I enjoy American football the most. If a game is on I will occasionally watch the plays and I enjoy seeing a well executed or even surprising play play out. Plus there is more constant action than baseball, the referee calls are more understandable than basketball, and the action is more varied than soccer.
However, for a few years I attended a yearly superbowl party with a group of friends and, since the main attraction was the ads, and it was a party so we wanted to also socialize, we would generally stay quiet for the ads except for commenting on them, and socialize during the actual football. Only when there was a dramatic situation or an amazing play going on would we stop talking and pay attention.
I’m pretty lukewarm about sports. If someone wants to give me a ticket, I can kill an afternoon or an evening at a game, but I don’t seek it out.
Head injuries aside, I don’t like to go to pro football games because they have odd stoppages in play that work perfectly well for television but really break up the flow of the game in person.
Baseball seems the most appropriate for a non-sports fan. The action isn’t so fast that you can’t sit back and talk to the person next to you, the structure of the game is pretty simple, there’s in-stadium diversions between innings, and if you get so bored you want to leave, there’s an opportunity to slip out after every inning.
I watch one football game a year. I go for the ads, but it can be fun to watch the game, too. (Though I’d much rather watch the Nickelodeon version). To get me watching, you generally need to have something else that is entertaining.
(This includes having a party and thus having friends to hang around with. Having an activity is one thing that helps me with socializing in person.)
I remember enjoying a basketball game in high school simply because it was fast paced, and I was watching people I knew do well. I also remember enjoying hockey and baseball, but only the trip, not the sport, so I don’t count those.
I do remember feeling some nice feelings when it was people I knew who went on to win state. And I remember one Super Bowl where it was fairly exciting because it was actually competitive.
Yes and no. Yes for one it’s not gonna be as fast-paced as hockey, soccer or basketball. Also yes, in that I’ve totally experienced this, but it seems to be most egregious in national broadcasts (like on Fox). Where neither the announcers nor the fans are really familiar with the teams and they often have some not-too-long retired player also calling and they’re just not good broadcasters.
For me, radio is where it’s at. And I’m lucky to be in the market of one of the best, Tom Hamilton, who was inducted into the Baseball HOF last year. He’s said numerous times that one of his biggest inspirations is a blind fan who wrote him a letter early in his career, to let him know that Hamilton was his only insight into the game. Hammy truly does call the games like we’re all blind (well, on radio, we are) and it’s an absolute delight to listen to him.
Every so often I catch a listen to other radio guys and they can be very bland for sure. Well, in comparison to Hamilton. But I’d wager that in general radio is better than TV for baseball announcing.
Overall, I do agree that baseball announcing has the most propensity for dryness. Altho I suspect maybe golf is worse.
When the Olympics are on I might watch the athletics, and I have been known to enjoy the scenery when the Tour de France is on. But to be honest it’s been fifteen years since I watched either.
Baseball, basketball, tennis, and soccer bore the stuffing out of me. I’ve seen a baseball game live (on a company outing) and it was slightly less boring than watching it on TV but not much.
I kind of enjoy watching hockey, especially live. The closest I ever got to understanding what sports fans like about sports is at the Stanley Cup Final game a few years ago, the only one the Sharks played locally and the only one they actually won. I was swept away in the massive crush of excitement and cheers, and it was a lot of fun.
Football is okay. I don’t like it, but I’ll occasionally watch a game with my spouse.
So I guess my answer is hockey, and sort of football. I enjoy watching the Olympics, both summer and winter, but only dipping in and out to catch individual events for a while. I don’t specifically tune in for any particular sport.
The only game i have enjoyed watching live is hockey. I liked it more when i was a kid, before fighting became so big a thing, and i think it’s getting better again. Hockey is graceful, and moves at a good speed for me. And the court is small enough that you can always see what’s going on.
I can enjoy baseball and soccer on TV. I don’t really pay attention except during the replays of exciting bits, but when I do look at the players, i enjoy the athleticism.
I suspect i could learn to enjoy basketball, but the game moves too fast and i can’t follow the action.
Do you have to develop a new fandom when your favorite actor retires or dies? Of course not, that’s silly. Much like in other forms of entertainment it is possible to enjoy and admire more than one racing driver, or golfer, or boxer, or tennis player, etc. Likewise with team sports there is no obligation to choose one team to the exclusion of all others.
I’ve also been to football games and baseball games, and been bored out of my mind. I mean, if you are with a group of people and enjoy the company, that can be okay. But being stuck in a stadium with nothing to do but watch those sports is not my idea of a pleasant afternoon.
I have enjoyed watching volleyball played by people i know. Partly, it’s a game a know well, but mostly, it’s more engaging if you care about the players.
I don’t have tge patience to watch much sports. It just doesn’t appeal to me at all. When I was a kid I loved being an active participant in sports, I lettered in a few in high school.
In the rare event I do watch any sport, it’s usually basketball because my home town has a pretty good team.
I dislike watching baseball, but I love watching baseball. Let me explain…
Like another poster said earlier, baseball is a wonderful game. But I dislike the modern MLB version. Too many rules changes. And while I don’t begrudge an industry making decent money, the monetization has gotten out of hand and ticket prices are insane. I refuse to participate.
So my solution is watching old baseball games. Just watched game 7 of the 1952 world series, which was great fun. Lots of good, historical baseball available online.
This pretty much describes me as well. I’ve been a kind of off and on fan of various sports, or probably more accurately, a fair weather fan-- my interest increases along with the success of one of my regional teams that season.
Football is the exception. I follow football, and my team the Lions, pretty closely every good, bad and mediocre season. I just don’t have the attention span to follow the interminably long seasons and the many, many regular season games of the other major sports. but pro football has just 17 regular season games. Every game counts. You lose the first game of the season, you’re already at a disadvantage. Plus, I feel like I understand and appreciate the intricacies of the rules of football more than I do other sports. It’s an interesting mixture of chess-like strategy and brute force.
I understand, football has problems. I feel bad for the retired players who have serious health problems from the years they played. They’re modern gladiators-- they sacrifice their bodies and minds to entertain us. Hopefully the NFL will work to make the sport safer in the future. Neither of my sons had much interest in sports growing up, but if they had wanted to play school football I think I would have strongly dissuaded them.
Personally, I’m pretty sure that sports fandom taps into some sort of atavistic, tribal side of our nature. So we’re basically primed to be sports fans in a lot of ways, even if it doesn’t make a lot of logical sense.
I mean, I came to the conclusion long ago that regardless of whether my university’s football team won or lost, I was going to wake up the next morning and do the same things regardless, and that other than changing the tone of the conversation, it was all pretty much immaterial.
But that has never changed what it feels like to be part of a huge rabid fan base cheering on your team along with tens of thousands of like-minded people. Or being able to discuss it with pretty much any fan of the team. It’s a huge social thing that draws people together and gives them a common focus. The trick would be to direct that focus toward doing good stuff without actually unfocusing it- can you imagine if somehow the World Cup fans decided to build Habitat for Humanity homes in every city? Or the NFL playoff teams held food drives before each game? (maybe they do; just thinking out loud).
I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s something to do with being part of a greater whole, and it’s not warfare and (generally) not politics. It’s weirdly wholesome in that way, even if for some, it’s too consuming, and for others it’s a cynical opportunity to make money. For most though, it’s something that’s fun to be part of .
In my experience, the enjoyment of watching a live game is inversely proportional to the level of competition. I enjoy the experience of going to a baseball or football game to watch the AA Corpus Christi Hooks, the NCAA Division II Texas A&M - Kingsville Javelinas, or a local high school game. Going to watch a Cowboys or Astros game in person, however, can be miserable. One of my least favorite Cowboys games (it ranks up there with the various playoff losses from over the past 30 years) was one in the early 2010s. I went to Dallas with a group of family and friends to watch a game against the Buffalo Bills. Tony Romo was in his prime, and the Cowboys won handily (IIRC the final score was something like 42-10), but the experience was miserable. I’d much rather watch a top level pro game on TV.
I “sort-of” watch football, but only of it is the GB Packers, and usually only if they are on offence. I will do chores, surf the web, etc. so not really watching intently (if anything exciting happens, they will replay it)
Olympics – some I will watch, typically the sports that don’t get much coverage outside of them.
Tour de France – I watch the ~25 min highlights.