While not my favorite sport, I have enjoyed football (US) all my life. I understand a tiny bit of strategy but I will admit that I barely understand the difference of positions beyond QB, WR and kicker, and who’s on offense/defense. I know zilch about plays or how they’re concocted and whether or not they’re clever. I have never played a football video game because I could never pick a play to run and don’t really care to. I basically see it as “Ball moves forward - yay! Ball doesn’t move forward - boo!”
Baseball is my favorite sport. I played softball for 15 years, so I know the rules, the usual plays and much more of the intricacies than I do of football. Still, I know zilch about pitching like when one should throw a curveball instead of a fastball, or why a catcher would make the call that he does. I see good pitching as “produces an out - rock on!”…well maybe I can tell better than that, but I’m still no expert by any means.
Soccer, basketball and hockey have plays too, similar to football where the team has to set itself up in a particular way in order to reach their goals. They’re more fast-moving than football, though, so the team needs to know a lot about where to be and when, and be dynamic with it.
I am not asking anyone to explain the intricacies of sports to me here (zzzzz) but I am wondering how many other folks feel they are intense, loyal fans but couldn’t call a play to save their lives.
There’s no shame in enjoying sports this way…is there?
But, as Sitnam notes, there’s a good chance you’d be happier by delving into some of the finer points. The battle between the pitcher (+ catcher) and the batter can be fascinating.
Sure, I enjoy most sports without understanding the ‘inner game’. The only sport I really understand is football, and I’m a died in the wool fan. But I’ll watch rugby league, cricket, NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB etc and enjoy them all as a casual fan without any particular insight into strategy or tactics.
Saying that, I think it is a bit unfulfilling to be a huge fan of a sport and not have any insight or understanding at all. In the example of the OP about baseball, I’d expect a ‘real’ fan to have some insight into pitch selection with respect to the count, who’s batting etc. Nothing wrong with just going along and cheering, but you’ll be missing out on a whole dimension of play. I also find that people who are massively into supporting a team, but fail to grasp how the game really works, are reliably full of shit when it comes to sports discussion. I try to avoid talking about my football team with people who don’t really know the game for this reason - it can be annoying.
One sign that you don’t really know how things work with a sport is an inability to grasp why your team is losing. I get this with rugby, both codes. Because I don’t understand the game at more than a superficial level, I often don’t appreciate why a team is getting put on the back foot, and what they need to do to change things around. In football, though, I can usually see what’s going wrong and why.
I’ve been enjoying NFL football since I was a kid without really knowing the finer points of how plays work or what it really means when a safety is out of position. Although, as time goes on, I start picking up more and more detail, and I love the constant learning.
NFL.com has a video series called “Anatomy of a Play” that breaks down one or two plays a week and goes essentially frame by frame to show how the play developed and why it worked (offense or defense). I find it fascinating. There is so much nuance in one play and the average viewer can’t possibly get that level of analysis watching the game live.
This is almost me to a tee, except that I completely understand everything about hockey. Heck I was even a softball player for about the same number of years. Football is good to watch sometimes, but like you, I know very little about plays or positions. It doesn’t stop me from appreciating talent though.
I like to know everything, or at least mostly everything. I really only watch football and hockey, but I grew up outside of Portland, OR, so I know basketball, too.
Fortunately, I’m pretty smart and quick on the uptake, so it only took a season and a half (and some help from Drew Remenda) to get up to speed on hockey*.
Unfortunately, I learned more about routes and route combinations in football from Madden’s video game than from watching on TV. The camera is never wide enough to show the receivers and DBs downfield.
*: By “up to speed” I mean I understand every term the announcers use, I can see things happen and get it whether they point it out or not. And I can learn new, even smaller minutiae when explained during intermissions. etc.
Whenever I happen to see Formula 1 on TV, I’m fascinated and must follow it through and actually goes like Oh my god Coulthard missed the corner! - Räikkönen is second! - though, really, what do I care? I don’t even understand the sport and the layers of tactics that decides the outcome.
