Are you really a sports fan?

[sskink]

I stopped watching pro football a few years ago. I think coverage of football has become ridiculous. The quality of broadcasters has gone down, pre-show coverage is wall-to-wall stupidity, with more shouting than analysis. To me it's all but unwatchable now. As a lifelong Jets fan, the last season I was fully into it was the year after Jets sold out Pennington to get Favre only to have Pennington get the Fins to the playoffs - beating Favre along the way. I'd recently moved to Pittsburgh and had the Steelers jammed down my throat 24/7 to the point where I could no longer listen to sports radio.

Baseball was always my sport, the one I played better than others, even managing to be a walk-on at a D1 school. I'll watch an ungodly number of Pirates games a year and am a limited season ticket holder. I usually watch playoff baseball regardless who's in it.

I follow my college teams. Thankfully they're decent in hoops, although I hate all the CR stuff as it grandfathers some really bad programs (Wake Forest anyone?) at the expense of solid programs (BYU, Boise St., UConn, etc.). I do not follow the NBA and am at best a marginal follower of hockey, although I used to follow the Isles religiously back in the Potvin/Bossy days.

I watch the majors and Ryder Cup in golf and World Cup soccer. Occasionally a tennis major final.

Olympics... I've been sucked into the curling craze like many others, but for the most part, I haven't cared much since the US started sending pros to play hoops & hockey.

[Garfunkle524]

I'm a big football fan. I'll generally sit down (if I'm free) and watch any college game with a ranked school, or one of my own schools. I love spending all day Sunday watching pro football, though I think the NFL is pretty annoying. I have my teams that I prefer to watch and I'm a diehard Broncos fan, but I'll watch any game that's on.

We pay for Red Zone and while it's a nice way to follow all the games on Sunday, I'd VASTLY prefer NFL Sunday ticket. So much of the game happens between the 20's that I think Red Zone actually does a disservice to the game. Unfortunately it's the only way to see any Broncos action at all in my area some weeks which absolutely sucks.

I just started watching hockey last year and I'm hooked. Unfortunately there's no NHL team in the area so I'm restricted to nationally televised games. This also sucks since I can literally almost never see Avalanche games.

Not a fan of sports broadcasting deals.

[Unsettomati]

Aside from watching my daughter play volleyball or my son play lacrosse, I'm not a sports fan.

I do end up occasionally find a modicum of pleasure in watching a sporting event because I'm at someone's house and they're watching it. An example is the last 12 innings of the recent Giants-Nationals 18-inning LDS game. I'll half pay attention to the football games that will invariably be on TV at the in-laws this coming Thanksgiving.

Some statistics of sports do interest me, as well as issues tangential to actually watching the games.

What really fascinates me is the importance people place on sports, the hero-worship and the maniacal home-team tribalism. It's a very curious study in sociological weirdness.

I used to be a huge NFL fan, a big NHL fan (pre-1993 North Stars-to-Dallas), a moderate MLB fan (pre-1994 strike), and a moderate PGA fan (particularly watching Woods). Then, rather suddenly, I just didn't care anymore and found much greater interest in other things.