I can't get excited about any sport. Hitting a tennis ball, shuttlecock, cricket ball, scoring a goal, doing a double triple flip on a BMX, skateboarding down a glacier... I'm always left wondering... so what?

#1 Maybe you spent too long learning your fecking log tables.

I used to love playing badminton and watching these guys realising just how difficult some of those shots are, just amazing.

#2 As I recall, we spent the best part of a day on logs before moving onto other stuff. To reach this level at any sport requires YEARS of dedication. And I'm still left wondering ... why???

#3 I imagine at first, it’s fun. You realise you’re better than everyone else and your parents get told to put you up against others who are good. You beat them too and enjoy the fanfare.

Then you’re told to enter competitions.
You play them and don’t win but your parents are told with a bit of training, you could be a lot better.

They then (living vicariously through you) decide to invest where others wouldn’t and you start improving rapidly.

The sky is the limit and before you know it, it’s your career, you’re making decent money and hopefully, still enjoying it.

Beats a regular 9-5.

#4 'Vicariously' is an important word in this respect, because what I find bizarre is the vicarious pleasure millions of fans derive from watching 'their' sports idol or 'their' team.

The video about the match you shared was awesome. I enjoyed watching the videos you shared.

https://mapquestdirections.co

#5 People referring to sports teams as their own does make sense. Language has a lot to do with it. ‘Clubs’ play up the ‘our fans’ angle as they want the support both on and off the pitch.

This makes people feel part of it all as most are contributing financially (paying to see games, merchandise, etc) and investing their time in viewing and following the teams.

Why do they do this? Competition can be very exciting, an appreciation of skill/talent, a way to find common ground with peers or even family (my dad and I talk about football 50% of the time).

#5 I extracted the urine from your initial comment foxy but I have to agree with you I also do not understand the madness on this planet towards most sports and the over paid people who play them. For the record I hate football and rugby and have never been to a match of either. I have watched part of the final of a couple of world cups persuaded by the hysteria that I am missing out, but soon realised I wasn't. The only piece of sport I watch is the men's final of Wimbledon. I don't even bother watching the previous two weeks journey. I used to play Badminton, tennis, squash and table tennis, so I guess you could say I'm a one on one kind of guy. I think my biggest outrage with sport is the out of proportion out of this world pay that these people earn and I use the word earn with a bad taste in my mouth. It's a strange world that we live in.

#8. Quite so. Spectator sports, and especially football, are as close as you can get to organised religion, with their followers encouraged to adopt a simplistic, frenzied, excited tribal attitude towards 'their' team. Professional football and the unimaginably colossal sums of money paid to players, managers and promoters etc is all a result of just one thing, a gullible Joe Public handing over their cash in gate money, TV Sports packages and numerous and wide-ranging merchandising schemes, due to some imagined affinity with 'their' team. It is this, and only this which keeps the money rolling into the football 'business'.

I rather listen to a lady tennis match than this.

#9 so what are your views on entertainment in general? This business model is common across entertainment. Services like Netflix with their box sets for example hits the public in the same way. People pay and talk about it, invest their time in shows and then try to get others to watch them so they have someone to talk to about ‘their’ shows. May even get a t-shirt or pay to see the movie prequel.

I have barely spent a penny on football in the 25+ years I’ve followed it. Haven’t been to a game, purchased a kit, don’t pay for Sky but I do enjoy talking about it with friends and family. I do refer to a team as ‘my team’ because it’s the one I chose and stuck with. I see it as nothing more than a bit of fun.

Yes some people go over the top with it, but that’s just human nature. We’re all just passing time.

#11 Good point from the entertainment aspect. I don't understand any of it even from that standpoint. I've never been a fan of someone no matter how much I like the sport, song or movie. I don't know if following and fawning over someone at a near religious level is a brain defect in us humans (so many seem to get sucked into it) or something else is at work here. There's some sort of psychology going on.

i just read yesterday about ousmane dembele problems a kid getting 150 000 000 € with bonuses per year.
first they paid him .. then they pay nutritionists, psychiatrists .. because he is just a kid

i found a similar article with some of the info because i'm too lazy to write
https://the18.com/soccer-entertainment/ousmane-dembele-video-game-addiction

I personally love football (not the American egg ball), really football, as it's meant to be.