The one where they chase a round of cheese down a steep slope, which renders unscheduled broken bones to the participants (England?).
The wife-carrying race (Finland?).
As a native of the Seattle area I have to link to the great Bill Nye as his super hero alter ego:
- Quidditch
- Spikeball
- Arena Football
A lot television is predicated on the fact that so many people would rather sit around watching anything rather than get off their asses and actually do something themselves. That’s how we got reality TV.
I’m not very interested in sport, and I tend to listen to television while doing other things, so I don’t tend to want to watch it because it’s all I can do BUT when I was stuck in hospital I watched whatever came on the telly. One show I watched was people going fishing on boats. It was actually quite entertaining. There was another show where these people caught crocodiles (alligators?). It wasn’t really “sport”, they caught these crocodiles as a job, still it was a whole other world to me. (it was Louisiana or somewhere, I’m not sure where it was set)
There can be no other answer.
It’s a fictional sport made up by someone who doesn’t understand sports, designed to make her character a hero, turned into a “real” sport by making people run around with brooms between their legs.
High school football.
Try it some time. The season is just starting and lots of curling clubs have open houses and introductory events.
I just have to send in some paperwork and I’ll be a certified curling instructor.
Yeah, I caught a little bit of that on TV the other day. Isn’t it basically “catch the snitch and you win, everybody else is just getting dirty for no reason”?
I’ve seen both frisbee and dominoes on ESPN. I’m not sure which was stupider.
Dog frisbee is quite entertaining, because the dogs are cute.
Probably the only sport with a rule limiting the maximum size of the bikini a competitor must wear.
Brits of a certain age will remember the Indian sport of Kabbadi being televised on C4 for a time. Far be it from me to call it stupid, but it was defo a WTF is this all about viewing experience. Looked like professional sportsmen playing ‘Tag you’re it’.
Rugby union used to be televised in the UK back in the amateur era - that was pretty stupid. Rugby union’s a fine game and all these days, but seeing assorted greengrocers, policemen, butchers etc wheezing around the pitch, leathering the ball out on the full for no reason, was hardly television material.
Wow - never guessed I’d insult a fan so quickly! Apologies. Didn’t mean to suggest it was not difficult. Only that it impressed me as silly - as I said most sports do.
But using your criteria, let’s see what common athletic endeavors can be made “more dangerous and thrilling” by adding in an animal? Well, besides the obvious of water polo! Rhino golf? Moose diving?
I was coming to pile on, but I see you’ve apologized. 
For reals, though, one of my best friends was a vaulter when we were younger. She was literally the strongest, most graceful, most fit woman I have ever known. She could run along side a cantering horse taller than her and pull herself up onto his back with one hand in one smooth motion. Then proceed to do gymnastics. I was in awe the first time I saw it. Silly, maybe, but true athletes for sure.
But to answer the original question…food eating contests and playing cards are NOT sports, and to call them such is stupid.
Back in the 1960s and 1970s in the US, “Wide World of Sports” would show weird sports from across the world. The weirdest from my memory was barrel jumping. It was done on ice, the competitor would pick up speed and try to jump a bunch of barrels. Weirdly silly.
Well, “stupid” is in the eye of the beholder. For me, however, “synchronized swimming” is about as interesting as watching paint dry.
Well, there was horse diving, though it wasn’t really a sport.
Buzkashi is a Central Asian sport in which horse-mounted players attempt to place a goat carcass in a goal.
So like polo, but with a dead goat.
I am sure it has been televised somewhere.
Baseball. 90% of the game is literally guys just standing around.
I slowly back out of the room and run away…
Hey now. I would rather watch poker than darts, which are also televised. I know dart throwing is a skill but calling morbidly obese men throwing darts at a board for hours on end a “sport” is stretching it.
The 2002 Winter Olympics women’s curling was freaking gripping - Britain was virtually knocked out and was saved by a fluke, and then came back to win gold on the last stone. Plus you got Rhona Martin’s buzzsaw-on-rebar voice for added excitement.