Sports on TV
 

Is there anyone else out there that just cannot understand the attraction to televised sports? Playing a sport or watching your kids play, I can understand. Watching football, baseball, basketball or (yawn) GOLF on TV?! I dont get it.

Maybe it's just an excuse to drink beer and curse. :D

What is the appeal to you watching sports on TV? I am right about it being just an excuse?

For those that dont watch, why not?

It's not an excuse to me. I just enjoy watching sports--the competition, good play, colorful personalities, and just being in awe of players being able to do things I can't.

And I'll watch just about any sport, though my personal favorites are football and hockey.

Oh I see now. There are all kindsa people in everyday life I see doing things I cant, like staying awake for more than 12 hrs a day and not eating to capacity at every meal. They just arent generally highlighted as spectacular on TV. I think they call them normal er somethin.

Now I can relate. Thanks.

I was raised watching sports. I find it interesting and entertaining. I like that its real time, and along with that, the historic aspects. I enjoy the strategy, the competition, and the athletic skill. Baseball on TV or radio is linked with weekend relaxation in my hardwiring. And ABC's Wide World of Sports- My Dad always had that on. Hockey, of course, is best live - still Mr Warch just got NHL Center ice so he can watch Hockey Night in Canada and the Canadian teams that don't get air time down here. It's his boyhood. Hockey is perhaps one of the hardest sports to capture on TV because it flies. I find I often want to grab and direct the cameraman. Its very hard to capture the constantly moving big picture on TV, to see the plays.

*blink* *blink*

Holy crap, warch, that's all true... and that's all going to be SOLVED with HDTV in 16x9 aspect ratio.

You WILL be able to clearly see the puck, and you WILL be able to see more of the rink!

This has huge implications I think... a wider ratio won't help baseball at all, in fact it'll hurt it. It'll help football a little, but more clarity would really be great for football. But... it should really revolutionize hockey on TV.

I don't really care for sports, either. So you're not alone. :)

Not being a sports fan I have trouble discerning the subtle differences between the $50,000,000 player and the $100,000,000 player.:rolleyes:

golf is not a sport.

golf should only be aired in hospitals, when you can't sleep because you've got a doc or a doc-ling up your kazoo every two hours.

Yep, its an outdoor bar game like darts.

Re: Sports on TV
 

Um, no TV.

But the reason I don't watch sports is that I'm not a fan. It seems that many people develop an attachment for a particular team, due to geographic proximity, or an appealing name or a color, or a certain player, and then extend that allegiance over a period of years. I never developed that attraction for a team. (Except, in my childhood, the Vikings, because they were the 'Giant Purple People-Eaters -- who could resist that?)

I used to snobbily dismiss people who form these seemingly irrational allegiances as having lives so devoid of meaning they looked for excitement and connection in whatever senseless place they could find it. Now I realize this is a normal human trait, which has contributed to many facets of many civilizations; it's just more develped in some people than others.

Football = Ritual Combat. We watch because we don't have actual gladiators anymore, and we aren't up to actually going out and getting into a fight with someone; we're weak suburbanites, now, not manly warriors.

Hockey = Ritual Hunting. We no longer have to chase after fleeing prey in compettition with our other tribe members, but we have a racial memory of it, chasing the prey into a net in cooperation with our immediate clan.

Baseball = Competition in lieu of battle (i.e., football), wherein we still use our tools of war (club, rock), but instead of actually trying to kill each other or something else, we hone our skills in amicable competition with neighboring tribes.

Golf = See baseball. A narrower area of skill, but still practicing with clubs and rocks.

Basketball = No one has any clue, but I love it anyway.

Picking a side is the only irrational part of sports; the rest of it is a marvelous combination of legitimate and real human drama, and dance.

The drama is artificially created, but it's heartfelt: it's more real than dramatic presentations because the characters are not actors. Look around any game and you see story after story, character after character. The grizzled vet trying to make it through one more year. The piss -n- vinegar cornerback who can't control himself and costs his team a game. The quarterback so tense that he vomits on the field before taking the snap. The coach who is one loss away from being fired, trying to motivate millionaires to do his bidding.

The dance is structured differently than, say, ballet; in some ways it's less structured, in some ways more, but in the end it's a complicated shuffle of people who have trained their entire lives to put their bodies into artful positions for the purpose of achieving a goal.

Don't dismiss the drama because the goal (a point, a run, a touchdown) is fake; half of our lives revolve around fake drama. Some of us spend most of our time trying to create drama for our own purposes, as any LB thread will indicate.

She heard the blade slice the air, and rolled her eyes.

As she took a step away, she realized that she had been cut in half, and so collapsed beside herself.

I am captivated by the real-time drama of the individual performance- the body and mind. And I get swept up in that emotion. god, I even got into curling during the last Olympics.

Of particular excitement:
Killing off a power play. Great goaltending that swings the whole emotional power of a game.
Pitching- so much drama, the count, one mistake and its gone. The closer. Nothing happens until the pitch, then its all set in motion. and also in baseball, the amazing defensive play of 3rd base is beautiful.
I find athleticism beautiful.

Mr Warch chose our current tv (sony) based on his comparison of the clarity of a hockey telecast. Two previous purchases were returned. Its safe to assume our next set will be HD with any other enhancements available.

Hey, if hockey looks good on a tv, *anything* will look good. Mr. Warch is a smart 'un.