+2
Have you ever seen a driven, hard-working, educated, wealthy entrepeneur who watched NBA/NFL/MLB/NHL every night? Me neither.
That’s not to say you can’t enjoy sports. Come September, the Dallas Cowboys will be a very high priority, and right now, I watch the Spurs every other night. And I enjoy Manchester United and Tottenham when I can see them and don’t have much else to do (which is never), but other than that, I don’t watch much sports.
What is the difference between watching many sports and watching one sport a lot? We should measure the number of hours spent watching sports, not the number of teams that someone follows.
Look, you can say this about many things and I used to feel that way as well.
You could say on some level that music is stupid, we sit around mindlessly plugging into synthesized soundwaves for entertainment, but why? What is it’s purpose? Just a distraction from real life?
Dancing is even more stupid, gyrating to beats like an animalistic mating practice. We can sit in awe of a pop star writhing, but to an extra terrestrial obserber it would look as dumb as two birds doing a mating dance.
The list goes on and on. If you pick a sport and casually start watching it with friends you will likely get more into it. Maybe I just like watching sports because of tribal programming in my DNA as Ohai said. But at the end of the day I found through my own experience if you put rational behavior on a pedastool and try to blindly pursue a strictly logical life you will miss out on the human experience and simply become a cynical asshole noone wants to be around. It doen’t mean you should behave with the capriciousness of a 12 year old girl, but it’s okay to embrace a human existance, which is something we’re losing to technology.
i rarely watch games but i follow sports because i have to - bossess and father in law are always talking about them. they assume i’m interested because i played baseball in college. i listen to sports talk radio every morning on my drive in and probably watch fewer than 10 games a year. i do like having baseball games on in the background during family gatherings on the weekend though.
in college a lot of my friends watched games and ESPN exclusively on a daily basis. i loved PLAYING sports (baseball in particular). most of these guys rode the pine but loved WATCHING sports. i didn’t get it then and don’t get it now.
People in general, and Americans in particular, are a very competitive bunch. We love getting emotionally invested in a team or certain players for any number of reasons. Then we get a break from a day-to-day duldrums to root for a completely inconsequential game. And, just as importantly in many cases, we get to (and are even encouraged) to hate. We get to unabashedly hate our rival teams and their fans. I’m free to express my complete disdain for the Raiders and KU, to wish myriad high ankle sprains on them all. That’s a pretty unique feature in this modern, civilized world we live in.
Also, how often do you get to watch people that are the absolute best at what they do? Sure, watching Derrick Thomas sack Dave Craig a record seven times in one game is probably more entertaining than watching Warren Buffet sit at his desk drinking cherry coke, but who knows? Watching the best of the best doing what they do is awe-inspiring.
And you’re putting too much weight behing the taxpayers getting ripped off. Not that many people really complain about it here. Indeed, we get to vote on it.
I have a similar dynamic. I didn’t go to a college that had a football team at all. (UTSA has one now, but they got it after I had already moved away from San Antonio.) And with demanding job, demanding wife, and two little kids, if I’m going to spend a dozen hours a week watching football, I’m going to watch the NFL. (Just personal preference, but I’ll be glad to expound on why I hate college football, if you care.)
But around here, everybody LOVES college football–especially Texas Tech. They talk about Tech football (and baseball and basketball) non-stop. And not knowing (or caring) anything about TT, it’s difficult to be involved in a lot of conversations.
I don’t watch much anymore, but I used to be a rabid club football fan. I only really followed one team week in and week out though, 90 to 180minutes per week max back in university. I have season tickets to a MLS side so thats 90 minutes live every two weeks. I rarely watch random games because I cut cable years ago. I love playing soccer/football and golf and cycling but there’s only so much time these days.
I dont’ get constant ESPNing but I do watch NBA and MLB and occasionally NHL just so its easier to socialize with my coworkers. I dont’ have any interest in these sports but admire the skills involved. I’ve also started watching a bit of golf in my spare time as I’m trying to tune up my game. I would say I read games better than I can play them, but athletically I am above average (general population).
In my experience, being athletic and good at a game doesn’t mean you know the game well, and it’s easy to tell someone’s level of knowledge within the first few minutes of speaking with them.
What I don’t get is the bargaining power of the player’s unions. It’s not like they have an alternative. Lock in ten years of TV revenue. Call in replacements and get on with it.
And what is the logic for the exemption in regard to monopolies?
Also, given all the complaining about income inequality, if it bothers you, why not support a local league and stop using Google as a verb…
And in regard to the NBA, skills…are you kidding me?? What are the chances that the best shooters, ball handlers and court generals come from the top 0.01% of the height distribution??? I say open up the annual three point contest to anybody. Think an NBA player would win?? Pretty sure a PGA player would normally win a fifty shot closest to the pin contest from say 175 yards…
Ah, a new term for pedaphile dung.
I enjoy exercise and playing sports, although I don’t do as many team sports simply because of the time commitment. People who live and breathe sports entertainment are who I don’t get. I understand the appeal of going to games, watching NFL (only 16 games) and having it on in the background at a bar or a party, but watching ESPN every night? That’s about as dumb (as far as I’m concerned) as watching the nightly news. It’s outdated.
As for the radio, I used to listen to sports radio before I discovered podcasts. Now I have no idea what’s going on in sports.
+1
No words! Did you just compare football to Hamlet, favoring football?!?!
Dude honestly wtf. Tell me you played the hot corner and ill put out a restraining order.
One major reason i cant watch baseball anymore is three former legion teammates are now starting in the MLB and im here doing basic math. One of which is Matt harvey, who i used to dominate in hitting bc all he had was a fast ball, and kid is living the life.
Sports owners are the biggest hypocrites out there. Not only do they want their stadiums funded by citizens, they also want to put a cap on player earnings. That coming from the most ardent defenders of capitalism.
Collective bargaining agreements mostly exist to protect owners from their own stupidity.
As for the original topic, not many events can bring people together in a community such as a sports game. It puts aside political, ethnic, racial, religious, linguistic differences and unites people. In a world with so much division and polarization, that is not something to be discounted.
no hot corner - lefty so i played CF and pitched. coulda gone pro, but decided that staring at a computer screen was my true calling. i also prefer 6 figures over a 7 figure salary.
Ha Ha yeah, Football meaning real football - soccer. It wasn’t my line, I put it in quotes but when i read it i just grinned in agreement.
Argentina and England meet in the aftermath of the Falkland war - Maradona cheats to send England packing.
Zidane carrying France to the finals on his back only to throw it away in a moment of madness.
A working class club from Madrid come within minutes of writing history only to loose 4-1.
I could go on and on, and i haven’t even got into the real nutty side of the game. When the Russians played Poland they unveiled a crazy provocative banner. I’ll dig it up if i can find it.
I’m not really such a fanatic, I’m just taking it over the top- it’s the internet after all but the range of emotions that football can run you through plus the incredible back drop of stories that come with it make it far better than theatre.
This is what i was talking about. You need to be absolutely fking crazy or have balls of steel to unveil a flag like this in Poland given the history. I read the Russians who unveiled this got stabbed outside the stadium but i think that was media sensationalism. They did censor this on T.V though, even halfway across the world where it means nothing.
The Champions League final was very educational. Because of Athletico Madrid, I learned where Azerbaijan is. I still think it kind of strange that Azerbaijan (Land of Fire!) chose to advertise on those soccer jerseys, but I would kind of like to visit there now. Altough, I must admit I am somewhat concerned about all the fire.
Go for the food!
I enjoy watching a game now and then, and can enjoy watching impressive athleticism or a big event like the World Cup or Super Bowl or the Olympics, but I don’t really get the people whose non-work conversation seems to revolve solely around how the Knicks or Ranger’s game was last night, and who get up in their outfits week after week to go yell and scream. Intellectually, I understand that there is some tribalism going on, but I generally feel pretty silly taking part in it.
I get that - particularly between men - it’s an innocuous topic to open a conversation on in a social setting where there’s not much else to say, but quite frankly I’d rather just talk about the weather, or how the woman in the corner over there is distracticly hot.
When it comes down to which team to root for in a sporting event, I always decide based on “Who do I want to be in a good mood when it’s over, and which team would that mean rooting for?” Usually that’s based on who will throw the best party if they win, and am I going to be invited.
I have an easier time with sports that I play and enjoy (even if not regularly), so I tend to like watching tennis, soccer/football, and cycling, but even so, I can’t really be bothered to follow it closely. I run too, but couldn’t care less about competitive running.
When I was a kid, I was never good at sports. So to me it seemed pretty hypocritical to talk to other kids in school about how great or how badly some team or athlete played, when I wasnt’ very good at it either. My parents didn’t care about sports either. So that set the stage for a lifetime of nerddom for bgac.
I realize as an adult that part of the problem was that I was one of the youngest kids in my class. From ages 7-14, a year can make a big difference in one’s physical abilities, particularly versus kids older than me, but back then, all I knew is that I was always last to be selected for a team, and it didn’t feel good. By the time I had matured, I figured I just wasn’t good at sports, so didn’t do them much, which indeed meant I wasn’t good at sports - a kind of viscious circle. As an adult, I discovered that while I was no athlete, I am not bad as I remembered being as a kid.