Yeah, they should talk. They’re sitting around intently watching a bunch of other guys run around making bodily contact.
And pat each other on the bum.
I can appreciate some sports as activities of beauty and grace, balance and skill, none of which I have any amount.
What I don’t get is the nutty fans who identify with individuals or teams. The make their favorites into heroes, and the opposition into villains. They take the wins and losses of their heroes as their own personal triumphs and tragedies.
The worst of them riot, stalk and even kill players or each other. It’s completely beyond me.
I really don’t get into it either. Sometimes I will get interested, but it’s not a lasting thing. I’d rather actually do something active then watch others. Perhaps it was from when I was a kid and sports shows interupted my regular set of programs, man I hated that!
Fuck that. If I won tickets to the Superbowl, I’d sell them.
I guess I’m the same way…I can’t identify with the playesr. To me, most of them are spoiled little brats (who are paid millions). So I can’t really get upset when they screw their lives up , in often bizarre ways. Take the late Mickey mantle…he made a ton of money, drank like a fish, and had scandal after scandal. So much gref at his passing-but there are scores of ordinary people who have done much better with their lives…like the family that has taken in 5 foster children, and raised them. Such people never get noticed, while somebody who screws up their life (like Mantle) get all the press.
Don’t overlook the fact that sports is the only entertainment out there without a pre-determined outcome.
That gives it a level of drama that you don’t get out of movies, TV, or books. An unknown outcome determined by highly tuned skills of the competitors.
There are some of us that just like competition. You know, this whole weekend, all you saw was stories about the Pope. I realized yesterday, I didn’t give a shit until they started talking about who the next one was going to be.
I was like, “who am I rooting for. . .the Italians to regain the throne? That guy from Africa?”
Personally, I can watch any race. You give guys cars, bikes, horses, sneakers, skis, skates, a pool, a tree to climb and let them see who can cross a line first, and I’m just riveted.
I can’t really intellectualize it for ya. If you don’t find yourself automatically pulling for someone in a race, then you’re just never gonna get it.
Withing other sports. . .if you like the pace of the competition, if you’re knowledgable about the strategy and tactics, etc. then your mind is occupied. A waste of time, somw say. . .I hardly think that those who don’t watch sports are out there discovering the cure for cancer while the rest of us are wasting our time.
Footyball is land acquisition- the next best thing to war. It allows men to dominate and be agressive without actually picking up guns and marching into strange countries - some of which don’t have flush toilets. Paraphrasing George Carlin: in football you can beat the shit out of the other guy and take their land.
:dubious:
You need to read better books.
You need to read better.
My point was sports don’t have a pre-determined outcome. Unless you’re still reading “choose your own adventure”, your books, plays and movies have an ending already written and you’re just passing time until you get there, imagining yourself in another place and time where the outcome ISN’T YET determined.
With sports, it is also about feeling like you’re part of something big and important. You’re rooting for a team that thousands of other people are behind, so it creates an instant sense of belonging. Most people love that energy by being part of the crowd at a live sporting event, but even gathering friends at someone’s house to watch the big game on TV seems like a big event. Moreso than just passively watching a sitcom or something, sports get you invested in the action and excited about the unknown outcome. And sports bring people together who want the same things, want to see the same goals reached.
If you don’t care about sports, this won’t make a difference to you. But to me, this theory makes all the sense in the world. I will almost never watch sports on my own, but if there’s a game on and the guys are watching it, and we order pizzas or grill steaks and crack open some beers and make it into a social event, that makes it all worthwhile. It becomes practically active entertainment, and all of a sudden, you’re part of something. You can also apply this to people who enjoy seeing movies in the theater, surrounded by an audience, instead of watching DVDs at home, or going to concerts instead of listening to CDs. A good crowd can have a lot of positive (or negative) energy, and the fact that you are with so many people gathered for the same purpose can be a pretty powerful feeling. I don’t see it as any different from attending religious services.
<Tackles js_africanus and takes his land>
There was once a cartoon in The New Yorker in which a gravestone was pictured. The epitaph read “Watched a lot of sports on TV.” The rest of us may not be curing cancer in our non-sports time, but I do get a hell of a lot done. The volume of time spent on watching sports can be stupefying. After all, people often don’t watch just one football game on Sunday they watch two or three - and Monday Night Football and college football on Saturday. And that’s just one sport. There are an average of about 5 days a year in North America in which none of the major leagues are in action, although the NHL’s lost season will doubtlessly change that this year. Since I don’t have cable TV there are often times in which there is nothing on any of the channels except sports. And who the hell willingly subjects themselves to the tedium of watching golf? A lot of people I guess since it is often on three channels at the same time.
The allure of sports is no great mystery. It satisfies primal needs people have to take sides, to (vicariously) take part in the hunt or the battle and to vanquish the opposition. This helps to explain why women’s sports are so much less popular than men’s. After all, most people don’t want a woman to be the warrior representing thier tribe. Knowledge of sports is, as has been mentioned, an imperative for anyone who wants to take part in a conversation, especially amongst guys. Thankfully, I know a lot about sports so I never feel excluded. I just don’t like watching them anymore.
Why not? I’m sick of it all. Perhaps it started when the North Stars were taken from us because the owner (Norm Green) wanted to live in a place where he thought people would be more likely to turn a blind eye to his sexual harassment of his employees. Maybe it was the growing realization that the outcomes of sporting events are entirely irrelevant. I got sick of seeing the culture of privilege in which athletes live. In high school it’s the athletes who wear the letter jackets, get their names read over the PA and are thought to be the representatives of the school. In college it gets worse. Athletes are often academically unqualified to be students and they do even worse in school than their low test scores would predict, yet these are the most sought after students on campus. A 4.0 math wiz is nothing next to a high school All-American when it comes to getting into whatever U. Athletes are wined and dined when brought to campus. They are taken to bars and strip joints on the school’s dime. They are given free tuition, backpacks, jackets and clothing stipends and they get preferential consideration for housing. They travel the country for free. If they win something they are invited to the White House. Good thing they didn’t waste their time studying. Coaches relentlessly pressure their profs to assign passing grades to their players until the players’ eligibility runs out at which point they most often drop out. I work at a major University and believe me this happens. Our school has undergone dramatic budget cuts in recent years the have resulted in layoffs and big tuition hikes, but we are going to put up a brand new football stadium soon, to the tune of a quarter of a billion dollars. Our football team never wins the conference, but the coach makes far more money than the president of the university. Oh, by the way, our Athletic Department is a big money loser overall - just as is the case on nearly every campus in America.
I’m not saying all college athletes are like this. Some of my best friends were elite athletes in college and they were real students, but many, many are not.
In the pros you get steroid-infused behemoths shoving each other around for three hours so the people of whatever city can feel good about themselves at the end of it all because “they” won. Provided, of course that the taxpayers of said city pony up the jing for the billionaire owners who will happily move their teams to other cities if their taxpayers feel a little more giving. Is this fun?
The out come isn’t predetermined, but the outcome is also irrelevant. “Important” games are, in fact, entirely trivial. Quick, who won the NCAA Basketball Championship in 1995? And more to the point, who cares? At the time though, I’m sure people thought it was crucial.
I have theater season tickets and love it. Every play provides an opportunity to learn something new about myself, society or whatever. I have a hard time even remembering most of the baseball or basketball games I’ve been to.
I’m not saying people who like sports are stupid, but there sure is a lot more to life.
That has the exact same impact on me as if it said, “Read a lot of books” or “Went to a lot of plays.”
Which highlights an even grander point. . .sure sports is pointless, so is life. Most of us just don’t act like we’re above it. The best you can do, most of the time, is live in the moment.
Jonathan Franzen is transforming your view of the American suburban nuclear family? You’re learning about yourself from the latest Tony Kushner play?
So fuckin’ what.
Tonight, I’m swilling Budweisers and chowing down a dozen chicken wings in a smokey bar with money riding on how well some college kids can put a ball through a net. That’s life, as far as I’m concerned.
Now wait a minute, you’re going to talk up Auburn swimming yet fail to say that the world record was broken in the men’s 50 free? I just want to know what he was taking when he broke 19 seconds, something that had never been done before.
If you know the outcome of the book before you get to the end, then you need to read better books. The book may have been written before I read it, but that doesn’t imply that for me the outcome is determined. Indeed, considering the number of people who walk out before a game is done, I’d have to conclude that athletic events are often times more predetermined—in a practical sense—than many books.
Why is one unknown outcome more compelling than another? Suppose you missed the Superbowl but taped it to watch later that evening. Would it then become not so interesting?
::Goes off to stab Patty O’Furniture in the head w/ a spear::
Keep you land, Patty, I’ll just salt your fields and let you starve.