I played a lot of sports when I was younger, and have usually been pretty active, but my interest in sports has waned considerably. I still really enjoy watching baseball, and I’ll watch golf and football and even hockey or basketball, but not to the extent I used to at all. soccer doesn’t register with me at all. I’ve watched a few highlight videos or really good goal compilations, and I don’t think I have enough insight with it. It very frequently just looks like something I could do, and doesn’t seem impressive at all.
I think you are talking specifically about the sports that are popular to varying degrees as spectator sports.
I used to watch a fair amount of football and baseball, but that’s dwindled to almost nothing in recent years. OTOH, I enjoy hiking and bicycling with the Firebug, and I’m looking forward to teaching him Frisbee golf in a couple of years.
So I do sports, just not the kind anybody watches. And I don’t watch sports much anymore.
Love sports, with my favorite sports being football (esp. NFL) and hockey. Hockey is probably my #1, though closely followed by football. I like a good baseball game, but don’t follow it closely any more. I also love the Olympics, and swimming brings me in the most, which is natural (see below). I watch golf sometimes, though mostly just the big tournaments (Majors/Players/Ryder cup/FedEx cup tournaments, plus the Memorial since it’s here in town and I photograph it every year).
I played sports throughout my younger days, starting with soccer (hated it and quit after 2-3 years), then baseball (loved it, but was terrible - played through 7th grade), a little basketball (enjoyed it, but again, was terrible, played 5th-7th grade), and then I was a competitive swimmer from 6th grade through high school, and I was pretty good. I’ve also played golf since I was 11 and tennis since I was 8, though I don’t play tennis very much any more.
Interestingly enough, the sport I enjoy playing the most with friends is probably basketball, and I despise watching it on TV for the most part, with the exception of the NCAA tourney.
I give less than a fuck about team sports. What viewing I do is mostly of individual sports. I did plenty of other activities, but no team sports, except for the stuff we all had to do during PE in school. I was and am very active, but most of my activities are not group things. A few require a partner, but the kind of partner you have to trust with your life, like scuba and rock climbing.
I grew up in the country. I rode horse- (well, pony) back when I was barely old enough to run without falling down on a regular basis. Learned to shoot a bow and a gun with pretty high accuracy, well enough to take rabbits and other small game. Climbed anything I could, threw anything that was small enough to pick up, ran or biked everywhere. I started gymnastics when I was 10, steadily up to age 13, and off and on until about age 15. I was on the swim team and the springboard diving team, medaled a couple of times in both at the state level. I started martial arts around 16 and have done a few different ones since. In college I competed in diving again, started rock climbing, and did a few serious long-distance hiking/camping trips.
I watch the Olympics and wish that there was better coverage of the “oddball” sports like modern pentathlon, biathlon, fencing, judo, etc. Even relatively mainstream stuff like weightlifting gets short shrift a lot of the time. Anything involving a ball/puck/snitch is boring as hell to me. Maybe if they did polo the old way, using a severed human head stuffed with horsehair, and counting bonus points for unhorsing and/or trampling opponents I’d be interested. I paid for and watched a reality show about jousting. I would have liked to have seen rather more jousting and training, and less inter-personal bullshit, but that’s “reality” shows for you, I guess.
Overall, though, I’d much rather do things than watch them being done. The sports I do watch are mainly for inspiration, or for activities I’d like to be able to do (like jousting) that I’ll probably never get a chance to try.
As an adult with a job, I now don’t get much time to do anything outside of work, so I lift weights, try to keep up with gymnastics skills and build back to some level of proficiency, run through some kata when I can, and generally try to keep from getting out of shape. I try to maintain a high level of base fitness and skill so that I can go out and do whatever, whenever I actually do have a chance to go try something new or do one of the activities I love.
If I can grab the chance to go do [insert activity here], I want to be able to that without my body holding me back. For example, I got too fat and out of shape when I was in my late 20s to enjoy snowshoeing very much when a friend here in Japan asked me to try that out. Since I got back in shape starting at around age 30, my fitness hasn’t been a barrier, and I want to keep it that way.
But to end on topic, fuck sports.
I do not believe it will come as a great surprise to SDMB regulars that I am somewhat passionate about baseball. I watch and listen, but also play regularly. I’m the regular second baseman for McCleary Electric. Go McCleary!
I also golf when I can find time. I watch a lot of hockey and might play again next winter.
I guess it’s not cool to say I enjoy watching sports, but it’s enjoyable, especially with friends. Bonding and laughing and joking and talking about hockey and baseball with my buds is a joy.