I could be wrong, but I feel like a lot more athletes are announcing their retirements a year in advance, than ever before. I, myself, am not a fan of the "victory tours". I guess It may have to do with the players "touring" aren't my favorite players. If KG would have had a victory tour, I would have enjoyed it a lot more, solely because he is my favorite player from my childhood and it woulda been cool to see all of the great moments he had against opposing teams. But, even then it would still be a haul of a season, knowing every stop there will most likely be something brought up about his retirement, taking away from what the team is trying to do.
I love how Tim Duncan did it, I loved how Peyton did it, there is a question of "what if this is his last time..." that makes it a bit more interesting rather than knowing this will be the last time. This may just be because there are a lot of high quality athletes in numerous sports that have had their "victory tours" in the past few years, but the whole thing is becoming a bit tiresome.
Don't get me wrong, I love/respect the Derek Jeters, Kobe Bryants, David Ortiz's of the world, and want to pay them their respect when knowing they are going to be done, but it just seems to be way more of a spectacle than it has ever been before.
