Taking this question from a Jerry Seinfeld episode.
I like playing sports but I can’t stand to watch them. To me if I have no part of the game I can’t get into it.
Like the Seinfeld joke, How can all these people get so excited running around like crazy saying We won, we won. Hey guys “They won you watched.”
How is it so many people get so wrapped up into it?
It’s the old catch-22 of if you have to ask, you won’t understand the answer anyway. It’s the vicarious thrill of watching people do something you may not be able to do. Not all people get that but many do and for thousands of years have been sending off the local boys to do glorious single combat.
Because my teams doing well is the most important thing in the whole world.
If you’re not a sports fan, don’t try and understand it.
Yer pal,
Satan
http://www.raleighmusic.com/board/Images/devil.gif
TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING:
One week, 18 hours, 41 minutes and 16 seconds.
311 cigarettes not smoked, saving $38.89.
Life saved: 1 day, 1 hour, 55 minutes.
So they’re more important than Libby?
ANSWER THE QUESTION!
Sheesh! You’d think Scotty would have an extra set of dilithium crystals in his toolbox. But noooooo…
The reason that Libby and I make such a great couple is because she will not get mad when I respond to your question with a “yes,” while I also totally understand her watching her teams play and win is also more important - AT THAT TIME!
See, while a game is on, I can’t tell the guys playing to stop while I finish up my conversation with Libby. But Libby does know that as soon as thre is a break in the action, the priorities of each other being most important come back. And that work both ways.
Yer pal,
Satan
http://www.raleighmusic.com/board/Images/devil.gif
TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING:
One week, 20 hours, 38 minutes and 54 seconds.
314 cigarettes not smoked, saving $39.30.
Life saved: 1 day, 2 hours, 10 minutes.
The reason people go around yelling “we won we won” is because without the fans support there would be no point in winning. Fans are a very vital part to sports. And fans know it. And the players know it. Fans are part of the team, and who doesn’t like to be part of a winning team?
“Everybody’s got something to hide except for me and my monkey”-The Beatles
What Satan said.
Oh, and by the way…
“Let’s go, LAMBUTH!”
Drain is making fun of the fact that my beloved Giants drafted a player who attended Lambuth College. Yes, I haven’t heard of it either. We both wondered how anyone ehard of it. I mean, the school is an NAIA school fer Chrissakes!
Making up for this, however, is the fact that Drain’s Buffalo Bills drafted in the same round a linebacker who was smaller than I am! 
Yer pal,
Satan
http://www.raleighmusic.com/board/Images/devil.gif
TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING:
One week, 23 hours, 4 minutes and 19 seconds.
318 cigarettes not smoked, saving $39.81.
Life saved: 1 day, 2 hours, 30 minutes.
Hey, Satan, is the draft still going on? Because I think there are a couple of guys who go to the community college I work for who are eligible…
Why yes, there are. And if we drafted them, and we scrimmaged you, the biggest problem they’d have would be tripping over your draftees…
Yer pal,
Satan
http://www.raleighmusic.com/board/Images/devil.gif
TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING:
One week, 23 hours, 19 minutes and 7 seconds.
318 cigarettes not smoked, saving $39.86.
Life saved: 1 day, 2 hours, 30 minutes.
Okay, Satan, Libby…go get a locker room. (simpering smiley assumed here)
I can’t get the sport syndrome, no matter how I try. Even being a Cinti. native, where baseball is still a local obsession, I could appreciate but not CARE. Even in a major league sport with heavy local/hometown history, it still seems removed. Try as I might, it’s too much like cheering on corporate strangers.
But I think that’s my loss. At a conference recently, I roomed with a fellow librarian who politely timed events around hockey. She knew the players, teams, histories and DRAMA of the sport better than I know my immediate family tree.
Sports fans may shiver, but I include sports with opera as “stuff I don’t get”. Wish I could–for the drama and involvement–but both elude me.
Flame/pity at will. Sigh.
Veb
Once, a few seasons ago, I ran into my neighbor who was quite excited about a win by the local NFL franchise. He kept saying things like “we won,” “we’re going to turn this around,” “all we needed was a little confidence,” things of that nature. I was surprised. I didn’t know he worked for the team. Well, he didn’t, but as per this thread, this was how he spoke. Really weirded me out. I wanted to sit him down and explain that he only watched while the millionaires on the field played their game. He was no more a ‘we’ to that team than I was. Somehow I doubt this would have made an impression on him.
Sports I get. Cheering for a favorite team I get. I even see the connection to your high school or college school team. But what ties do you have with the professional sports franchises in your town? You live in the same city named on their jersey. And that’s it.
Sorry guys, but I don’t get it either.
You don’t get it.
We are a part of the team. We (the real fans, anyway) spend years watching their teams. Rooting for them in lean years. Dealing with the pain of losses. And if you’re lucky (as in, not a Cubs or Red Sox fan), you get the satisfaction of winning it all, and the euphoric feeling it gives you.
Heck, you could argue that we’re MORE a part of the team than anyone dirfectly involved with the team itself because players get traded and retire, owners move their teams, and the only loyal part of the equation is the fan.
Sports are life in microcosm. If you don’t understand this, you are missing out something great.
Yer pal,
Satan
http://www.raleighmusic.com/board/Images/devil.gif
TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING:
One week, one day, 1 hour, 20 minutes and 2 seconds.
322 cigarettes not smoked, saving $40.28.
Life saved: 1 day, 2 hours, 50 minutes.
Sigh… rub it in… I move from Boston, and rooting for the Sox, to Portland and rooting for the Trail Blazers. What a trade up… now the coronaries come in a sport I actually watch.
http://www.madpoet.com
I am human, and I need to be loved
Just like anybody else does
I dunno. Buncha overpaid thick-necked guys running around in the mud. It’s beyond me.
I respect the opinions of those who say they would rather actively play sports than watch them, however, being a sports fan is fun. Just as some people enjoy soap operas, and others enjoy going to the theatre or listening to classical music, I and my fellow sports fans enjoy watching the games and arguing about them before and afterwards. If others don’t understand that or don’t enjoy that, well, they are welcome to pursue leisure activities that they enjoy.
What is the most boring sport to watch instead of do? I’d say bowling.
Chess!
Chess isn’t a sport, it’s a game. See the thread debating that definitional gap. 
When one thinks about watching sports, one acknowledges that the purpose of rooting for one particular participant or team of participants is to add excitement to the exercise. I mean, stripped to their basics, most sports are stupid endeavors. It’s that basic stupidity that makes them worth doing. But if you are watching and have no emotional attachment, then the stupidity starts ringing through again.
So, instead, one begins to root for someone or something. This attachment allows for a level of excitement that otherwise only flows from participating.
And is this important? YES! The whole point to professional athletics is that there ARE people who are willing to attach themselves in this fashion. If they aren’t, the sport suffers a decline in attendance, support and financial health (see tennis).
Of course, the reasons for being a fan have slowly changed. In college, one roots for your school’s teams because they represent the institution you are attending. In pro sports, one used to root for the local boys in their efforts to beat the hated rivals from up the road or across the state. But, with the advent of television, we now begin to root for teams and individuals for all sorts of reasons, including merchandising efforts, success, availability of games on TV, etc. The rise of the Atlanta Braves as a baseball powerhouse can be tied almost totally into the effort made by the owners to market them to the nation via TBS, increasing their cash flow and making it possible to assemble a team of really good players. Would that the executives in Chicago understood how to turn marketing money into a good baseball team (oh GOD how I wish they knew how!!!).
By the way, if you want to know the most basic reason that soccer fails to attract most people’s attention in the US, it is because no one is a soccer fan here (well, damn few, anyway). Without that sense of excitement, soccer, like any sport, seems just a silly waste of time.