I cannot watch basketball for the reasons listed above. 46 minutes of fast moving with almost no defense, two minutes of slow motion plays.
For those that don’t like hockey, GO SEE A GAME!!! Hockey is a sport that cannot be seen on television by a casual fan. There is too much action going on that the TV camera cannot capture all of it. There are hard checks, defenses and line changes that you may not see on TV. Also, when the puck is flying at YOU, even though you are protected by glass, you will watch the game more closely.
For those that think NASCAR is only drive hard, go fast, turn left, there is a lot more to it than that. I know this is like convincing an atheist that there is a Great Pumpkin in the sky, or whatever, but there is more to stock car racing than that. There is a lot of teamwork going on. A race can be won or lost by a tire change being done better and faster than another team, a race, or even a season can be lost by a spotter who thinks go high, but says go low. On the superspeedways, the races that I love, think of it as this, you are driving 200 mph in rush hour traffic on a sheet of ice.
FWIW, they have high school volleyball on the radio here, and I listen to those games too.
I love baseball, and I dig basketball, but I hate football. In fact, I’d contend that it’s tougher to endure hating football than the similar is true for non-fans of baseball and basketball (excepting those joyless people who are opposed to sports altogether). Even during baseball season, when there aren’t any other sports going on, ESPN and the like keep running football news and football programs and football previews and the NFL draft and on, and on, and on. And Og help me during the fall and winter if I want to catch basketball highlights on a weekend.
Speaking of weekends, football managed to seize ownership of both Saturdays and Sundays between August and January. Why was no one consulted about this? This is less of a problem for me now that I’m out of college, but I still have to avoid certain restaurants and endure traffic jams, even if the team in whatever area I happen to be in at the time is a crappy one.
Meanwhile, fantasy football players are more likely than those of any other sport to incessantly talk about the latest drama in their league. I usually find it fairly easy to shut up about baseball when no one else in the room is interested, but the football fans have let ESPN brainwash them into thinking that football fandom is universal.
I imagine it’s difficult to endure the month of March when one isn’t a college basketball fan, but at least everyone forgets about their brackets as soon as the tournament ends. Football people refuse to obey the calendar. They don’t obey the section breakdowns in the local newspapers, either. I thought moving from the south to California would have made things easier in that regard, but it’s common here, too, for either the NFL team’s result or that of one of the colleges’ to make it as a front page article with a picture.
Football also gets to have all of the problems the other major sports have, but somehow escapes condemnation. The same people who criticize baseball for steroids and basketball for “thuggery” still live for football. It’s incomprehensible.
The mixed martial arts and no rule fighting are nasty sports. I have no use for them.
I do not get NASCAR. Driving around a big loop leaves me cold. I need some turns and shifting to get slightly interested.
Tennis is a bad spectator sport. Even when Venus and Penis are playing each other ,I just can not get into it.
Soccer just does not hold me. I have tried but it seems just running back and forth through the midfield takes up most of the game.
I had a 45 minute ride home from work. The Pistons were on and had 7 minutes to play. They got into fouling . I went home and watched the last minute on TV. They are wrecking the game.
This. I’ll happily play anything; baseball, basketball, golf, even football. (Although I’m not so fit for that these days…) But watching? I’ll go find something I can do instead.
Basketball and golf are mind numbingly boring games to watch and to play. Steeplechase is also not my cuppa.
Thinking about it, fencing isn’t nearly as interesting as it should be. What I want to be a sword fight is more just poking someone with a car antenna first.
I’m with you and Scumpup. It’s sorta like my view on porn. I’d much rather participate than watch others having fun. Although, on a cold winter evening, when I’m snowed in and alone, spectator sports or porn are an excellent alternative.
I hate watching basketball. NBA basketball is like watching paint dry to me. I love to play the game. I hate to watch it. I do enjoy watching the NCAA tournament, but it’s mostly for the underdog matchups. Once the tourney gets underway, and the cinderellas are out, I start to lose interest there too.
Baseball is great if you are AT the game, and I like the playoffs. I can’t watch a regular season game on TV for more than a few innings, though.
For me, it’s all about football and hockey. I love both with a passion.
That’s because baseball was designed to be listened to on the radio, beer in one hand, fishing rod in the other. It’s like the holy trinity of male relaxation.
I can watch almost anything on TV, especially if there’s a title or trophy on the line. Basketball though, is one sport I just don’t get. If they’d only make the net bigger and suspend a goalie up there perhaps.
Golf is a fantastic game to watch, alone on a Sunday afternoon. Ditto for baseball.
I’m a Superbowl and Grey Cup only kind of football fan.
Formula one is good: NASCAR bad. Racing around in one direction at seemingly one speed while trying not to crash isn’t that thrilling.
Now hockey? I cannot begin to describe my passion for playoff hockey, or international hockey. It’s a euphoric, adrenaline-pumping rush to watch. Overtime in the playoffs… game 7 overtime in the playoffs? Are you kidding me? I’m shocked I haven’t gone into cardiac arrest yet.
I have absolutely no idea what you mean by “scripted plays”. Sure there’s bunting and base-stealing, but the vast majority of the time players can express their skills in their own special idiom, be it a slap-hitter like Ichiro or a big beefy dead-pull-flyball slugger like Ryan Howard. Likewise for pitchers, who can be very creative with the variety of pitches they can throw. Really don’t get this comment at all.
My criticism of basketball-specifically as it is currently played-is precisely focused on the lack of creativity of most modern-day players. I used to be a big hoops fan, back in the day of Dr. J, Larry Bird, and Magic. Three of the most creative players who ever played the game. The game used to be much more flowing-one thing few people do anymore is move well without the ball, getting a feed from the point guard for an easy layup. Few teams know how to run a fast break anymore-when they do find themselves in an odd-man break it’s like nobody has any idea of what to do, and the attack fizzles. Instead the point guard slowly dribbles down the court, feeds it into the big man, who is then double teamed and looks for someone open on the 3-point line. The swirling mass of quasi-choreographed bodies you often saw in the 70’s and 80’s pretty much no longer exists.
Ditto, except my wife likes most other sports in addition to MMA.
For me, the absolute worst is baseball. It’s borderline torture and if I ever find myself in any sort of position of power I will immediately outlaw it on the grounds that it is obscene. I haven’t watched a world series since about 1992. A couple years ago I got dragged off to a game and I seriously considered popping my ear drums and gouging my eyes out to spare myself any further pain. I’d rather be fucked by an angry elephant wearing a barbed wire condom.
Same with music. Why should I pay good money to hear someone else play when I could just as easily play all those instruments myself? Entertainment is just one big racket that does nothing but reward people with skill and talent.
For me its baseball and soccer. My rabid distaste for the latter has given me grief ever since I moved to Mexico City, where literally every man, woman and child I’ve met adores the thing. They look at me like I’m the Elephant Man or something.
Golf is the best gambling participation sport in the world. It has handicaps to make things fair and there are an endless variety of bets possible. It is never boring.
(I used to live in Sweden so in this I am quite justified)