I guess nothing, objectively speaking. Its just I hear about it all the time, and I can relate to it about as much as I can relate to people who endlessly babble on about Miley Cyrus or whoever. If I'm watching a football game my attention is grabbed only when they make a touch down, but even then I can't identify w/ it, I mean what can it mean to me? If I were one of the players or actually knew one of the players I would care, but say if I went to a college where football was all the rage, the only reason I could find myself watching a big game is because of the omnipresence of the sport in the minds of everyone around me. Its like this meme in society that is perpetuated for reasons completely unrelated to its actual merits. I'm always seeing people who only watch the games or get involved with the fanfare because they have friends or people they like that do so.
I probably sound like a dick but w/e I'm just giving my opinion, that is all it is is an opinion. I probably have hobbies that some people find baffling.
Then your friends are ripe for getting involved in the rEVOLution, no?
All kidding aside, most of the folks I know aren't involved just because others are. They're involved because there's an aspect of the pomp that they enjoy. For some folks, it IS that regionalism, or taunting, or feeling that they've accomplished something (even though they didn't really do much). Crowd noise only goes so far in affecting the outcome of a game. For other folks, it's a big party, and any excuse to drink and party and eat junk food is a good excuse. For some, it's a social event where they have automatic common ground with everyone around them. For still others, it's the love of the game.
This last one seems too-often ignored by people making these "sports are a distraction" assertions. You might do well to actually watch a football game... really watch it. Why is your attention drawn only by touchdowns? Why isn't a 4th and 2 deep in their own territory, where a team decides to go for it and actually gains ridiculous yardage, as interesting? Why isn't a well-crafted interception catching your eye? There are reasons you run when you do, or pass, or punt, or kick a fieldgoal, or do an onside(s) kick. There are reasons you blitz, or play zone, or why you might double up on a certain receiver. There are reasons to line up under center, or in the shotgun, or to emply a tried-and-true play. There are reasons you pull out a trick play. It's a big chess match.
Do you not ever watch anything? Have you ever watched a few little birds picking on a big one that was trying to raid their nest? Have you watched a chess game, or a race, or politics in a state where you're not living? Have you never seen something which, to you, was interesting not only for the outcome but for the path to get there? If not, then you're probably never going to get it, no.
Never did have much interest in sports...
Sports promote an odd kind of blind regional hatred that just doesn't sit well with me.
I can watch "my team" play, or I can watch two teams I've never heard of play, and be pretty happy so long as the teams are pretty closely matched. I'd actually rather watch the no-name teams because the commentators usually keep their mouths shut, instead of making excuses for "usually stellar" players/offenses/defenses the whole time and bombarding you with stats. Case in point: I couldn't finish the TEN/ORE game last night because the commentators were annoying the hell out of me. "Oregon only allowed so many yards last week, and this week they've allowed x times that!" every few seconds is going to turn anyone off.
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No one's saying whatever one's idea of fun is should be banned, but there's a lot of calling one another stupid for liking sports, or a television show, or whatever else. The OP is right to question it, and those who keep talking about how dumb people who do this, that, or the other are (from their computers, no less
) might consider how they would feel if some of "those people" made their way here. Will "their kind" be accepted once their vote is secured, but they aren't activists? Not everyone who votes or who even participates in the process for the primaries is that into politics. There will come a time when some of the converts are doing it just because someone told them Ron Paul was better than the usual choices. That should very much be good enough for us. Shunning that entire portion of the population, or saying they're "not awake enough" to be real liberty-lovers... it's not going to do us any favors.
