People who don't like sports - what sport do you most tolerate?

The Game Room
1

Watching the baseball All Star Game last night, as a big baseball fan, I got the feels for the beauty of the game, the pace, and the ballparks themselves. I thought “surely no one can dislike this.”

But, that’s definitely a clouded vision of the game, as something that has always been a part of my DNA.

I’ve gone to tons of baseball games with people who don’t like sports. They seem to have a good enough time. I don’t make them go, usually they’re the ones who invited me because they got free tickets and know I’m a big fan.

My question is for people who don’t like, don’t follow, and possibly actively hate sports.

Which sport would you willingly go see live? Which sport might you sit down and watch on TV with someone who liked the sport?

“Absolutely none, no, never” is a valid answer too.

2

I used to watch NBA basketball, though never attended a pro game. A lot of it is on a paid platform now, which I refuse to do. We used to go to the Portland Thorns (women) soccer games in Portland. Really enjoyed those. I tend to prefer women’s sports now, but more and more they’re behind a paywall as well.

3

I liked going to baseball games live when I was younger. But all I did was drink copious amounts of beer.

I used to enjoy watching sumo on TV, but I’d rather do… pretty much anything else in place of watching sports.

I don’t understand watching sports period, and I ESPECIALLY don’t understand getting emotionally invested in something so pointless, that you personally have no input in.

But I am clearly in the minority on this matter…

4

In my younger days I loved baseball. I was attracted to the strategy of the game and the idea of fundamental skills (aka “small ball”) being the key to success. But during the course of my lifetime, most of the things I loved best about the game have been stripped out of it. The focus now is on using home runs to build a lead that a lights out closer can hold. I now actively hate the brand of baseball played in MLB. I do sometimes go to a minor league game which can remind me of what I used to love about the game.

I do not, in general, dislike sports. But I do dislike most American sports. I actively hate American football because of the permanent damage it has done to so many people. Junior Seau’s suicide sealed the deal on that one for me. I never really cared one way or the other for basketball. I used to go to hockey games with my uncle, but that was more about spending time together than liking the sport. NASCAR bores me to tears.

I do enjoy proper football (what Americans call soccer). I also love Formula 1, but I think going to a race is largely out of my economic reach. Besides, the TV coverage is way more than what you can see from the stands. I used to work Indycar races at Laguna Seca, so I don’t feel like not going to a race is missing out. I love sailboat racing too, but kind of feel the same way about spectating as with auto racing.

5

I have never liked to watch sports at home or at a bar (back when I drank), although I would follow the occasional championship type games. I don’t really follow the athletes themselves, but I have meet Danny Marino, Jack Lambert, Pete Rose and a few of the Red Wings back when they were in championship form.

That said, I love going to live games like baseball, hockey, basketball and football. Free tickets and I am there, although occasionally I’ll buy one just to go and experiance it. Sometimes I just go to check out the stadium.

I am sort of the same way with music now in my later years, I’ll drive for hours without the radio on but have been to literally several hundred live concerts. I’ll go for days without playing any streaming content. And I will pretend to be interested for the sake of socializing.

6

I love American football, but I rarely watch it anymore, because I don’t really want to feel like I’m complicit or enabling the players to get CTE. It kind of sucks really, because college football was my primary sport.

Baseball can be fun, but like you say, the game has changed and it’s not nearly as interesting as it used to be. I grew up watching the NL in the 1980s, and that baseball is a long way from today’s game.

I grew up watching a lot of sports- it’s what athletic kids in the 80s and 90s did. But as I’ve gotten older, people have solidified into basically watching one favorite sport and league, and I don’t know any basketball or baseball fans- most everyone is football around here.

7

I can’t believe that Pop Warner still exists, nevermind high school and college football.

8

I’ve never had any use for the ‘war-game’ attitude underlying many team sports, but I can derive some pleasure from watching individual sports of skill. Every year when the Superb Owl captures our collective fascination, I offer up this modest proposal for something I think I WOULD like to watch or even participate in:

It has long been known that encouraging a widely shared activity with a bit of healthy competition is both an excellent way to build community, and to keep the citizenry distracted.

Ideally, one gets the children involved during their early education, then gradually ramps up their involvement through both participation and spectation, until as adults it becomes a major focus of their lives AND an excellent marketing opportunity.

Proposed: in grade school, the children be taught to build birdhouses and bat houses; in middle school they could advance to doghouses & cold-frames; high-schoolers could easily build yard sheds and bus shelters. Forming into work teams and advancing into college, barns and greenhouses would be great opportunities for practice. Upon graduation, those who had excelled would be recruited into regional teams, competing against each other to erect homeless shelters, community centers, food banks. Midwinter, the best and brightest of each region would compete on national TV to erect health clinics.
There could be roles for all manner of participants - one thrills to think of handsome young men in tight pants leading waves of cheers as nimble women race up ladders and relay shingles to their captain at the peak, waiting to drive the last nail with her golden hammer and win the trophy for that year.

9

Yeah, it’s one of the great head scratchers of the age; we’ve got sports like football that will cause brain damage if played long enough (i.e. pro or college level), and yet we’ve got parents who are not only letting their kids play, but actively trying to improve their chances to play at these higher levels.

I mean, my wife and I both agreed completely that our boys were not going to play football under any circumstances, even if we’re pretty much willing to let them make their own decisions on everything else. It seemed highly negligent to let them make that choice as middle/high schoolers knowing what we know now.

I’m sure it’s a combination of ignorance where they just flat out don’t know about CTE, and also that sort of willful ignorance where because the science isn’t 100% conclusive, that it somehow casts doubt on the whole thing. And I’m also sure they believe that whatever it is, it won’t affect their kid, because not EVERY player automatically gets CTE.

10

Absolutely none, no, never. I’ve wasted enough time trying to “get it” already.

11

I would probably go see just about any sport live (not a bloodsport like bullfighting, I suppose) for the novelty. I have no particularly interest in watching any sport on TV: maybe curling?

I can kind of understand being happy when your team wins; it’s like cheering on the Yellow Knight at Medieval Times or something. But I can’t understand being furious or weepy when the men with the yellow shirts get the thing in the place more than the men with the purple shirts.

12

As a kid in the 60s, we played schoolyard football all the time.

No padding, no equipment, and we went at it hard. One of the out-of-bounds markers was a two-foot high drop-off border with brick wall; the other was the side of the brick school building.

I broke my hand in four places tackling a big dude one time. There were other injuries as well.

Anyway, two brothers in our friend circle were forbidden by their parents to participate. Of course, we snickered at the sissies who’s mama wouldn’t let them play.

Obviously the parents were the opposite of stupid.

mmm

13

I was not a sports fan but I enjoyed attending hockey games while I was a college student, because of the fan participation.

14

It made me envious/sad to see people celebrating the World Cup. I mean, it was special to see people from all over bonding and being happy together, but when the party ended, did they realize nothing meaningful had really happened?

15

I never watch sports. Live, on TV, streaming, whatever. I never watch sports. Never have.

I’m not sure why. I guess I just find it uninteresting. Maybe it has something to do with my childhood. I was very poor at sports in my Catholic elementary school, and was mocked and made fun of for being so inept at them. (Apologies for the buzz kill.)

16

The only sport I can tolerate is hockey. I used to be a fan, back when my son still was, but the Toronto Maple Leafs really pissed me off with poor unmotivated play despite the fact – or maybe partly because of the fact – that they’re rolling in money, so there’s a culture of complacency that flows from the top down and seems to infect coaches and players. This year the Leafs didn’t even make the playoffs, despite the fact that under NHL rules, unlike MLB, you really have to work at being terrible to not even get in the first round.

Like the time my son and I were excited to attend a game when the Leafs were playing their arch rivals, the Ottawa Senators. The Senators walloped them 6-0. Another time we attended a playoff game vs the NJ Devils. The Devils scored early and then played their classic “trap” defense that the Leafs utterly failed to break, creating an insufferably boring game.

That said, however, attending an NHL game, especially a Leafs game on home ice before a hyper-excited crowd, is normally an amazing and exhilarating experience. I know of no other sport that offers such fast-paced energy and excitement. It’s even fun to watch on TV though you miss the incredible arena experience.

The only other sport I know anything at all about is baseball, though I don’t know much beyond the basics. I find it slow and boring. Apparently many fans enjoy it for just that reason, a pleasant Saturday or Sunday afternoon outing with an excuse to consume beer and hotdogs. The only time I actually found baseball interesting was when the Jays were in the World Series.

You can tell a lot about baseball from the on-air commentary. In hockey, it’s literally a fast-paced play-by-play, with a “colour commentator” occasionally offering additional comments, the announcer doing the play-by-play sometimes hoarse with excitement.

In baseball, AFAICT 99% of the time the two commentators are just chatting, sometimes dredging up statistics which seems to be the currency of baseball. If something happens on the field, they just keep chatting – the assumption is that the viewers understand enough baseball that they can see for themselves what happened, and don’t need to be told. Instead, they figure viewers are more interested in someone’s ERA or IRS or FBI or whatever the hell it is they like to quote.

17

I don’t want this to sound like a circular argument, but the very psychological effect of the happiness is its own real effect. You might as well say that concerts, movies, etc. are all meaningless because they involve nothing but an instrument scratching out a vibration of sound in the air, or electrons making an image move on screen.

I agree that in a certain sense, sports is as absurd as two anthills watching 22 ants kick around a grain of pollen. But the boost to national morale, uplifting of people’s spirits, memories that last decades, are very real indeed. South Koreans still talk today about their 2002 semifinal run. A team winning a World Cup can have a very sizable effect on politics in a beleaguered home nation. For the 500,000 people of Cape Verde, the World Cup also really put their tiny nation on the map - before the Cup, almost no one even knew what Cape Verde was.

18

For me, it’s a matter of what I grew up with. I’d guess it’s the same for most. My father was a fan of gridiron football / the Dallas Cowboys*, baseball / the Houston Astros, and basketball / the San Antonio Spurs. So those are my sports and teams.

What I don’t get is those who enjoy individual sports like golf, tennis, motor racing, etc. How does one stay into them when their favorite athlete inevitably retires? It seems like it would be an ongoing process of forcing oneself to develop a new fandom every several years, and makes no sense to me.

*. Back in his day we had the Houston Oilers as well. My fandom did not transfer with the team.

19

Those other things you mention are entertainment, and high quality entertainment can be enlightening and evoke all kinds of emotions and thoughtful introspection.

Watching sports can be entertaining, too, and engages our inherent sense of competitiveness. Which is fine. What I find bemusing is the power of the sentiment “we won!” when your favoured team is victorious.

Who is “we”? You (the generic “you”) personally, were just a spectator. Do you mean that your city or nation demonstrated its athletic proficiency? No, in hockey, it may mean some Russians and Czechs making $5 million a year played very well. In baseball it may mean some Puerto Ricans making $25 million a year played well. So what?

20

I get it and agree, but sports is a really big valve to let off steam that couldn’t be solved other ways. The Argentines took pleasure in beating England in 1986, 2006 and 2026 because of the Falklands War, a lot of Chinese fans were taking WWII grievances out on the 2004 Asian AFC Cup final against Japan (but China lost.) It’s inevitable it will take a “we beat you” dynamic.