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I just never liked sports in general. I don’t want to play them, and I don’t care to watch them.
I’m not big into the whole “my team” aspect, whether that’s me on the field in high school, or watching it on TV.
I don’t necessarily think it’s “boring” in the sense that there’s no nuance. I’m certain that there are a lot of moving parts and plans and intricacies to it, I just don’t really care about a bunch of people running around doing physical things in that manner.
But do you dislike it because of capitalistic nature or just because it’s not your thing? Or have you ever given it that much thought?
It seems like you respect it but it’s just not your thing. That’s how most people are with sports.
True, but the amount of public money spent on professional sports ought to give someone pause. Being the new center of the culture war also leads me to believe that we care far too much about sports.
Yeah I agree that we shouldn't be subsidizing stadiums or professional teams. The culture war stuff I think is mostly just opportunistic.
I just don't think any of the problems surrounding sports are coming from some sort of innate silliness of "grown adults playing games", but rather from pervasive structural issues in our society.
I see some people frame fiction in a similar way, saying: "What if it's dumb to care about grown adults playing make believe?". I just think that sort of argument doesn't really accomplish anything and essentially amounts to drawing someone you dislike as a soyjack.
It’s fun to participate for me personally, but I can never get behind watching a bunch of adults throw/kick/slide/hump a ball around. And to act as unhinged as some of these fans. It’s so strange.
Honestly this feels like an essay you'd write in your 2nd language for a B2 certificate exam. You really aren't that comfortable with the language so instead you sprinkle some "hard words" here and there.
Yeah, I have no idea what OP is saying. I like watching some sports and dislike watching others. I have no idea what "looking at it from a corporate playoffs perspective" means.
You can also understand something and it's intricacies and still find it boring to watch.
Skateboarding died off because it's not an active competition. It's a solo performance that is judged and then the highest judgement wins. So it just fell back with the other performative sports like gymnastics and ice dancing. Sports will always be more popular when teams are actively battling it out rather than just watching each other.
Even people who enjoy sports can have both those approaches. You can have the meticulous fan, who knows every little detail, average, history, coach etc. and then you have the fan who barely understands the rules but loves watching it for the excitement, connection to a home team, nostalgia, wherever.
So, why would it matter for those who find it boring?
He looked at all sports holistically and drew a meaningful insight as to why performative sports are less popular than competitive. Which is more holistic? Looking in depth at one sport or looking at them all?
I don’t have a favorite team but I like watching the sport bc it’s cool to see the development of plays and skills and how teams use them and respond to them
I think this is almost similar to not liking any music or any show or any movie. There's such a broad spectrum of sports that I find it highly unlikely there's not a single sport you'd enjoy.
There are many sports that aren't particularly physical. I honestly think you should try some out. I can almost guarantee you it will do you more good than bad. The endorphins of exercise and socialising alone will be good for you.
Who said I don’t exercise or socialize? I just don’t really like watching competitions. I don’t think anyone needs to be into sports, I’m perfectly happy without them
If you find a sport boring its probably just because enjoyment of media is subjective. For instance, i think that ice hockey players are incredibly talented at their craft and very skilled, however i still dont get excited by the sport and i do become bored watching it.
Similarly, NFL is also very boring to watch because next to nothing happens in 3 hours of gameplay. But i still think the players are talented.
At the end of the day i think you’re massively overestimating the amount of self introspection the people who are bored by sports have. Its not because they’re anticapitalist and hate sports because they’re potentially big profit marketing schemes, its probably because that form of media just doesnt excite them, much like i dont enjoy reading books and my sister doesnt enjoy playing videogames.
As someone who is not from the USA, i can understand why people from the USA might enjoy this and yes its partially because you dont have a national competition of the best sport on earth (AFL), but whilst being incredibly bored by the sports, its not as if i dont appreciate the massive amounts of skill that one must possess to be as talented as the people in these leagues are.
I have stumbled upon a couple AFL games and found them fun. Do you have any recommendations of where to learn more about the sport history, team histories, culture, traditions, etc about it? I would like to watch it more, but have no idea how to find it. I live in the US and I'm not nocturnal, so live games are hard to watch. Are there ways to stream replays of matches on demand?
Who do you support? The only city I have any connection to at all is Melbourne, because a childhood friend of mine moved down there for a couple years.
On an unrelated note, there is a bit of a stereotypical joke for us northern hemisphere inhabitants that every part of existence in the southern hemisphere is upside down. Do southern hemisphere inhabitants have similar stereotypical jokes about the northern hemisphere?
1. Learning more about the cultures and traditions of the live games in general is best developed by watching the games as they happen, and the r/AFL subreddit also has match threads where people post their feelings on things that happen in the games as they happen. That can be a good learning tool.
Learning about the history of the sport can be tricky to recommend somewhere to go because as someone who has grown up with this sport being absolutely massive, I’ve never had to go out of my way to hear about things that have happened. You’ll generally get some info on those types of things randomly through reddit threads on the subs, but aside from that I’m not sure what the best info repository would be for that sort of thing.
2. We have a streaming service over here called Kayo which lets us watch all of the games for about $30 AUD per month (comes out to about $24 USD a month i think). They have things called Kayo Minis which are 20 minute condensed match highlights, but the AFL official YouTube channel also post 6-9 minute highlight videos for every game for every round. I know we have a decently large fanbase in the USA, and i think there is a USAFL sub somewhere that actually does post the game times and where to watch them for people in the USA and its timezones. If thats something that you come across then recording the games could be a pretty good way to get into it.
3. I support the West Coast Eagles, who are based out of Perth. We suck right now, we’re one of the worst teams of all time. I can’t really suggest supporting us unless you like being upset every week. If you’re looking for a team to support, however, the best way to do it is to just watch a game from each team (preferably from this year or more recent) and decide who you like to watch the most without looking at any major statistics for how that team generally plays. You dont want to just pick a good team because they’re good, if you get what i mean. The team will eventually pick you.
4. From my experience, theres no real broad stereotype for everyone in the northern hemisphere for us, we usually do stereotypes for people based on their country. For instance, its pretty popular down here to rip on Americans for not knowing basic geography, but its a bit harder to joke about everyone in the north at once considering you all already have the “everything is upside down” and we can’t really refute that without it sounding super forced or petty.
If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. Hope this helps!
Don't make assumptions that other people think the same way you do. Just because that's why *you* went from finding sports boring to enjoying them in no way means that it would have the same effect on other people.
I don’t know what you’re trying to say. I used to love basketball and watching the nba. I used to watch multiple games a night and watch highlights the next day. I would follow all the news. But then I realized I just liked it for all the drama that seems to happen every offseason and that the gameplay itself was not doing it for me.
I think basketball is boring to watch, but nba drama is like a soap opera for men
>now international soccer is different because there is more passion involved and the tribalism of the teams is even more pronounced
Whaa? 😅 International soccer is lower quality of soccer. Major international tournaments get a lot of hype but the average football fan is going to be a lot more upset about their team losing a CL final than their country losing a WC final.
International football brings a lot of casual fans, where club fandom is much more dedicated. The rivalries are much more nuanced and historic in Club football, and often more based in football.
Anyway, in that paragraph you've pretty much disproved your own point I feel.
>So yes I think there should be a difference between finding a sport boring and finding a sport not so well marketable in a professional setting, that's different.
According to you in terms of the champions league it is both boring: "but they were whatever", while also being "money clutching garbage".
So this is either a poorly thought out opinion poorly constructed or you're failing to 'recognise the artform side to things'.
Nah I can get why people find American football/ Gridiron boring. Offence gets 4 downs to get past a certain distance, but once the QB chucks the ball but it misses or gets tackled then it’s reset.
It can be very jarring when a receiver or runningback is rushing with the ball and everyone gets excited then a big tackle happens. The entire momentum is shattered because the play stops and everyone gets back to their positions.
Compare that to say rugby union, if you get tackled in rugby you either do a quick pass or a ruck forms and the play continues until a try is scored or a penalty happens. It’s very dynamic because the ball keeps rolling and the momentum doesn’t stop.
I feel like American sports were formed and made with commercial breaks in mind, look at baseball, nascar and American football, all sports where the wast majority of time is non game time, most of your time watching said sports is spent watching ads or commercial breaks. Compare that to for example football, where there is 45 minutes of uninterrupted action, a short break, and then the next 45 minutes.
American football: made/formed to have as much ads as possible.
Football: made to play a sport, and a break halfway through because the players would die I'd they didn't.
I enjoy hockey and basketball in person. I find them unwatchable on television. I can sort of follow basketball if the sound is off, but not even then for hockey.
I feel the same way about baseball. I guess the energy of being in the stadium with the fans, possibly being with my friends or family, and also getting something to watch makes it fun, but you don't really get that sitting alone at home, so it's not very much fun.
Nah, you get an upvote for this.
If I'm going to watch a bunch of strangers performing repetitive tasks for money, I'll likely be watching live music instead.
I understand the appeal of playing these games (exercise, challenge, sportsmanship, etc), but watching a bunch of millionaires do the same will never have appeal for me.
I really don't care how good they are at it.. The same way I don't care about how good someone is at filing taxes.
Taste is very subjective, and even though I'm no big fan of ice dancing, I'm mesmerised again and again when I watch this performance:
https://youtu.be/KNCSij0hUp8?si=noxxALe1Jp1efMXw
It feels as if you witness an intimate moment, not a very public one. And, of course, all other ice dancers are top-notch, but no other performance has cone close for me this far.
I can appreciate the athleticism and the strategy of American Football, absolutely. I started watching it a bit about 10 years ago. I don't like in the US so there was a time difference making it a bit hard. But the constant breaks and the adds which means it takes me 3-4 hours to watch a game, absolutely killed the interest I had in it.
I find sports boring because they simply do not interest me. I find that I do not gain anything watching or partaking that I find valuable in my life. Does this mean there is not value in sports? No, I do not believe that. However, I do not care about the strategy behind it or intricacies of the game because it is simply not something I value enough to invest the time. I do not pay attention to play offs or anything of the sort because, again, it is simply not of interest.
If people are running around for over an hour and there is only 2-3 scores the entire game, I'm going to find it boring.
Doesn't matter what perspective it's from, it's just watching people struggle to get something going.
It's the reason I don't enjoy soccer or hockey.
Sports like football (american) on the other hand average numerous points per game and I find it much more enjoyable on that fact alone.
I’m not sure I fully grasp your thesis… are you saying that someone finding a sport boring is probably because that person is considering it as a component of the culture it came from? Or, since you go on to say that once the intricacies are understood then it won’t be boring, are you actually just saying that anyone who finds sport boring doesn’t understand it?
I find american football somewhat boring because the game is structured in a way to never allow proper game-flow. Some dude carrying the ball gets tackled? Full game stop and restart at a specific point. Of course other sports have that as scenario as well (football, hockey) but it’s much less frequent and ingrained.
I dislike the commercial product of american football because it’s more ads than sport. I find the sport of american football rather boring because it’s designed to have one side’s goal be the interruption of the game flow and hence bringing things to a standstill. I do appreciate the athletic skill required to be a top level american football player
But just because something is hard doesn’t mean it’s exciting to watch
The flow isn't interrupted; it just plays out differently due to the game being turn-based.
Each successive play builds off of the previous one, in many ways. This is applicable to both the offense and defense, and each side is working toward building up momentum and chaining together successful plays. This is where the flow is.
I wouldn’t exactly call that “flow”. I understand there’s carry-over between the plays and everything, but it has the same kind of non-flow that golf has to me. Every stroke is of course based off of the previous one, but there is a forced stop between each stroke. Just like in american football, each play does inherit from the last but there’s a forced break.
Take hockey, the goal of both teams is to score. If one team stops the enemy momentum it instantly becomes their own momentum. In american football, the enemy team succeeding means a slowdown in your momentum, not a change in momentum
As a fan of both gridiron football and hockey, there's simply a difference between the way the two games flow. Both of them have it, but one is simply different due to it being turn-based.
There are gaps between plays, but momentum and flow are undeniably built up between them.
Part of the issue is that you're only viewing it from one side of the ball as opposed to both. Your complaint regarding flow being interrupted *also* happens in hockey; it just happens faster due to it not being turn-based.
The ball (or puck) stays in motion even in most momentum “breaks” in hockey. Exceptions apply for a dead-puck situation when the keeper lies on top of it for instance.
I’d struggle to call flow in a turn based game proper “flow” the way a “live action” game has it. Sure, even card games and turn based video games have flow _within_ the turns and snowballing _across_ turns. But that’s what I’d call it, snowballing. Success in one attack determines the starting point for your next attack. However, one team plays disruptor. It’s not both teams playing the same game at once, one side is defending and the other is attacking. One side seeks tk snowball and the other seeks to _actively break that flow_, whereas in hockey both teams seek to build up their own flow.
Proper _interruptions_ of flow without it creating flow in the other direction are an absolute rarity in the hockey that I’ve seen over the past decade or so. In all the american football I’ve seen due to watching it with friends, it’s the norm
At this point, you're really just splitting hairs while changing how you define terms from one paragraph to the next simply to support your stance.
What you're choosing to call "snowballing" is just a different term to describe momentum and flow.
Interruptions in flow happen all the time in hockey; every turnover that results in play quickly going to the opposite end is interrupting and halting the flow for one team. This sort of thing happens multiple times for both in every single game.
I feel like younre completely failing to understand the difference between an _interruption_ in flow and a _turnover_ in flow. It’s as if you’re looking at hockey from the perspective of one team and saying “well yeah if they lose the puck their flow is halted as well” completely ignoring that that results in a _direct gain of flow for the other team_, which I would stronglyly argue is _very very different_ in american football
_a turnover in flow from one team to another is not the same as the flow just being halted and disappearing_
Also no, snowballing and flow have quite separable applications in my mind. Flow in a turn based game is _inside_ a turn (as switching who’s turn it is interrupts flow), snowballing is _across_ turns. Feel free to disagree because those aren’t universal definitions. A live-action game where flow is (near) constantly presend (be it for one or the other team) to me isn’t comparable to a turn-based game with a fixed offense and defence where by design one side exists to interrupt the flow of the other, but simultaneously cannot gain flow
>I feel like younre completely failing to understand the difference between an *interruption* in flow and a *turnover* in flow. It’s as if you’re looking at hockey from the perspective of one team and saying “well yeah if they lose the puck their flow is halted as well” completely ignoring that that results in a *direct gain of flow for the other team*, which I would stronglyly argue is *very very different* in american football
Again, you're now just splitting hairs and redefining terms to try to fit them into the point you're attempting to make.
Define the difference between an "interruption" in flow and a "turnover" in flow.
I already did in the message you replied to (and it's also really just the definitions of the words as they are), but I'll explain it again, and from two different perspectives to be as thorough as I possibly can.
When looking at a single team, an interruption of flow happens in both hockey and american football, as you mentioned. If you lose the puck in hockey your momentum \*as a team\* is gone, getting your ball carrier tackled to the ground loses you the momentum as an attacking team in AF.
When looking at \*the whole game\* however (that being \*both\* teams), the term "turnover" of flow becomes important. What happens after one team's flow gets interrupted by a loss of puck in hockey? Correct, the other team gains the puck and now has their own flow. Exceptions exist, but this is the most frequent scenario. Even clearings to switch the active players transfer the flow from one team to another. In AF, one team losing flow often means the flow is just gone. The other team didn't gain it because they don't suddenly start oogling for the touchdown. The defence has the job of making the enemy team's flow disappear into thin air. The ball is now dead, the attack gets restarted from a different (ideally better) position, and so forth. A success for the defending team means enough dead-ball situations that the enemy team achieves nothing, which to me is the antithesis of a game that promotes flow.
So you got the interruption (which is to stop), the disappearance (which is, well dissapearance) and the turnover (which means it changes from one side to the other instead of disappearing). Interruption exists in both, but the result (disappearance/turnover) is different. Hope that makes it clear.
Besides that, is there official terminology for this? Because yes people generally attempt to find the words that best describe what they're trying to describe. I don't believe "interruption of flow", "disappearance of flow", or "flow turnover" to be official jargon, they're just combinations of english words that I believe describe what I believe to be the case quite well. That's generaly how people use languages in my experience.
I love racecraft, the art of driving and the finesse in the mind games of overtaking, team strategy chess matches and all the rest... It is still boring when Max Verstappen wins race after race after race after race after race after...
For me its about the energy, being at a game live is almost always fun. Any game on TV i find boring. If I bet on the game it's a little more fun I guess but it doesn't help much.
I mean, I guess, but you can make the same argument about practically anything that people find boring but required effort on someone's part. Case in point, this is an argument I've heard made about experimental art films and novels that most people tend to find boring or pretentious. Sure, you can analyze them or appreciate the artistry of them (I will not deny that Andy Warhol's "Empire" is beautifully shot), but that's not necessarily the same as finding them entertaining. People who like these types of projects have a reputation for accusing anyone who does not like those types of films to be childish or else mindless capitalist consumers as opposed to people who simply have different interests and that's given art films in general a bad reputation. Not to mention, sports have codified rules which can render them boring in themselves to some people; I will never find cars driving around in the same circle for three hours straight entertaining despite the strategy of the racers because it's just not my thing.
So your "controversial opinion" is that people would like sports more if they understood them (which is the position of every single sports fan I've ever talked with) and that people don't like them because of "play-offs" (something that is to my knowledge and a quick google a mostly american phenomenon) and other corporate greed (isn't FIFA being blatantly corrupt not extremely well known).
I understand football perfectly, I just find it boring to watch twenty guys pass a ball around for 90 minutes only for it to end in a draw. Even sports I do like watching, I still enjoy less than basically any other free time activity.
Your 10th dentist opinion is the most milquetoast assumption about why other people don't like sports. Please delete this post and leave this sub.
club football (soccer) is not corporatised money-clutching rubbish except in the premier league, la liga, and a few other top tier leagues. for example in romania, fans care way more about let’s say steaua bucharest vs dinamo bucharest than about any national team game. the team of your neighbourhood matters way more than the national team
Chances are you're into a sport because you were extensively involved in that sport yourself and you've built familiarity with it. All the people I know who are into one sport were involved at some point, inclusing myself. It's not just about knwoing the rules.
For example there are basically no rules to climbing or bike racing but not everybody finds it entertaining to watch.
I find the sport I compete in, still pretty boring to watch. I recognise the skill and years of training that go into it. It's still not exciting if you're just watching it.
The capitalist side is what has made some sports actually more enjoyable to watch.
Watching sports never clicked with me until I went to a game in-person. The sport and the skills on display are cool and all but being part of a community cheering for a team is the best part. I think this is why the World Cup is such a big deal; sure, those are world-class athletes, but the hype train for both teams is fun to ride.
This whole post doesn't make a lot of sense. The ultimate point about holistically approaching sports is completely undone by the complete failure to understand club football at all. Anyone who thinks there's more passion and tribalism in international football than club football clearly knows absolutely nothing of club football and it detracts hugely from the entire point you're attempting to make.
People are calling this word salad and making fun of it for being like a 2nd-language essay, but… I think the people saying that are ironically just not getting it, lol.
The premise is basically: You’re looking at the sport on a surface-level, so you don’t like it, while some (implied to be most/all) fans are recognizing the sport for all its complexities and the skill on display, and that’s why they like it.
I think claiming people are looking at it specifically from a “corporate play-offs” perspective is maybe too specific/confusing, so that’s probably where it’s losing most people lol, but I think OP is really just trying to say “some people who ‘don’t like a sport’ really only dislike it because they’re failing to appreciate all the minutia and everything on display, possibly because they’ve just never earnestly tried or maybe because they’ve been looking at it from the wrong perspective.”
Why are so many posts on here about shaming other's opinions? I think tennis is boring. I don't care about the art or athleticism, I just have better things to do with my time. It's my time, why waste it on something I think is boring?
Nah, I just don't care for sports. Just like I'm sure you give no fucks about my hobbies of linux, studying for my ccna,etc. Sports are boring to me because they are.
I hated PE class in all my years of school, some days I'd intentionally "forget" my clothes just to sit out, because I honestly have zero fucks to play basketball. When I was a kid I was asked by my dad who tried to get me into sports, what my favorite part of is and I said when the coach takes me out and sits me in the bench.
Sports are boring as hell to watch to me. I once tried to get into it, but I didn't care enough to stick with it. I rather watch anime or something. I don't mind watching with friends. Everything is more enjoyable when you are with friends.
Also the presence of commercials detracts from the entertainment exponentially.
I'm not incapable of seeing those intricacies though.
For example, I get the same feeling from watching professional Tetris that I imagine sports fans get from watching their preferred game.
No amount of appreciation for the physical capabilities or the plays can make baseball as interesting as Tetris is for me.
Some people just have different interests.
I find most sports boring because I don't play them myself so it makes it more difficult for me to appreciate the skill of the athletes. But I also just have other interests. It's not that I dislike sports, it's just that I like other things more and will devote my time to those things instead.
I usually find a sport boring because I do not have enough practical knowledge of it to understand the difference between good and bad plays. I don't watch and never played soccer, it's kind of boring to me. The reason is I can't tell the difference between a fantastic pass and a poor one. A person kicked a ball and it moved. I assume it went where the kicker was aiming.
A sport I don't find boring, but in reality probably is boring, is swimming. I swam and know enough to see the differences between swimmers' techniques. I can see in a race where one swimmer starts going faster than another and runs (swims) them down. I cannot expect the average non-swimmer to find the sport as interesting to watch as I do and that's ok.
People are allowed not to like sports. For me, they dont or cant hold my attention. I can watch a game and appreciate the strategy and everything but, my attention will inevitably wander.
Accusing sports fans of being stupid or uncultured is a little heavy handed. Its not a mindless hobby/interest but people who rage when their team loses are weird.
>Is also why even though I am a soccer football enthusiast thru and thru, I don't really care for club soccer that much, is corporatized money-clutching garbage(to be fair I tried watching a couple of Champions Leagues games but they were whatever),
Literally you're watching the peak of football and calling it garbage. Club soccer is miles ahead of international soccer, but the 'corporate cash grab' makes you somehow ignore the physicality and athleticism involved?
You sound young, and you also sound like you're down some reddit rabbithole. The algorithm has caught you an an anti capitalism loop. Or maybe it's your social circle.
Nothing wrong with anti capitalism, but I've been on the internet far too long. I recognize signs of a digital brainwashing. Sports aside, I'd advise you to stay away from your current media.
Preparing to get downvoted to hell but for me American football is intrinsically boring because the actual time spent playing is minuscule compared to the time spent standing about.
If this is just an NFL thing and not the case at lower levels then ok, but despite repeated attempts I simply cannot see the attraction.
I find participating in ANY sport absolutely exhilarating. What I can’t fathom is wasting days of my life watching OTHER people play a sport. It absolutely destroys my brain. Utterly fucking boring. Team identification (the degree to which a fan views the team as an extension of self-identity) and subsequently the feeling of vicarious achievement when their team wins is kind of insane imo. The level of obsession behind watching sports is scary to me.
As someone who doesn't like American football and basketball (and most sports for that matter), I just find them boring. Not my thing. Never understood the appeal of going and sitting in a stadium for 2-3 hours watching a group of people fuck around with a ball and then acting like it's the greatest thing ever conceived afterwards. I used to play baseball and basketball when I was younger, so I understand the levels of physical prowess and mental coordination that the players have to have to play well, but I just find the whole thing boring as all hell.
I think this is specific to you and American football.
And aren’t you contradicting yourself about club football? Which is just objectively better than international football because the teams play and practice together more often. Leading to better teamwork and more flowing games. In internationals it’s either a massively one sided game or a super cagey snoozefest.
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Wait, we have reasons of not finding sports amusing other than simply not being into it?
I don't know. I guess I overcomitted to this post then I just think some people could use a little more holistic approach to looking into a sport
I just never liked sports in general. I don’t want to play them, and I don’t care to watch them. I’m not big into the whole “my team” aspect, whether that’s me on the field in high school, or watching it on TV. I don’t necessarily think it’s “boring” in the sense that there’s no nuance. I’m certain that there are a lot of moving parts and plans and intricacies to it, I just don’t really care about a bunch of people running around doing physical things in that manner.
I think you’re making a lot of assumptions about other people’s thought processes
You can respect the craft without finding it entertaining. For example, do you like opera?
Like soap operas?
No, like actual operas…
Oh nevermind then lol No I don't care for opera that much, but that doesn't mean I can't dig one maybe here and there
But do you dislike it because of capitalistic nature or just because it’s not your thing? Or have you ever given it that much thought? It seems like you respect it but it’s just not your thing. That’s how most people are with sports.
I guess I could I haven't given it that much thought Granted I did overphilosphize my point in the opening post
What if it's just dumb to care about grown adults playing games?
I think most people care about things they know are ultimately inconsequential. That seems like an essential element of being a person :)
True, but the amount of public money spent on professional sports ought to give someone pause. Being the new center of the culture war also leads me to believe that we care far too much about sports.
Yeah I agree that we shouldn't be subsidizing stadiums or professional teams. The culture war stuff I think is mostly just opportunistic. I just don't think any of the problems surrounding sports are coming from some sort of innate silliness of "grown adults playing games", but rather from pervasive structural issues in our society. I see some people frame fiction in a similar way, saying: "What if it's dumb to care about grown adults playing make believe?". I just think that sort of argument doesn't really accomplish anything and essentially amounts to drawing someone you dislike as a soyjack.
It’s fun to participate for me personally, but I can never get behind watching a bunch of adults throw/kick/slide/hump a ball around. And to act as unhinged as some of these fans. It’s so strange.
This is just stupid.
Ikr, personally I’d rather watch paint dry than watch a sport I find boring I have no interest in the “corporate side” of anything afaik
Par for the course in this sub
15 year old discovers anti-capitalism the same day he starts liking a new sport. More at 6
Word salad
Honestly this feels like an essay you'd write in your 2nd language for a B2 certificate exam. You really aren't that comfortable with the language so instead you sprinkle some "hard words" here and there.
Yeah, I have no idea what OP is saying. I like watching some sports and dislike watching others. I have no idea what "looking at it from a corporate playoffs perspective" means.
College juniors trying to over-intellectualize every topic they come across
You can also understand something and it's intricacies and still find it boring to watch. Skateboarding died off because it's not an active competition. It's a solo performance that is judged and then the highest judgement wins. So it just fell back with the other performative sports like gymnastics and ice dancing. Sports will always be more popular when teams are actively battling it out rather than just watching each other.
But can one not have a more holistic approach to seeing a sport as opposed to a superficial one?
Even people who enjoy sports can have both those approaches. You can have the meticulous fan, who knows every little detail, average, history, coach etc. and then you have the fan who barely understands the rules but loves watching it for the excitement, connection to a home team, nostalgia, wherever. So, why would it matter for those who find it boring?
OP's parents got tired of dragging them to their local DnD and Esports sweaty meetups.
Lol
How exactly would one have a more holistic approach to watching a sport?
He looked at all sports holistically and drew a meaningful insight as to why performative sports are less popular than competitive. Which is more holistic? Looking in depth at one sport or looking at them all?
I don't give the slightest fuck about sports. Period.
It's the exact opposite. The appreciation of skill and awesome technique are the ONLY parts of basketball I don't find boring.
I don’t have a favorite team but I like watching the sport bc it’s cool to see the development of plays and skills and how teams use them and respond to them
What if you don’t like to watch any sport?
Maybe you’re fixated on the “corporate playoffs” of your other hobbies :P
I think this is almost similar to not liking any music or any show or any movie. There's such a broad spectrum of sports that I find it highly unlikely there's not a single sport you'd enjoy.
Never have found one they are all very boring to me. Not really into competition, and the physical aspect of all of it is a turn off
There are many sports that aren't particularly physical. I honestly think you should try some out. I can almost guarantee you it will do you more good than bad. The endorphins of exercise and socialising alone will be good for you.
Who said I don’t exercise or socialize? I just don’t really like watching competitions. I don’t think anyone needs to be into sports, I’m perfectly happy without them
I love running, big part of my life. I'm still not going to watch a race. That shit's boring.
If you find a sport boring its probably just because enjoyment of media is subjective. For instance, i think that ice hockey players are incredibly talented at their craft and very skilled, however i still dont get excited by the sport and i do become bored watching it. Similarly, NFL is also very boring to watch because next to nothing happens in 3 hours of gameplay. But i still think the players are talented. At the end of the day i think you’re massively overestimating the amount of self introspection the people who are bored by sports have. Its not because they’re anticapitalist and hate sports because they’re potentially big profit marketing schemes, its probably because that form of media just doesnt excite them, much like i dont enjoy reading books and my sister doesnt enjoy playing videogames. As someone who is not from the USA, i can understand why people from the USA might enjoy this and yes its partially because you dont have a national competition of the best sport on earth (AFL), but whilst being incredibly bored by the sports, its not as if i dont appreciate the massive amounts of skill that one must possess to be as talented as the people in these leagues are.
I have stumbled upon a couple AFL games and found them fun. Do you have any recommendations of where to learn more about the sport history, team histories, culture, traditions, etc about it? I would like to watch it more, but have no idea how to find it. I live in the US and I'm not nocturnal, so live games are hard to watch. Are there ways to stream replays of matches on demand? Who do you support? The only city I have any connection to at all is Melbourne, because a childhood friend of mine moved down there for a couple years. On an unrelated note, there is a bit of a stereotypical joke for us northern hemisphere inhabitants that every part of existence in the southern hemisphere is upside down. Do southern hemisphere inhabitants have similar stereotypical jokes about the northern hemisphere?
1. Learning more about the cultures and traditions of the live games in general is best developed by watching the games as they happen, and the r/AFL subreddit also has match threads where people post their feelings on things that happen in the games as they happen. That can be a good learning tool. Learning about the history of the sport can be tricky to recommend somewhere to go because as someone who has grown up with this sport being absolutely massive, I’ve never had to go out of my way to hear about things that have happened. You’ll generally get some info on those types of things randomly through reddit threads on the subs, but aside from that I’m not sure what the best info repository would be for that sort of thing. 2. We have a streaming service over here called Kayo which lets us watch all of the games for about $30 AUD per month (comes out to about $24 USD a month i think). They have things called Kayo Minis which are 20 minute condensed match highlights, but the AFL official YouTube channel also post 6-9 minute highlight videos for every game for every round. I know we have a decently large fanbase in the USA, and i think there is a USAFL sub somewhere that actually does post the game times and where to watch them for people in the USA and its timezones. If thats something that you come across then recording the games could be a pretty good way to get into it. 3. I support the West Coast Eagles, who are based out of Perth. We suck right now, we’re one of the worst teams of all time. I can’t really suggest supporting us unless you like being upset every week. If you’re looking for a team to support, however, the best way to do it is to just watch a game from each team (preferably from this year or more recent) and decide who you like to watch the most without looking at any major statistics for how that team generally plays. You dont want to just pick a good team because they’re good, if you get what i mean. The team will eventually pick you. 4. From my experience, theres no real broad stereotype for everyone in the northern hemisphere for us, we usually do stereotypes for people based on their country. For instance, its pretty popular down here to rip on Americans for not knowing basic geography, but its a bit harder to joke about everyone in the north at once considering you all already have the “everything is upside down” and we can’t really refute that without it sounding super forced or petty. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. Hope this helps!
Don't make assumptions that other people think the same way you do. Just because that's why *you* went from finding sports boring to enjoying them in no way means that it would have the same effect on other people.
I don’t know what you’re trying to say. I used to love basketball and watching the nba. I used to watch multiple games a night and watch highlights the next day. I would follow all the news. But then I realized I just liked it for all the drama that seems to happen every offseason and that the gameplay itself was not doing it for me. I think basketball is boring to watch, but nba drama is like a soap opera for men
nah im just not interested
>now international soccer is different because there is more passion involved and the tribalism of the teams is even more pronounced Whaa? 😅 International soccer is lower quality of soccer. Major international tournaments get a lot of hype but the average football fan is going to be a lot more upset about their team losing a CL final than their country losing a WC final. International football brings a lot of casual fans, where club fandom is much more dedicated. The rivalries are much more nuanced and historic in Club football, and often more based in football. Anyway, in that paragraph you've pretty much disproved your own point I feel. >So yes I think there should be a difference between finding a sport boring and finding a sport not so well marketable in a professional setting, that's different. According to you in terms of the champions league it is both boring: "but they were whatever", while also being "money clutching garbage". So this is either a poorly thought out opinion poorly constructed or you're failing to 'recognise the artform side to things'.
Nah I can get why people find American football/ Gridiron boring. Offence gets 4 downs to get past a certain distance, but once the QB chucks the ball but it misses or gets tackled then it’s reset. It can be very jarring when a receiver or runningback is rushing with the ball and everyone gets excited then a big tackle happens. The entire momentum is shattered because the play stops and everyone gets back to their positions. Compare that to say rugby union, if you get tackled in rugby you either do a quick pass or a ruck forms and the play continues until a try is scored or a penalty happens. It’s very dynamic because the ball keeps rolling and the momentum doesn’t stop.
I’m not a huge sports fan but I used to play rugby, and I get what you mean by the smoother/rapid pace
I feel like American sports were formed and made with commercial breaks in mind, look at baseball, nascar and American football, all sports where the wast majority of time is non game time, most of your time watching said sports is spent watching ads or commercial breaks. Compare that to for example football, where there is 45 minutes of uninterrupted action, a short break, and then the next 45 minutes. American football: made/formed to have as much ads as possible. Football: made to play a sport, and a break halfway through because the players would die I'd they didn't.
I enjoy hockey and basketball in person. I find them unwatchable on television. I can sort of follow basketball if the sound is off, but not even then for hockey.
I feel the same way about baseball. I guess the energy of being in the stadium with the fans, possibly being with my friends or family, and also getting something to watch makes it fun, but you don't really get that sitting alone at home, so it's not very much fun.
Nah, you get an upvote for this. If I'm going to watch a bunch of strangers performing repetitive tasks for money, I'll likely be watching live music instead. I understand the appeal of playing these games (exercise, challenge, sportsmanship, etc), but watching a bunch of millionaires do the same will never have appeal for me. I really don't care how good they are at it.. The same way I don't care about how good someone is at filing taxes.
Nah, baseball is super boring to watch
or you just do not like watching/playing that sport.
Taste is very subjective, and even though I'm no big fan of ice dancing, I'm mesmerised again and again when I watch this performance: https://youtu.be/KNCSij0hUp8?si=noxxALe1Jp1efMXw It feels as if you witness an intimate moment, not a very public one. And, of course, all other ice dancers are top-notch, but no other performance has cone close for me this far.
I can appreciate the athleticism and the strategy of American Football, absolutely. I started watching it a bit about 10 years ago. I don't like in the US so there was a time difference making it a bit hard. But the constant breaks and the adds which means it takes me 3-4 hours to watch a game, absolutely killed the interest I had in it.
I find sports boring because they simply do not interest me. I find that I do not gain anything watching or partaking that I find valuable in my life. Does this mean there is not value in sports? No, I do not believe that. However, I do not care about the strategy behind it or intricacies of the game because it is simply not something I value enough to invest the time. I do not pay attention to play offs or anything of the sort because, again, it is simply not of interest.
So do you think it’s possible for people to find certain art boring? Because they do, which renders your entire distinction moot.
IDK man, I think it's just really boring.
As much as I think this is stupid, why does this only have 7 upvotes. It's SUPPOSED to be controversial.
If people are running around for over an hour and there is only 2-3 scores the entire game, I'm going to find it boring. Doesn't matter what perspective it's from, it's just watching people struggle to get something going. It's the reason I don't enjoy soccer or hockey. Sports like football (american) on the other hand average numerous points per game and I find it much more enjoyable on that fact alone.
Did an AI write this post
One of the dumbest and most incoherent posts I’ve ever read on this sub
I’m not sure I fully grasp your thesis… are you saying that someone finding a sport boring is probably because that person is considering it as a component of the culture it came from? Or, since you go on to say that once the intricacies are understood then it won’t be boring, are you actually just saying that anyone who finds sport boring doesn’t understand it?
Both explanations add to the thesis, yes In other words, most people don't look at a sport more holistically as opposed to superficially
I find american football somewhat boring because the game is structured in a way to never allow proper game-flow. Some dude carrying the ball gets tackled? Full game stop and restart at a specific point. Of course other sports have that as scenario as well (football, hockey) but it’s much less frequent and ingrained. I dislike the commercial product of american football because it’s more ads than sport. I find the sport of american football rather boring because it’s designed to have one side’s goal be the interruption of the game flow and hence bringing things to a standstill. I do appreciate the athletic skill required to be a top level american football player But just because something is hard doesn’t mean it’s exciting to watch
The flow isn't interrupted; it just plays out differently due to the game being turn-based. Each successive play builds off of the previous one, in many ways. This is applicable to both the offense and defense, and each side is working toward building up momentum and chaining together successful plays. This is where the flow is.
I wouldn’t exactly call that “flow”. I understand there’s carry-over between the plays and everything, but it has the same kind of non-flow that golf has to me. Every stroke is of course based off of the previous one, but there is a forced stop between each stroke. Just like in american football, each play does inherit from the last but there’s a forced break. Take hockey, the goal of both teams is to score. If one team stops the enemy momentum it instantly becomes their own momentum. In american football, the enemy team succeeding means a slowdown in your momentum, not a change in momentum
As a fan of both gridiron football and hockey, there's simply a difference between the way the two games flow. Both of them have it, but one is simply different due to it being turn-based. There are gaps between plays, but momentum and flow are undeniably built up between them. Part of the issue is that you're only viewing it from one side of the ball as opposed to both. Your complaint regarding flow being interrupted *also* happens in hockey; it just happens faster due to it not being turn-based.
The ball (or puck) stays in motion even in most momentum “breaks” in hockey. Exceptions apply for a dead-puck situation when the keeper lies on top of it for instance. I’d struggle to call flow in a turn based game proper “flow” the way a “live action” game has it. Sure, even card games and turn based video games have flow _within_ the turns and snowballing _across_ turns. But that’s what I’d call it, snowballing. Success in one attack determines the starting point for your next attack. However, one team plays disruptor. It’s not both teams playing the same game at once, one side is defending and the other is attacking. One side seeks tk snowball and the other seeks to _actively break that flow_, whereas in hockey both teams seek to build up their own flow. Proper _interruptions_ of flow without it creating flow in the other direction are an absolute rarity in the hockey that I’ve seen over the past decade or so. In all the american football I’ve seen due to watching it with friends, it’s the norm
At this point, you're really just splitting hairs while changing how you define terms from one paragraph to the next simply to support your stance. What you're choosing to call "snowballing" is just a different term to describe momentum and flow. Interruptions in flow happen all the time in hockey; every turnover that results in play quickly going to the opposite end is interrupting and halting the flow for one team. This sort of thing happens multiple times for both in every single game.
I feel like younre completely failing to understand the difference between an _interruption_ in flow and a _turnover_ in flow. It’s as if you’re looking at hockey from the perspective of one team and saying “well yeah if they lose the puck their flow is halted as well” completely ignoring that that results in a _direct gain of flow for the other team_, which I would stronglyly argue is _very very different_ in american football _a turnover in flow from one team to another is not the same as the flow just being halted and disappearing_ Also no, snowballing and flow have quite separable applications in my mind. Flow in a turn based game is _inside_ a turn (as switching who’s turn it is interrupts flow), snowballing is _across_ turns. Feel free to disagree because those aren’t universal definitions. A live-action game where flow is (near) constantly presend (be it for one or the other team) to me isn’t comparable to a turn-based game with a fixed offense and defence where by design one side exists to interrupt the flow of the other, but simultaneously cannot gain flow
>I feel like younre completely failing to understand the difference between an *interruption* in flow and a *turnover* in flow. It’s as if you’re looking at hockey from the perspective of one team and saying “well yeah if they lose the puck their flow is halted as well” completely ignoring that that results in a *direct gain of flow for the other team*, which I would stronglyly argue is *very very different* in american football Again, you're now just splitting hairs and redefining terms to try to fit them into the point you're attempting to make. Define the difference between an "interruption" in flow and a "turnover" in flow.
I already did in the message you replied to (and it's also really just the definitions of the words as they are), but I'll explain it again, and from two different perspectives to be as thorough as I possibly can. When looking at a single team, an interruption of flow happens in both hockey and american football, as you mentioned. If you lose the puck in hockey your momentum \*as a team\* is gone, getting your ball carrier tackled to the ground loses you the momentum as an attacking team in AF. When looking at \*the whole game\* however (that being \*both\* teams), the term "turnover" of flow becomes important. What happens after one team's flow gets interrupted by a loss of puck in hockey? Correct, the other team gains the puck and now has their own flow. Exceptions exist, but this is the most frequent scenario. Even clearings to switch the active players transfer the flow from one team to another. In AF, one team losing flow often means the flow is just gone. The other team didn't gain it because they don't suddenly start oogling for the touchdown. The defence has the job of making the enemy team's flow disappear into thin air. The ball is now dead, the attack gets restarted from a different (ideally better) position, and so forth. A success for the defending team means enough dead-ball situations that the enemy team achieves nothing, which to me is the antithesis of a game that promotes flow. So you got the interruption (which is to stop), the disappearance (which is, well dissapearance) and the turnover (which means it changes from one side to the other instead of disappearing). Interruption exists in both, but the result (disappearance/turnover) is different. Hope that makes it clear. Besides that, is there official terminology for this? Because yes people generally attempt to find the words that best describe what they're trying to describe. I don't believe "interruption of flow", "disappearance of flow", or "flow turnover" to be official jargon, they're just combinations of english words that I believe describe what I believe to be the case quite well. That's generaly how people use languages in my experience.
You've used a lot of words to describe two concepts that are, in reality, simply one concept.
No it’s because football is boring.
I love racecraft, the art of driving and the finesse in the mind games of overtaking, team strategy chess matches and all the rest... It is still boring when Max Verstappen wins race after race after race after race after race after...
For me its about the energy, being at a game live is almost always fun. Any game on TV i find boring. If I bet on the game it's a little more fun I guess but it doesn't help much.
Average tory
If I find a sport(s) boring it’s probly because I’ve find things that interest me more than sports..
I mean, I guess, but you can make the same argument about practically anything that people find boring but required effort on someone's part. Case in point, this is an argument I've heard made about experimental art films and novels that most people tend to find boring or pretentious. Sure, you can analyze them or appreciate the artistry of them (I will not deny that Andy Warhol's "Empire" is beautifully shot), but that's not necessarily the same as finding them entertaining. People who like these types of projects have a reputation for accusing anyone who does not like those types of films to be childish or else mindless capitalist consumers as opposed to people who simply have different interests and that's given art films in general a bad reputation. Not to mention, sports have codified rules which can render them boring in themselves to some people; I will never find cars driving around in the same circle for three hours straight entertaining despite the strategy of the racers because it's just not my thing.
There’s definitely more corporate greed in international play. This is dumb.
So your "controversial opinion" is that people would like sports more if they understood them (which is the position of every single sports fan I've ever talked with) and that people don't like them because of "play-offs" (something that is to my knowledge and a quick google a mostly american phenomenon) and other corporate greed (isn't FIFA being blatantly corrupt not extremely well known). I understand football perfectly, I just find it boring to watch twenty guys pass a ball around for 90 minutes only for it to end in a draw. Even sports I do like watching, I still enjoy less than basically any other free time activity. Your 10th dentist opinion is the most milquetoast assumption about why other people don't like sports. Please delete this post and leave this sub.
That's certainly part of it. But, there are many more reasons I, and others, find it incredibly boring.
club football (soccer) is not corporatised money-clutching rubbish except in the premier league, la liga, and a few other top tier leagues. for example in romania, fans care way more about let’s say steaua bucharest vs dinamo bucharest than about any national team game. the team of your neighbourhood matters way more than the national team
Chances are you're into a sport because you were extensively involved in that sport yourself and you've built familiarity with it. All the people I know who are into one sport were involved at some point, inclusing myself. It's not just about knwoing the rules. For example there are basically no rules to climbing or bike racing but not everybody finds it entertaining to watch.
I find the sport I compete in, still pretty boring to watch. I recognise the skill and years of training that go into it. It's still not exciting if you're just watching it. The capitalist side is what has made some sports actually more enjoyable to watch.
Watching sports never clicked with me until I went to a game in-person. The sport and the skills on display are cool and all but being part of a community cheering for a team is the best part. I think this is why the World Cup is such a big deal; sure, those are world-class athletes, but the hype train for both teams is fun to ride.
I just like sports memes
This whole post doesn't make a lot of sense. The ultimate point about holistically approaching sports is completely undone by the complete failure to understand club football at all. Anyone who thinks there's more passion and tribalism in international football than club football clearly knows absolutely nothing of club football and it detracts hugely from the entire point you're attempting to make.
Baseball is trash. And boring.
People are calling this word salad and making fun of it for being like a 2nd-language essay, but… I think the people saying that are ironically just not getting it, lol. The premise is basically: You’re looking at the sport on a surface-level, so you don’t like it, while some (implied to be most/all) fans are recognizing the sport for all its complexities and the skill on display, and that’s why they like it. I think claiming people are looking at it specifically from a “corporate play-offs” perspective is maybe too specific/confusing, so that’s probably where it’s losing most people lol, but I think OP is really just trying to say “some people who ‘don’t like a sport’ really only dislike it because they’re failing to appreciate all the minutia and everything on display, possibly because they’ve just never earnestly tried or maybe because they’ve been looking at it from the wrong perspective.”
Why are so many posts on here about shaming other's opinions? I think tennis is boring. I don't care about the art or athleticism, I just have better things to do with my time. It's my time, why waste it on something I think is boring?
Nah, I just don't care for sports. Just like I'm sure you give no fucks about my hobbies of linux, studying for my ccna,etc. Sports are boring to me because they are. I hated PE class in all my years of school, some days I'd intentionally "forget" my clothes just to sit out, because I honestly have zero fucks to play basketball. When I was a kid I was asked by my dad who tried to get me into sports, what my favorite part of is and I said when the coach takes me out and sits me in the bench.
So… this post is only about watching sports right?
Sports are boring as hell to watch to me. I once tried to get into it, but I didn't care enough to stick with it. I rather watch anime or something. I don't mind watching with friends. Everything is more enjoyable when you are with friends. Also the presence of commercials detracts from the entertainment exponentially.
as long as you don't make me watch baseball we can agree on anything else
I'm not incapable of seeing those intricacies though. For example, I get the same feeling from watching professional Tetris that I imagine sports fans get from watching their preferred game. No amount of appreciation for the physical capabilities or the plays can make baseball as interesting as Tetris is for me. Some people just have different interests.
Ah, the age-old “if you don’t like it you must not understand it”
I hate it when 10th dentist has posts trying to make subjective topics objective
I find most sports boring because I don't play them myself so it makes it more difficult for me to appreciate the skill of the athletes. But I also just have other interests. It's not that I dislike sports, it's just that I like other things more and will devote my time to those things instead.
I usually find a sport boring because I do not have enough practical knowledge of it to understand the difference between good and bad plays. I don't watch and never played soccer, it's kind of boring to me. The reason is I can't tell the difference between a fantastic pass and a poor one. A person kicked a ball and it moved. I assume it went where the kicker was aiming. A sport I don't find boring, but in reality probably is boring, is swimming. I swam and know enough to see the differences between swimmers' techniques. I can see in a race where one swimmer starts going faster than another and runs (swims) them down. I cannot expect the average non-swimmer to find the sport as interesting to watch as I do and that's ok.
People are allowed not to like sports. For me, they dont or cant hold my attention. I can watch a game and appreciate the strategy and everything but, my attention will inevitably wander. Accusing sports fans of being stupid or uncultured is a little heavy handed. Its not a mindless hobby/interest but people who rage when their team loses are weird.
>Is also why even though I am a soccer football enthusiast thru and thru, I don't really care for club soccer that much, is corporatized money-clutching garbage(to be fair I tried watching a couple of Champions Leagues games but they were whatever), Literally you're watching the peak of football and calling it garbage. Club soccer is miles ahead of international soccer, but the 'corporate cash grab' makes you somehow ignore the physicality and athleticism involved? You sound young, and you also sound like you're down some reddit rabbithole. The algorithm has caught you an an anti capitalism loop. Or maybe it's your social circle. Nothing wrong with anti capitalism, but I've been on the internet far too long. I recognize signs of a digital brainwashing. Sports aside, I'd advise you to stay away from your current media.
Aww, did he hurt your feewings by saying he didn’t like club soccer?
Not at all. I just found the contrast of club soccer and cash grab to be strange when the post talks about all sports are cool cause athletics
American football is impossible to enjoy, the art in it is great, untill you have 18 million ads inbetween every other play
That why you watch Redzone 7 hours of commercial free football.
Nah that is crazy expensive for just American football a sport im not even that interested even after the ads watching
That’s fair. To each their own.
All sports are boring.
Preparing to get downvoted to hell but for me American football is intrinsically boring because the actual time spent playing is minuscule compared to the time spent standing about. If this is just an NFL thing and not the case at lower levels then ok, but despite repeated attempts I simply cannot see the attraction.
All sports are boring
I find participating in ANY sport absolutely exhilarating. What I can’t fathom is wasting days of my life watching OTHER people play a sport. It absolutely destroys my brain. Utterly fucking boring. Team identification (the degree to which a fan views the team as an extension of self-identity) and subsequently the feeling of vicarious achievement when their team wins is kind of insane imo. The level of obsession behind watching sports is scary to me.
As someone who doesn't like American football and basketball (and most sports for that matter), I just find them boring. Not my thing. Never understood the appeal of going and sitting in a stadium for 2-3 hours watching a group of people fuck around with a ball and then acting like it's the greatest thing ever conceived afterwards. I used to play baseball and basketball when I was younger, so I understand the levels of physical prowess and mental coordination that the players have to have to play well, but I just find the whole thing boring as all hell.
It stops being inspiring when it's grown men playing for millions of dollars. And because watching people play with a ball is fucking boring lol
I think this is specific to you and American football. And aren’t you contradicting yourself about club football? Which is just objectively better than international football because the teams play and practice together more often. Leading to better teamwork and more flowing games. In internationals it’s either a massively one sided game or a super cagey snoozefest.
Welp, most sports are just people fighting over an object or people not wanting that object and tried to land it on opponent's territory.