of the reduced availability that they created. In addition, subscription TV services reduce future interest in the sport.
Which of the famous sports events around the world have you attended?
- Pan-Am Games: Toronto 2015
- Commonwealth Games: Birmingham 2022
- Rugby World Cups: Japan 2019 (Men), New Zealand 2022 (Women) and France 2023 (Women)
- Rugby Sevens: World Cup San Francisco (2017); HSBC Series in Las Vegas and Vancouver (3 times)
- Football: World Cup USA 1994 (Men), France 2019 (Women), Australia 2023 (Women), Men’s U20 World Cup Toronto (2007), Euros England 2022 (Women), WC Qualifiers in Canada, St. Kitts and Barbados, International friendlies in Canada, USA, Costa Rica as well as numerous professional other club games
- Cricket: World Cup ODI St. Lucia (2007), T20 Barbados and Antigua (2024)
- Tennis: Indian Wells (2021), Rogers Cup Toronto and Montreal, Davis Cup Toronto, Fed Cup (Bath, England)
Have you met any celebrities at those events? If so, tell us more about the meeting.
I have not met any celebrities while travelling, but I once attend a Corporate Sales meeting where Donovan Bailey was the guest speaker and ducked out of the meeting for a “bathroom break” to have a private conversation with him!
What was your favourite sports experience throughout your travels?
Two of the many sporting events I have attended stand out. Firstly, following the England Women’s team around England when they hosted the 2021 Euros and especially watching the Lionesses win the Final at Wembley. The second was England’s 2019 Rugby World Cup Semi-final win over perennial rivals All Blacks in Japan.
Tell us about an experience from one of your trips that has left a lasting mark in your memory.
While I had been to several Canadian Women’s Soccer matches it was not until I traveled to France for the 2019 World Cup that I realised the power and beauty of the women’s game and its influence in society. It was amazing to watch the unbridled enthusiasm of families and their young children, young women, and others, cheering on their teams without any of the macho, tribalism and aggression that has permeated the men’s game. Since then, I have become even more of an advocate for women’s sports and will call out any idiotic misogynistic views that seem threatened by strong female role models. The fact that women’s sports are also much cheaper also make trips a lot more affordable.
What unexpected or bizarre moments happened to you while travelling?
There are two events, both from my trip to Japan for the 2019 Rugby World Cup. One was weather related and thus unexpected while the other was more bizarre:
I had planned to use a couple of 3-week Shinkansen (Bullet train) passes to get around, one for the pool stages and one for the knockout stages. In between, I had planned to fly to Okinawa and back for a few days. However, a large Typhoon was aiming directly for Tokyo threatening England’s last pool match. The airlines were encouraging people to get out ahead of the storm and were willing to change tickets at no cost. I was therefore able to leave early and spend 6 days in tropical Okinawa and avoid the typhoon and subsequent flooding! In addition, it allowed me to attend the traditional Tug-of-War festival in Nara, where two teams representing rival Ryukyu kingdoms would attempt to pull a 200m, 40-ton rope, (each rope had hundreds of smaller ropes attached allowing thousands of people to join the contest). I also used the extra time to visit the spectacular World Heritage Shurijo Castle the centre of the Kingdom of Ryukyu only a few weeks before it was tragically burnt to the ground.
How have your travels impacted, if at all, your professional and personal life?
My wanderlust has always steered towards jobs that provided travel opportunities. From my initial work as a development chemist for a multi-national company that proved the opportunity to visit several overseas subsidiaries, (with weekends and/or vacation days tagged on for travel) to my eventual emigration to Canada. This opened up my travel opportunities within the USA and Canada. Since my early retirement in 2017 I have continued to travel and can afford the luxury of time for extended 7/8-week trips to attend major sporting events. I am now approaching 50 countries visited worldwide and closer to home 47 States, 7 Provinces and 1 Territory.
As your travel considerably for sports events worldwide, have you had any notable Olympic Games experiences? Will you be going to Paris, and if so, which events interest you the most there?
The nearest I have been to a multi-sport Olympic experience was when Toronto hosted the Pan-Am games in 2015. However, I will be going to Paris in a couple of weeks for the real thing. I have tickets for 20 event sessions, spread over a number of sports and venues. I will be attending several sessions of the Rugby Sevens and hope to see the Canadian Women’s Team in the Final. I will also be watching the Canadian Women play their opening Football match in St. Etienne (one of the few major French cities I have not been to on my previous trips) and hoping they progress to the Semi-Final and Bronze medal match in Lyon or better still to the Final in Paris. I am also looking forward the tennis at Roland Garros. I will also be going to the Varies-sur-Marne Nautical Centre for the Rowing and Canoe/Kayak events. Finally, I also have tickets for a couple of the Athletic sessions, some Boxing, and the new Urban Sports.
What are some of the places or sports events on your bucket list which you would like to see in the future?
Finally, our signature question: if you could invite anybody in human history to dinner, who would you invite and why? You can choose up to four people.
- Captain Cook: As one of the greatest explorers of all time I would really be interested in how he determined where to go in an uncharted world, what he expected to find and how the lands he did discover matched up to his expectations.
- Muhammad Ali: One of the greatest sports men of all time who had to overcome racism and discrimination and yet had the courage to stand up for his principles. It would be fascinating to understand how he was able to overcome his challenges.
- George Washington: I would like to discuss what the founding fathers would make of their views on America and the world taken in today’s historical context and if there was anything they would have changed to clarify their intent.
- My Grandparents: I am going to cheat for my last pick as three of my grandparents died before I was born and my nan while I was still quite young. Consequently, I would like to have been able to go back to meet them to see what their lives were like.
