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Has anyone ever though about doing it? I follow MLB and NFL...my favorite sport by far is baseball, and I love spending time at a game. I listen to the radio on weekdays for baseball and football analysis. I am a stats nerd (not just in sports - I hold a quantitative analyst position at the company I work for). I have been considering leaving sports fandom for a couple reasons:
1) There are so many more interesting things out there and I am starting to be sucked in by "drama" manufactured by the sports-entertainment industry rather than the actual sport itself. I feel like I am being duped - that this is all just a big manufactured distraction.
2) The hypocrisy in spectator sports is astounding and is really bothering me. I have been noticing this especially in football: the concussion issue, in-shape athletes pitching extremely unhealthy foods and products, the entire sport feeling like a vehicle to sell things, the NFL's pink cancer awareness support (for which very little money actually goes towards research) while suppressing evidence of concussions.
3) The general tribal nature of sports has been getting more pronounced - the thriving on division of people, promotion of social rivalries, the "us-vs.-them" mentality taken to extremes.
I am not going to give up physical activity - I love to run, to bike, to hike, and even play a pickup game of football with family/friends. But I am seriously giving thought to leaving spectator sports altogether.
I sort of feel the same way you do. I've been a big sports fan all my life. But it is now "Been there, done that". Other things in life. Thirty years ago I would be watching every minute of the Dodger games in the playoffs. If they make the WS, I'll probably watch a deciding game.
Also, when I was young and single, I could afford to attend games. Now with four kids, no way.
Has anyone ever though about doing it? I follow MLB and NFL...my favorite sport by far is baseball, and I love spending time at a game. I listen to the radio on weekdays for baseball and football analysis. I am a stats nerd (not just in sports - I hold a quantitative analyst position at the company I work for). I have been considering leaving sports fandom for a couple reasons:
1) There are so many more interesting things out there and I am starting to be sucked in by "drama" manufactured by the sports-entertainment industry rather than the actual sport itself. I feel like I am being duped - that this is all just a big manufactured distraction.
2) The hypocrisy in spectator sports is astounding and is really bothering me. I have been noticing this especially in football: the concussion issue, in-shape athletes pitching extremely unhealthy foods and products, the entire sport feeling like a vehicle to sell things, the NFL's pink cancer awareness support (for which very little money actually goes towards research) while suppressing evidence of concussions.
3) The general tribal nature of sports has been getting more pronounced - the thriving on division of people, promotion of social rivalries, the "us-vs.-them" mentality taken to extremes.
I am not going to give up physical activity - I love to run, to bike, to hike, and even play a pickup game of football with family/friends. But I am seriously giving thought to leaving spectator sports altogether.
I'm getting to that point of being disinterested in many of the sports that I've been watching since I was a kid. Really getting turned off by NFL football. Watched this Frontline episode the other day and didn't like what I was seeing in the way NFL treated its former players.
Seeing that my fav football team is very bad, I go to games more as a spectator of NFL rather than a fan.
I'm finding other things more interesting to do in life (fish, golf, tennis, going to concerts). I've seen hundred of pro baseball games, nfl games, college football games, PGA events, a NASCAR, tons of NBA games in person (Spurs, Jazz, Hawks, Magic, old Sonics)......they are no longer as interesting to see as the once were (been there, done that as well).
I gave cut the NFL and NBA, the only two domestic pro sports I followed, out of my life years ago. They have essentially become giant commercials/marketing campaigns. Very successful ones, but I have no interest in that crap.
This is going to offend some, but you can tell when the NFL's "shark has been jumped" when you have a large number of female fans coming to the sport. I hate NASCAR, but I know about its origins, and it is in the same boat. Thirty or forty years ago, there was far, far less crap surrounding the games or events. It was actually about what was happening on the field or on the track. Yes, I know there are some knowledgeable fans of each, but, by and large, the rest are attracted by something else and they were not attracted to it when it was squarely about the game itself or when a bunch of first or second-generation moonshine runners and their sons were what each was about.
Many of these reason are why I've been more into the EPL than the NFL this season (and I'm American born and raised). They don't constantly stop the game for commercials and instant replays, it's way less exploitative and commercialized, and the interest of sporting ambition and competition comes before attempts to bail out incompetent team owners at the expense of fans and players.
That said, I could never cut out sports fandom, because it's by far more interesting than TV, music and movies these days ...
I was a rabid NFL fan until perhaps 2004. I HAD to be in front of a TV when my team played and I'd often go out with friends to watch MNF. A number of things killed it for me, analysts that only want to hear themselves talk, the predictability of the game, the hypocrisy, the on-field (and off-field) behaviors, and moving to Pittsburgh, where Steelers coverage was 24/7/365 to the point of insanity. Thank God for the Pirates becoming relevant again.
I don't think I'll be giving up baseball. Just love the game too much. But I rarely watch any other US pro sports anymore, or the Olympics. And even college, with CR taking away a lot of rivalries and the end of Big East hoops all for money grabs. It's become a farce.
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