No, I’m serious. Why do people watch sports? Why do they watch at all, let alone pay enough attention to support a whole national sports industry with its own specialized media and product-endorsement dollars? Playing a sport is fun if you’re good at it, but I have never understood how anybody can derive any entertainment value from watching other people play. The only athletic performances I ever like to watch are those with some overtly esthetic content – gymnastics, figure skating, professional wrestling.
I’m not a big sports fan or anything, but if you understand how a game is played, you can better appreciate the aesthetic content. Otherwise it’s just a bunch of big dudes running around throwing stuff.
I don’t watch sports. That said, I can certainly understand the drama of it. It’s tremendously exciting to experience a move from ignorance into knowledge, and when you watch a game, there’s a very complex set of tasks to determine one simple fact: who wins? Nobody in the world knows that fact before the game, and you get to watch that fact’s creation.
The folks you’re watching are very passionate about winning. We’re empathetic creatures; their passion bleeds off into the audience.
Watching sports bores me silly, but I can understand the appeal to others. For fun, give me a D20 any day!
Daniel
I agree with msmith537 that a greater understanding of a game makes the inherent aesthetics more obvious.
There’s also the tribalism of it. Being a part of tens of thousands of people cheering on a team, or even the same emotions distanced by a television broadcast, is a huge part of it. And it might sound naff to talk about things like a ‘sense of community’, but this does exist among groups of fans. It’s possible through this to even feel connected to events that happened before your time (like winning the FA Cup…)
For the same reason that people watch anything. It is a type of escapism.
Anything? I watch things like home improvement shows because I actually do some of the projects and need to know how. Likewise, almost everything else I watch is nonfiction as well and I do that because I want to understand reality, not escape from it.
I certainly don’t accept that watching sport is escapism at all.
Competition. Drama. Connection to the “home” team, or the team of which you are a fan. The thrill of rivalry, and then of victory by someone with whom you identify. The schadenfreude of seeing those you dislike fall short. Feats of physical excellence. Seeing people do the things we love to do, except at the highest possible level. The inherent strategy of the game; the ebb and flow of momentum. The possibility that at any particular moment, you might see something that has never before happened in the history of sport, and may never again. Sport has all of the qualities that television shows attempt to capture, in truer and greater quantities.
If none of that, or any of the other stuff that will be mentioned, does it for you, then consider this: I find watching sports ten million times more entertaining than reality shows, cop dramas, and 99% of what is generally on television at any given time. I have no clue why you’d want to watch a show called “Survivor” where there is no chance of someone, well, not surviving; however, I understand that sometimes people are just entertained by different things. The same thing goes the other way, I imagine, for people who don’t like sports - there’s just no accounting for taste, you know 
We watch Sport because:
a) If done well, it approaches/becomes Art
b) If done poorly, it can be funnier then Hell! 
Perhaps we define the word differently but when you tell me that:
I have to say that you are escaping into a belief that you were part of it, “connected to it.”
dictionary.com. Sports is a recognized form of entertainment. When people talk about their favorite team winning or losing, they say “*We *lost/won this weekend.” No, the team did. They just watched. That is the reality.
Still, I would have been better to say that *some *people do it for escapism (and been more precise and said - though perhaps not GorrillaMan)
Shagnasty, fair enough. LOL. You are right, I didn’t think about those types of exceptions. And if we carry your observation further, we can conclude that many are watching sports to get better at that sport. I know that I have become a better 9 ball player since watching some of the pros on ESPN2. (is 9 ball a sport?) I usually don’t use definitives either. I prefer shades like “… most things.” I will endeavor to continue that practice in the future.
I don’t understand watching sports on TV, but I went to the majority of my university’s home games for men’s hockey. It was fun to watch, but more importantly it was fun to heckle the opposing team’s goalie. Especially when that goalie was UMaine’s Alfie Michaud, because he got the most visably annoyed with us.
Someone I work with mentioned that at the last game she went to the frat guys sang a brand new song: “my sieve” to the tune of “my girl” and it made me wish I was still a student…
If you are part of a culture which is directly connected to it, then no, it’s not escapism.
Let me apologize for the length of my answer. Now, back to the OP - first, let us (playfully) mock the premise:
Cooking is fun if you’re good at it, but I have never understood how anybody can derive any entertainment value from watching other people cook.
Trivia is fun if you’re good at it, but I have never understood how anybody can derive any entertainment value from watching other people do trivia. (a la Jeopardy).
Dating is fun if you’re good at it, but I have never understood how anybody can derive any entertainment value from watching other people date. (a la The Bachelor and its ilk).
Kareoke is fun if you’re good at it, but I have never understood how anybody can derive any entertainment value from watching other people do kareoke. (a la American Idol).
Going to Garage Sales is fun if you’re good at it, but I have never understood how anybody can derive any entertainment value from watching other people go to garage sales. (Antique Roadshow anyone?)
Living in an apartment in NYC with your 5 best friends is fun if you’re good at it, but I have never understood how anybody can derive any entertainment value from watching other people live in an apartment in NYC with their 5 best friends.
Being a cop is fun if you’re good at it, but I have never understood how anybody can derive any entertainment value from watching other people … actors even … be cops.
Winning awards is fun if you’re good at it, but I have never understood how anybody can derive any entertainment value from watching other people win awards.
Etc., etc., ad nauseum. The point is that you can phrase this about anything - it doesn’t really mean anything. People like different things - it’s why we have threads about JFK conspiracies, broken cameras, the Thundercats, and S&M on this very board. Some people like to watch football, basketball, etc. Some people like yourself prefer gymnastics. It just comes down to different preferences - and there’s no need to disparage others because their preference is not yours (not that you did - just a general statement).
Second - why do people watch sports? For a multitude of reasons, that are typically personal and highly specific to the sport in general. I will use myself as an example. Why do I watch:
College football? To root for the school I went to, to root for other teams I like, to watch the performances of young kids under the gun, to see the storylines unfold, to see records broken, to see teams I hate lose, to see if that kicker cracks, to see if the band runs on the field. For me there is an emotional investment component as well as a component of just finding the whole thing interesting! Will FSU beat Miami this year? How about OU and TX? Who will be the next Reggie Bush? Who will fall from grace this year? I’m not sure I can explain to you the satisfaction and the rush I get when my team beats a hated rival. I could type things I like (USC songgirls! Mascots! Gameday coverage!) about college football all day. At the end of the day, I appreciate watching a sport wellplayed by 18-22 year olds playing (for the most part) for the love of the game.
College basketball? March madness. And, if you don’t understand the allure of March Madness - try this. Fill out a bracket - so you will have some sort of investment in EVERY GAME. Then sit down and watch every game. Watch as many as you can. Check out the dunks, the fadeaways, the full-court presses, the steals, the last two minutes that seem to last forever… Every time I get someone who’s not interested in basketball to actually pay attention to an entire MM tournament, the result is a new fanatic devotee to the month of March.
The Olympics? To watch people perform at the pinnacle of human achievement. Same goes for the Paralympics (shame on NBC btw for shorting coverage last go around). Who doesn’t want to see someone run the 100 yd dash in the FASTEST TIME EVER?! Seriously.
Snowboarding? To watch people do crazy shit that I can’t do - even though I am a decent snowboarder.
These are just the first four examples I thought of. I could keep going about all the various sports - MLB, Soccer, the NFL, etc. Hell, there’s not a sport I wouldn’t watch given the choice between that or the Opera on television.
The problem is that you don’t seem willing to allow that a perfectly executed on-side kick, or a Michael Jordon fade-away jumper, or a rally from break point, or a triple play can be beautiful. I would disagree.
Oh and, for purposes of completeness:
Gymnastics is fun if you’re good at it, but I have never understood how anybody can derive any entertainment value from watching other people do gymnastics.
Ice Skating is fun if you’re good at it, but I have never understood how anybody can derive any entertainment value from watching other people ice skate.
Wrestling is fun if you’re good at it, but I have never understood how anybody can derive any entertainment value from watching other people wrestle.
…
Ok, finally - here’s what I’m going to suggest: You don’t know enough about the sports that you don’t like to watch. Sure, you may know how to play basketball - maybe you did it in gym class. But you don’t appreciate or care to appreciate the beauty of a well-constructed defense, or the art of an alley-oop, or a tres from 5 feet behind the arc. If you take the time to watch these sports and understand the intricacies - and stay abreast of the engaging storylines - then I think you would feel differently.
- Peter Wiggen
Wy do people watch anything on TV? To laugh at a comedy. To raise your heartbeat to a thriller. To get caught up in a drama. Sports provides all of these things.
It’s occured to me that some answers are talking about watching sports live, others mostly about on TV. I don’t think the same appeal is necessarily held by each.
This is another good point. A lot of sports (most, even - especially football, but lots of them), it is much easier to see and understand what is going on when you are watching it on TV, with perfect views, replays, commentary, etc. The live experience has elements of its own, though - sitting* in the student section during a major college football or basketball game, sitting in the hardcore fan (Dawg Pound, Black Hole, you name it) section during a NFL game, sitting in the bleachers at Fenway when the Yankees are in town; these are all completely unique experiences in their own right. It’s similar to the adrenaline that gets your blood pumping when you’re on the floor for a rock concert where your favorite band is headlining… except even more so. You’re in a crowd of tens of thousands of people, and the collective emotions are carefully balanced on every single play.
*All instances of the word “sitting” are used extremely loosely, if you know what I mean!
I like the whole package. I like the social aspects of attending a sports event, or watching with a group of people. When I first started following sports, this was the primary appeal. After a bit, I found I also enjoyed watching games on TV by myself – although there is still a social aspect because it’s rare that I don’t talk about it after with other fans.
I will confess that my interest level jumped a whole bunch when gambling entered into it. I myself do not care for gambling (I’m way too cheap!) but a few members of my crowd do. It seems like you have to pay attention a whole lot more, and minor aspects of the game become significant. Even though I’m not the one doing the betting, if it’s going on around me I like how the intensity jacks up. Public service announcement: please gamble responsibly.
On a more wholesome level, I love the narrative process of sports in general. A play is part of a game that is part of a season that is part of a league tradition that is part of popular culture that is part of history. I really get a charge out of that.
Oh hey, I saw an episode of Nova a while back that talked about research being done on mirror neurons in the brain. It was fascinating. It showed how these particular neurons fire in the same way whether you are doing an action or watching an action. For example, how most people will cringe if they see a person trying to carry an awkward pile of boxes … if it looks like the guy is about to drop the boxes, the viewer’s brain activity looks the same that it would if the viewer himself was trying not to drop a pile of boxes. Anyway, it went on to speculate that this might play a role in watching sports. If you know how to hit a baseball (regardless of your actual baseball prowess), when you see a player swing, your own “baseball” neurons are used even if you are in the stands. Or in front of the TV. If memory serves, the program also put forward that the idea that some people’s mirror neurons respond more keenly than others, so not everyone is going to get the same kick out of watching actions performed by others. It also supported what some other posters have said about knowledge of the game increasing the enjoyment – the more familiar an action is, the more mirror response your brain might get.
Actual science-y dopers, pleaes forgive this layperson’s recounting of Nova in the paragraph above. It was cool, though.
Speaking of science - Carl Sagan (in Billions & Billions I think) wrote an essay about how Monday Night Football was so popular because it played on people’s hunting instincts. Apparently all the running, jumping, and chasing keyed some deep instincts that go untapped in modern society. Check your local library because I’m pretty sure I bastardized Sagan’s science, as well as making a mockery of his clear writing! Ah well.
- Peter Wiggen
In general, people follow sports because they like to live vicariously through their team’s success.
In some social circles, the women live vicariously through the Hollywood stars, following what they do, what they buy, what they wear, etc. while the men might find this not “manly” enough of a passtime. So, they live vicariously through their chosen team and some star athletes.
This is certainly true in my case. I recognized this long ago and freely admit it. @#$%ing Patriots.
I think the hunting idea PeterWiggen mentions also has merit, at least in the case of some individuals.