It’s difficult to get very excited about what happens on the field during the NFL preseason. Naturally, Brett Favre is the exception. When he suits up for the New York Jets on Saturday to start against the Washington Redskins, it will be one of the biggest moments ever in August football.

If only they could have mustered that kind of excitement for preseason football north of the border. Five thousand Canadians showed up at the Rogers Center dressed up as empty seats for Thursday’s Pittsburgh Steelers-Buffalo Bills matchup. Overpriced tickets kept away many fans who might otherwise attend one of the upcoming regular-season games in Toronto.

Failing to sell out may have been a mild embarrassment for the league, but at least the game included the highlight of the preseason thus far: a 95-yard kick return for a touchdown by Bills first-round pick Leodis McKelvin. That’s the kind of play the Canadian fan base can appreciate.

The 2008 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe is shaping up to be one of the best in years. There are currently 115 horses that bookmakers have odds on winning Paris’ most prestigious race. It’s still a bit early to call, but the favorites Zarkava and Montmartre are currently at 7/2. Either one would be a good pick.

Curlin may make an appearance at the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, if his owners don’t decide to put him in the Breeders’ Cup Classic against Big Brown. Curlin is getting 16/1 to win, but I’d rather wait until we see the results of the prep race he runs after arriving in Europe later this summer.

New Approach is a good pick at 7/1, and some books have him at 6/1. Also Soldier of Fortune and Duke of Marmalade could pull off the win. Both are at 9/2 at this point in the betting.

History suggests the United States should clean up in the boxing ring at the Summer Olympics. Team USA has 48 gold medals to Cuba’s 32, far more than any other country in the modern era. But it might as well be the ancient Olympics. The U.S. is a distant third on the Beijing odds list at 5-1, behind Russia (10-11) and Cuba (7-4).

The twilight of American boxing was the 1988 Games in Seoul, where Team USA won three gold medals (it should have been four – Roy Jones Jr. was shafted). They’ve won a total of three since then. Cuba has 20. However, their boxing team has been decimated by a series of defections. None of the five winners from Athens will be at Beijing this year.

That leaves the powerful Russian team. They won three gold medals at Athens and picked up another three at last year’s World Boxing Championships. No Ivan Drago jokes, please.

History suggests the United States should clean up in the boxing ring at the Summer Olympics. Team USA has 48 gold medals to Cuba’s 32, far more than any other country in the modern era. But it might as well be the ancient Olympics. The U.S. is a distant third on the Beijing odds list at 5-1, behind Russia (10-11) and Cuba (7-4).

The twilight of American boxing was the 1988 Games in Seoul, where Team USA won three gold medals (it should have been four – Roy Jones Jr. was shafted). They’ve won a total of three since then. Cuba has 20. However, their boxing team has been decimated by a series of defections. None of the five winners from Athens will be at Beijing this year.

That leaves the powerful Russian team. They won three gold medals at Athens and picked up another three at last year’s World Boxing Championships. No Ivan Drago jokes, please.

The big one is nearly upon us. UFC 87: Seek and Destroy is coming up on Aug. 9, and the main event is going to be a barnburner: Georges St. Pierre vs. Jon Fitch for St. Pierre’s Welterweight title.

At press time, St. Pierre was the solid favorite to defend his championship at –295. Fitch was pegged at +235, even though the two fighters have only two MMA losses apiece. The difference is in the quality of those losses. St. Pierre fell to Matt Hughes and Matt Serra, but got his revenge by beating both men for the title. Fitch dropped a pair of matches back in 2002 at the start of his MMA career.

There’s also a difference in the quality of their victories. Fitch is 8-0 in UFC action, tying Royce Gracie’s record for most consecutive UFC wins, but his top opponents were Thiago Alves and Diego Sanchez. St. Pierre has beaten pretty much every welterweight of note.

At press time, Greg Norman sits atop the leaderboard at Birkdale.

I’m a Phil Mickelson fan, but when I saw his British Open odds improve to 12-1 just before things got underway at Royal Birkdale, I was perplexed. This just isn’t his kind of event – and we saw proof of that in Thursday’s opening round when Lefty shot a 79 to sit 10 strokes off the pace. His new odds? 80-1. Worse, former second favorite Ernie Els finished with an 80 and is now 100-1.

Timing is everything. The weather in the morning was brutal, but then the rain tapered off, making life much easier for those who teed off later in the day. That group includes Sergio Garcia, who holds steady as the 8-1 favorite after shooting a 72.

The leaders at a 1-under 69 are Rocco Mediate (20-1), Robert Allenby (14-1) and Graeme McDowell (10-1). Adam Scott is the new second favorite behind Garcia at 9-1 after firing a 70, matching fellow Aussie Greg Norman (66-1).

The British Open doesn’t go until next week at Royal Birkdale, but Phil Mickelson is already in trouble. Lefty shot an even-par 71 in the first round of the warm-up tournament in Scotland, seven strokes behind the leaders. Lefty has slipped to 14-1 at press time to win the Open; Ernie Els is also 14-1 after going 1-over on Thursday.

With the top two names in the Open field struggling, Sergio Garcia becomes the favorite at 8-1. He’s already had a successful warm-up, finishing second at the European Open last week. Garcia also finished second at the 2007 British Open when he lost a playoff to Padraig Harrington.

Harrington is 16-1; he finished tied for 17th at the European Open after hitting a 75 in the final round. The biggest name on the leaderboard after one round at Loch Lomond is Angel Cabrera, at 6-under. The 2007 U.S. Open winner is 40-1 to win at Royal Birkdale.

It had to go five sets but the men’s Wimbledon Championships final did not disappoint as Spain’s Rafael Nadal beat the reigning champion Roger Federer 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-7 (8), 9-7 to become the 2008 Wimbledon Champion.

The Wimbledon win is Nadal’s first, and with the victory Nadal becomes the first player since Bjorn Borg (1980) to win both the French Open and Wimbledon back-to-back.

Over on the women’s side it was big sister Venus Williams who triumphed over Serena 7-5, 6-4 to win her fifth Wimbledon title. When asked how she felt losing to her older sister, here’s what Serena had to say: “Well, it says a lot about her, I mean, she’s won five Wimbledons now. She’s beaten me on grass now, so that definitely says a lot.”

What made Wimbledon the premier event in the tennis world? Pedigree. Modern tennis was invented in Great Britain, with Major Walter Clopton Wingfield’s version of the game (formerly called “lawn tennis”) making its debut in 1873. Four years later, the first Championships were held in the London suburb of Wimbledon.

There was only one event at the inaugural Championships: Gentlemen’s Singles, which was won by Spencer Gore. Ladies’ Singles was added in 1884; the first champion was Maud Watson. These early tournaments saw the game’s now-familiar strategies develop in swift Darwinian fashion. Gore, for example, won by moving up toward the net and volleying while his opponents stood at the baseline.

Wimbledon was an amateur event until the Open era began in 1968. Pete Sampras holds the record for men’s singles titles in Open play with seven, while Martina Navratilova won an amazing nine Championships in singles play – plus seven doubles and four mixed doubles.

Euro 2008 is second only to the Olympics on this year’s sporting calendar. Unless you live in the United States, where it ranks somewhere between regular-season baseball and early-round Wimbledon action.

Not everyone is keen on betting soccer, either. We’re used to spread betting on this continent; football is king, basketball is a distant second. Soccer requires an entirely different betting approach, one that relies more on an appreciation and understanding for the sport than statistical analysis.

But this is also soccer’s strength as a betting sport. Handicappers who develop that appreciation enjoy watching soccer more and more. It’s an acquired taste, like Shakespeare or Guinness. Sharpening the right side of your betting brain is also useful when handicapping the NBA, particularly when dealing with Euro-styled clubs like the Toronto Raptors and, yes, the Los Angeles Lakers.

With ESPN boldly broadcasting the entire Euro 2008 tournament, soccer is here to stay. Might as well profit from it.