In sports, a blowout or rout is an easy or one-sided victory. It occurs when one athletic team or individual performer outscores another by a large margin or in such a fashion that the second team or individual has little chance of a victory. The term "blowout" is often used in reference to athletic competition, but it is used in other contexts such as electoral politics (see also the synonym landslide).

Ethics and sportsmanship

During blowouts, some coaches and players are challenged by the ethics and sportsmanship of the event. Some believe it is not appropriate to give full effort when winning by a blowout margin or to "run up the score". Others believe that in athletic competition one is supposed to give full effort at all times. Continuing to give full effort, and especially running up the score, can lead to the losing team becoming angry or upset. Yelling, fights and players being removed from the game often take place when a team is being blown out because the losing team is frustrated and embarrassed. During the portion of the game that is played after the outcome has been decided, which is known as garbage time, most teams rest many of their better players and play reserves who do not regularly play in their place. This keeps the regular players from getting injured and to have rest. It also gives the reserves a chance to get experience under game conditions. During blowouts fans will often chant for their favorite reserve players to get playing time and cheer loudly when this player does well. However in some sports, maintaining a large margin of victory must be done in order to retain the lead in statistical tiebreaker computations for playoff contention, and in other sports such as baseball, a strong inning or comeback win by the trailing team is always possible in pressure situations, due to the non-timed nature of the sport.

Notable blowouts

Some of the most one-sided sporting victories are given below:

American football

College football

NFL

International

Association football

Club (men)

International (men)

International (women)

Australian rules football

AFL

Baseball

Major League Baseball

Basketball

NBA

Olympic Games

Beach soccer

Canadian football

CFL

IRFU/WIRFU

Cricket

Test format

ODI format

Twenty20 format

Floorball

Men

Women

Formula 1

Futsal

Men

Women

Golf

PGA Tour

Horse racing

Ice hockey

NHL

International (men)

International (women)

NASCAR

Rugby union

Tennis

Water polo