I assume the football is there to say, “they are watching football”. It’s just a quick cheap way to convey the idea.
probably too long an anecdote
30 years ago, a friend told me i should stop fiddling with my wedding ring, because when people do that in movies it means there’s a problem with their relationship. I just need to fidget, and the ring is usually handy. I pointed out that fiction needs to summarize life, and leaves our all the irrelevant stuff. I’m still married to the same guy 30 years and 2 kids later, and i still fidget with the ring. I think the football is similar. An addition rather than editing out irrelevancies, but the same basic idea.
And yes. Most sports are okay to watch, and a few i enjoy in small doses.
1: Someone I care about (these days, most often one or more of my students) is competing.
2: I’m watching with other people I care about.
It doesn’t matter what particular kind of sport it is. Well, mostly: I’d rather it not be something with a high chance of injury, because I don’t want to see people I care about getting hurt.
This. I have a football that Michael Irvin signed (OK, technically he signed for my wife, who got to meet him at a meet and greet). I’ve never taken it down to play with it while watching the Cowboys.
I very much enjoy playing sports, but generally not watching. Play-stoppages and ads are the hugest turnoffs for me. Dead time in baseball, football, and basketball just feel like the Dark Crystal is sucking my podling essence away from me, I haven’t watched a game of those in probably 20 years. Enjoyable sports to watch are more individualized accomplishment sports such as billiards, gymnastics, MMA, skiing, etc. The Olympics are mostly when I get my sports-watching fix in. Soccer is also good to watch on occasion because of the near-constant game time.
It’s probably a function of attention span. Being a sports fan involves following multiple storylines throughout the season, being aware of historical context of both team and individual performances, all multiplied across dozens of teams and hundreds of individuals.
There was always time for the guys sometimes girls to chuck a football in the yard during halftime or pregame? And nerfs always were going out of bounds indoors. Oh Brothers!
I’ve found radio announcers usually have a lot of personality and the play by plays are fun to listen to. Tune in to either teams broadcast get the local flavor.
No cable tv here but can listen often on sxm
For fb games.
Used to follow the big sports pretty avidly, but I fell off a lot in my later years and have essentially zero interest now. I’ll tune in when a big issue crops up, and I always have time for UrinatingTree (manages to be harsh without turning completely obnoxious, a true rarity for YouTube), and that’s about it. I don’t have anything against frivolous pursuits (wouldn’t be here if that were the case ), it’s basically three gigantic issues:
Officiating. It seems that no sport is free from horrible calls, hideous bias, brain-dead decisions, and outright corruption. There’s never any serious effort to rectify this. Most howlingly, all records resulting from these bogus contests are supposed to be sacrosanct and never challenged (a sentiment I often see from the same people who want to plaster asterisks all over athletes who took any substance stronger than NyQuil. ).
Idiocy inherent in the rules. Why is a foul ball with 0 or 1 strike a strike but a foul ball with 2 strikes nothing? Why does the pitcher give up a base if he doesn’t complete a pitching motion but can make infinity zillion useless pickoff attempts with no harm done? Exactly how many controlled substances were involved in soccer’s offside rule? (Rewarding bad defense? Really??) Exactly how many hundreds of times does the ref call for a break before there’s some actual real-world consequence for “illegal” clinching? (I’m particularly bemused at soccer’s penalty kick shootout and how pretty much everyone has utterly capitulated as to it being the One True Method of ending the game. The excuse I usually hear is how the players are totally exhausted and can’t go another second. Really. Just flat-out admitting that your game doesn’t work. I recall the BC strip where someone is teaching Cute Chick golf, and she says “So let me get this straight, the less I hit the ball, the better off I am? Then why hit it at all?”)
All the damn overdrama. I was there for The Decision, that Wonderlic flap, Shedeur Sanders falling in the draft, all those Heisman snubs, Nancy Kerrigan, Lionel Messi, Floyd Mayweather, etc., and every time I was like… why do you all care so much?
And of course we now have the city-sized Pandora’s Box that is sports gambling, which is going to absolutely mess everything up for years, possibly decades.
It’s just exhausting trying to keep up at this point. Now I’m sticking to lower-tier sports that haven’t completely forgotten positivity and fairness. Plenty to choose from now. Track and field, figure skating, gymnastics, swimming, beach volleyball, pickleball, rugby, and cornhole are always good choices. Been following the recent Sail GP season; it’s great background noise. Bull riding and rodeo for a change of pace. If some fun one-off like a darts or axe throwing tournament pops up, I’ll certainly be there. And of course I never miss an Olympiad.
The only sport I follow somewhat regularly is wrestling, which some people probably wouldn’t even consider a sport since it’s theatrical and not legitimate combat, although it does take legitimate skill and the stuff they do really does hurt. I’ll occasionally enjoy watching legitimate combat sports (eg. boxing, MMA, kendo) but I don’t actively follow it and I couldn’t tell you who the champions are.
I could probably watch an entire baseball game and enjoy it, but I haven’t done so since I was a kid and my dad would drag me to Padres games because he was super into baseball and wanted me to get into it too. The only reason I even know how football works is because 20 years ago I dated a woman whose son was on the high school varsity team and I wanted to be able to go to a game with her and understand what was going on.
I can’t imagine watching golf, motorsports, or most Olympic events.
I’d suggest that pro wrestling occupies that limbo between “legitimate sport” and “theatre.” It is scripted to work like a soap opera, but things don’t always work out. When things don’t work out, as occasionally happens, the players have to go along with it. They can ad-lib around a problem, like any actor. There is no doubt, however, that pro wrestlers must be athletes, and like any other athletes, they work out, practice, and so on.
As you may recall, I used to work for a pro wrestling promotion, so I know whereof I speak. Pro wrestling is a fascinating world, and I am glad that I have been a part of it.
That’s more or less true for me. Despite my previous comments about being bored by baseball, for instance, when I was treated to a box seat at a Blue Jays game with a buffet and open bar, it was definitely a nice way to spendl an afternoon. It wasn’t the game itself that was entertaining to me, it was just the sheer grand spectacle.
But what really irks me is the obscenelyl huge amounts of money that are being funnelled into major league sports, especially major league baseball, and also with the recent disclosures about corruption within FIFA. It’s great to cheer for your hometown team, but we’re talking about many billions of dollars that could contribute to the betterment of society. There surely must be a healthy balance that doesn’t create multi-millionaire players and coaches..
I agree, it’s a hazy area. The way I think of it is that yes, the wrestlers are athletes, but what they are participating in is an exhibition rather than sport. To avoid picking on just wrestlers, I’d say the Harlem Globetrotters and Washington Generals are another good example of athletes who are putting on an exhibition rather than participating in a sporting competition.
Of course, there is also such a thing as actual competitive wrestling, seen mostly in schools (though I wouldn’t be surprised if there were an obscure professional circuit, as well).
I don’t care much for sports, but if I have to watch something it’ll be basketball. It’s fast, it’s action-packed, it’s impressively athletic, and you always know what’s going on. It’s also the only sport I occasionally played of my own free will as a kid, so I already know the rules.
If you’re into high-speed maneuvers and spectacular tumbles, you might want to look into chase tag. I’ve seen a few events, and running full tilt around a course full of unforgiving steel bars is definitely not for the squeamish. The problem with American Ninja Warrior and its ilk is that one tiny mistake ends the run, so you’re as likely to see a slight misstep or bad hand placement as a massive wipeout.
Oh yeah, show jumping, another favorite of mine. Impeccably polite announcers and a quiet crowd watching a horse leap gracefully over one obstacle after another. No annoying sports tickers or analytics, either. I’ve missed this kind of coverage.
), it’s basically three gigantic issues:
).