I will never understand how kicking or throwing a ball around somehow has mass appeal. Even worse when half of it is just people arguing over arbitrary rule interpretations.

▲

atonse 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It’s the harmless version of “my tribe battles your tribe” for thousands of years, without the bloodshed. We’ve evolved to enjoy competition in general.

Not everyone of course. But I find sports fans to be not that different from chess fans for example, in their passion, armchair strategy, and sheer emotional ups and downs.

My personal favorite sport is Formula 1. It tickles all the same parts of our sports fans brains, but also tickles my nerd brain with the strategy, lap math, and all the precision and tech (apart from the fact that I personally looooove driving and Kart racing)

About the tech, you’d be amazed at the amount of tech involved in F1. Just the bandwidth used for telemetry. The supercomputer simulations performed during races, etc. and that’s just the computer tech.

▲

moffkalast 10 hours ago | parent [-]

F1 I sort of understand, there's a lot of aspects to it even though it is at the end of the day, a bunch of people driving in circles. The memes are good anyhow.

With foot/basketball, hockey, etc. there is no technical aspect if you don't get into pro tier shoe and ball design or whichever non-strictly rule defined straws one could competitively grasp at, but I guess most people relate through familiarity of actually playing it themselves? But there is a sort of chicken-and-egg problem there where to play it well enough for it to be actually fun you need to already be a fan and have a good grasp of the rules, otherwise it's just people running back and forth on a court.

▲

atonse 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yeah I actually used to find soccer boring until I started watching it with my son, the sheer skill levels, there’s a lot of strategy involved. Yeah they don’t go into shoes or anything.

But for example, forcing a foul at just the right time, or causing offsides by positioning yourself, etc. those carry some level of strategy, at least how much I can grasp.

But the one common thing with every professional sport is the skill level for that particular skill in the sport is unlike anything we can comprehend.

I remember a friend recalling a professional baseball game he attended, and he described how those guys were warming up, and they were just playing catch to warm up their arms… they were able to throw the ball to within inches of the recipient’s glove every time from hundreds of feet away.

That sort of skill makes it enjoyable to watch human performance levels if you can appreciate how hard that particular skill is, especially if you’ve tried it.

Equivalents in F1 are how a race engineer will tell a driver to slow down by half a second over the course of a full lap to preserve their tires, and they more or less do it.

▲

mbreese 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I like to think of it as the game within the game. There’s “the game” with the set of rules and lines, etc. But then there’s “the actual game”, where you can watch the strategy, the skill, and that’s at a completely different level. Similarly, once you can watch a football/soccer game and appreciate how someone is moving on the field without the ball, then I think you’re just starting to understand the game.

To me, that’s the technical aspects of soccer — watching the strategy play out, aside from where the ball is, or what the score is.

	▲	avh02 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		And then there's all the pretend injuries and exaggerating little scratches for the camera and ref. I don't watch sports but seeing that crappy behavior vs what rugby players go through is embarrassing to the footballers. I was also surprised to hear the ref's conversation with the players (mic) in a rugby game on TV. Made it so much better to all the miming that goes on in football. Also don't enjoy the ref slowly trotting across the field dramatically to go look at the video replay... Just get another ref to do it and report back or give the lead ref a damn phone to view it on.

▲

haskellshill 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I will never understand F1 fans. So many engineering hours and so much gas wasted just to drive in a circle a bit faster than the other guy. It's not even remotely applicable to any real task due to the myriad of arbitrary rules. At least football players are physically fit.

▲

shdhsjaha 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The F1 guys are probably as fit as a top footballer. They're dealing with black out levels of lateral G forces whilst slamming on the brakes within a fraction of a second of loser times or crashing out.

The MotoGP guys are far more fit - they have to use their bodies as counter ballast to make the curves. That's why MotoGP races are so short, they're at the limit of human endurance.

Look up any of these guys' gym routines

▲

Yeask 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

And you don't get to see what makes teams win, the engineering.

	▲	anonzzzies an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, the people who did the engineering don't get medals.

▲

sien 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I've played football (soccer for Americans) with people who were very good who didn't watch the game at all. Similarly for basketball.

People watch sports because it gives them an emotional investment in something that has a new result each week, is not scripted and shows incredible skill and fitness.

It's also a lot healthier than the people who follow politics like sport. They get moral when their team loses.

Do you watch TV, Internet videos, film, or read books ?

That's just another form of entertainment.

▲

emsixteen 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Insanely ignorant.

▲

gtowey 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's one thing to know you don't enjoy it for yourself.

But saying "I will never understand" sounds like willfull ignorance. It sounds dangerously close to not wanting to understand because you don't want to accidentally develop any sympathy for "the other side". Please don't fall into that trap.

▲

moffkalast 9 hours ago | parent [-]

What are you even on about, why would I need sympathy for an optional interest that is by all accounts pretty mainstream and well established worldwide? It's not a disability, it's not an endangered species, it's a billion dollar commercial industry. I just don't see the appeal.

In a just world LaLiga would get sued into the ground for disabling a public utility on a level equivallent to an international cyberattack. Oh but how will the poor millionaires break even with their overpriced streaming services if they can't destroy the internet to block some pirates? Jesus Christ, the audacity.

	▲	arcfour 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Because you are acting like smug asshole. People don't like smug assholes, and you aren't helping the world or yourself by being one.

▲

Insanity 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I used to think like you about sports. Until I started doing more sports, like bouldering (although at a pretty basic level).

I appreciate watching e.g bouldering competitions now simply because I can appreciate the difficulty more.

Had I stuck with playing football I imagine I would have had a similar experience now.

▲

anonzzzies an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I am in Spain (not spanish) and I find the obsession with watching sports very strange; in uk us au worse than here but here it indeed is bad. I do not like Musk anymore but did get starlink to not bother with this crap.

▲

7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

▲

durag 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's a fun game

▲

Xenoamorphous 10 hours ago | parent [-]

Honestly, it’s quite boring. Many games end 0-0 or 1-0 and they’re just good to have a siesta, barely better than white noise.

Even at the peak of my interest in football here in Spain, when I was ~18 and I loved playing the game (actually indoor 5 on 5, much more technical and IMO “better”) there’s no way I could stomach a game between two mid or low tier teams, it had to have FC Barcelona and/or Real Madrid. But my dad and plenty others did and do watch those games.

Then there’s the worse aspect of it: football attracts the worst kind of people; think hooligans. I know a bunch of people smarter than me that love football so it’s not a matter of “if you like football you’re stupid” but “if you’re stupid you’ll probably like football”. Then there’s football becoming the whole personality of many guys here, you quite literally can’t talk about anything else with them.

▲

int_19h 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This last bit is a team sports thing, not a football thing specifically. Which sport it is (or several, sometimes) depends on the country.

▲

Yeask 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You find baseball more fun than soccer because the scores are higher? What about Waterpolo?

	▲	anonzzzies an hour ago \| parent [-]
		or tennis

▲

grigri907 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I've seen some incredible, riveting 0-0 matches, 1-0, etc.

▲

antihipocrat 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Come on.. anything of interest can be reduced to a few absurd actions absent of any context.

For example. I don't understand how: - moving pieces of wood around a board can have mass appeal - Smearing colored paint on material can have mass appeal - Smashing sticks against covered buckets can have mass appeal

▲

jurip 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's (hopefully) unscripted drama. People enjoy drama.

▲

rolandog 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Agreed. I don't particularly feel inclined to watch millionaires kick a ball around.

What irks me are the grown, drunk people that get infected with hatred towards the other team and its fans.

	▲	anonzzzies an hour ago \| parent [-]
		And break stuff of people who have nothing to do with it like happens so often after this crap. I saw it many times in the Netherlands.

▲

jimbob45 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Even worse when half of it is just people arguing over arbitrary rule interpretations.

Planning around rule interpretations is part of the strategy (if you’re good) (usually)