Agreed. But the OP was asking about “sports” rather than sports.
Any sport that almost guarantees permanent brain damage has something wrong with it, in my opinion. Call me crazy.
All of them.
The recent thread about the popularity of “e-sports” gives me my answer. There’s nothing more appealing than the thought of watching a bunch of fatasses drinking Mountain Dew and mashing buttons on their video game controllers with their fat fingers.
Well, you exaggerate a bit, I believe, but otherwise that is very concerning. Football needs to correct that, and with rule changes that took effect this season they might be making progress on that.
I think there are two contenders.
First, back in about 1994 or so, I watched about 15 minutes of figure-eight auto racing on ESPN2 in the wee hours of the morning after a night out in college. Just dumb; the whole point was watching to see if they’d collide as the leaders started to intersect the drivers at the end.
The second was at a similar time on the same channel at about the same time- it was swamp buggy racing. More inexplicable, less pointlessly dangerous.
Darts.
deep sea fishing with the Dallas cowboys cheerleaders. They wore skimpy outfits and I bet the ratings were good. 
Have you ever watched cricket? It’s the same and people love it…
When I used to be into classic cars, we did an outing where they featured figure-8 BUS races! :eek:
Yeah - alcohol was involved by the spectators - as well as, I imagine - the participants!
I remember barrel jumping on WWS. Wonder if they still do that anywhere?
Two of my nieces are on the US national underwater hockey team. Recently competed in the world championships in Quebec. Gotta be one of the stupidest activities I’ve ever heard of. I’ve seen it on-line, but can’t imagine it has ever been more widely televised.
These young women are INCREDIBLY fit. Not taking anything away from them in that respect. But MAN, is their chosen avocation silly.
I remember that on WWS too, including some other silly sports. Wondering the same thing, I found this on Wikipedia:
Darts, along with other sports like snooker and golf that require quite fine motor skills, is really good at delivering excitement and suspense. Nowhere will you see a clearer demonstration of pressure on a professional athlete than on the oche. Aeschylus himself could not have penned a greater drama than van Barneveld versus Phil the Power Taylor 2007 PDC world champs. Emotional rollercoaster doesn’t begin to describe it.
All sports have pressure, of course, but it’s not usually manifested in such a naked, unmistakable way. You can visibly see darts players crumble before your eyes.
Interesting. I get that most people feel this way, but I wouldn’t have expected a bowler to feel this way. I watch bowling pretty religiously, including being subscribed to FloBowling and to the BowlTV channel on YouTube. I’ve also attended professional tournaments in person to watch the pros go at it. To each his own, I suppose.
Also agree that curling is way, WAY harder than it looks on TV. My wife and I took an introductory lesson at an open house a few years ago. Holy crap. Even before you get to the skill required to be as incredibly accurate as curlers are, I still marvel at how they make the process of gliding and setting down a stone look so easy and graceful. In the hands of an amateur, it is far from either.
Also, ow.
Ooooh, I just thought of a good one. I doubt it would actually be considered a sport as much as a “pasttime” but the relatively recent phenomenon of people getting online and watching other people play video games. Nothing in my entire adult life has made me want to scream “Get off my lawn!” more than this curious wrinkle in recreational activities. It’s the “sport” of Video Game Fandom.
The dumbest televised sports event I can remember seeing (while flipping channels) was celebrity softball.
For all-time most inane broadcast sporting event, there was the high school golf match featured by a radio station I once worked for. They actually got some local businesses to buy ads for that one. :smack:
I’ll admit I’ve watched other people play video games on YouTube, and I’ll tell you why: I’m interested in some aspect of the game, but not enough that I want to actually play it myself. I get to experience the game, but for free and with zero effort on my part. Or if I tire of actually playing a game and just want to see the ending without having to spend hours trying to beat that last, totally unfair final boss.
So by taking issue with my inclusion of poker in this thread, does that mean that you do consider poker to be a legitimate sport? I would argue there’s more physicality and skill involved with being a good dart player. Morbidly obese men throwing darts at a board is more “athletic” than morbidly obese men making “Marlboro Man” faces at each other.
Cow Chip Tossing
[mike drop]
Fascinating. How much more involved would it actually be to play the game than to get online and find the right game and player to watch on youtube? I mean, wouldn’t the “experience” of the game depend highly on the abilities of the specific person playing it? Do you have to search for good players? Or is it self-selected and if you’re broadcasting yourself, it means you’re pretty good?
Now this I just don’t get. What satisfaction or enjoyment comes from seeing the ending of a game in which you took no part in winning? I’m trying to relate to this by thinking of the video games I used to play. And that might be part of my problem right there. Is it due to the modern state of the art graphics and visual beauty of video games that draws your interest? Because the only reason I was ever keen on getting to the ending of Galaga was to see if I could do it. I wouldn’t have given a rat’s ass if some other person did. There was no aesthetic appeal to the game (obviously). (And truthfully, Galaga was always a “retro” video game for me but it was my fav. Still is. And I still have never conquered it).