Fuck sports

[botefdunn]

There are various threads bout professional sports on here, and while I respect anyone's right to enjoy whatever they want, I really can't stand professional sports. Coulda put this in unpopular opibions, but I am a little curious how popular/unpopular this opinion actually is. Personally, I love playing soccer, baseball, hockey, and even watching local league stuff sometimes is nice, but the fandom and all the money and competitive bullshit that goes with it is super gross to me. So yeah, fuck sports.

[Chalupa]

I’m with you on this one. I like playing basketball but I get bored watching games.

Plus, with all the bullshit the US government is doing to referees and players from other countries without any pushback from FIFA ensures that I’m never watching a football match again.

[fall colors]

i get this 100% and have never been about any team and/or "professional" sports. i started skating when i was about 12, and i am 55--i don't think it is an exaggeration to say that most of our earlier generations ended up skating exactly because we were repelled by uniforms, rules, hyper-competitiveness, commercialization, etc....

...but, seeing someone like Spike Lee's enduring love and enthusiasm for his hometown teams has always seemed right to me and/or like i'm overlooking something. maybe...



edit: tying this to Chalupa's post, i see that this photo is from an article titled "Spike Lee says ICE agents not welcome at Knicks championship parade"

[TheLurper]

I was really bad at traditional sports. I tried but still sucked.

Skateboarding was the only place that gave me the space to grow. I was never as good as my friends (it's weird to think I thought being sponsored was "normal"), but the individual aspect of the activity gave me the space to improve dramatically.

Traditional sports often signal frat boy bro-brahness to me, and/or a fat old man who spends more time on the sofa than doing the activity.

And, I remember living in a poor city riding public transit. Man, everyone stereotyped the people who actually used it as dangerous, but it was the random day that sports fans got on the metro/bus that it was scary/there was puke everywhere.

[GaryDahLegend]

wut you guys don't have a fantasy fanduel thing going with your coworkers where you bore me to tears trying to overpower eachother spitting last names and cities endlessly while i'm trying to work?

[GardenSkater77]

[gnidraobetaks]

I read this as some sort competitive sexual athleticism .

[botefdunn]

I read this as some sort competitive sexual athleticism .

That's pretty much how I see it too, so yeah.

[Baswell Cerry]

 Played team sports growing up, ran track, and was usually more athletic than most. Even as a kid I could see the politics and favoritism bullshit which was ultimately why I left it all for skating. 

Always was more of a doer than a watcher.  Was really fortunate to grow up on a block with lots of kids my age and we would ride bikes or play night games. Skateboarding worked really well for us as a group to hangout in the street.

I’ll watch because the people in my life are excited about it but the tribalism is wack and anyone who is a fanatic about millionaires, paying to have some name on their back or some company on their chest is…. Well, not for me. 

[Bupstop]

I used to watch sports but I got turned off to the stupid tribalism involved in it. People fighting over a team they aren’t even on is so dumb. Plus I use all that time I used to devote to watching sports to doing stuff for myself like hiking, playing the guitar, drawing etc.
Also I was a lousy athlete growing up. Skateboarding was perfect for me because I hated being on teams with all those shit head jocks.

[noxiousPond]

The only thing worse than watching sports is listening to grown men talk about it.  Yea I have nothing else to add here.

[Shitbag]

I don’t know what you have against it, it’s Huey’s finest work.

[ChuckRamone]

I'm guilty of watching sports here and there for entertainment, mostly when there's a big game or tournament. I don't follow any sports closely because it's too time consuming.

Ethically speaking, I am against corporate sports, so if my city decided to tear down its stadiums and build housing or something I would support that. I am also turned off by how people live vicariously through their teams' victories, as if they were playing themselves. And I'm definitely against the sportification of skateboarding but it's too late to change that.

[Cuban_Lynx]

Not really a professional sports guy, but I’ve always loved the NBA finals. Regular season is boring, but shit gets wild at the end of the season when people are playing like they actually care.

[lydius]

yeah, the activities themselves are fun amongst friends, but the more serious it becomes, the lamer it is. the culture around team sports always did and still does seem so military and fratty to me, while skating was the ticket to freedom of expression as well as learning street smarts and more life skills.

[Steely Daniel]

I only really watch tennis and boxing but don't really follow either anymore. One on one sports are more interesting to me. Boxing is too corrupt though.

[Sincerity]

I watch a lot of sports. I find it soothing because it's just engaging enough to distract my thoughts, but not so meaningful that I actually care about the results. So I'd fuck sports, but it would be more of a friends-with-benefits arrangement.

Coach K observed that success in sports is about effective deception. That simple insight was a revelation for me as a viewer, especially when I think about the role sports play in our culture. And maybe fucking. I don't know.

[Plan9Customs]

I’ll watch baseball or soccer(ya know the real football) but don’t really care about them.
One fun thing to do, is if you work with hardcore sport ball fans, wear gear of the team they likes rivals. Had a boss that was a ride or die giants fan so I’d always wear a dodgers hat. He fucking HATED that. Another was a Yankees fan so got a red socks hat. It’s fun!

[layzieyez]

My dad always had ESPN and whatever sports stuff on and completely monopolized the tv with that when I was a kid and into my teens.

It was one of the things I loved about skateboarding. It got me out of the house and not caring I was missing anything on tv that I couldn’t watch because of sports.

I don’t even like watching professional skateboarding contests televised to be honest. Edited down is digestible. In real time, nah, I’m good.

[in love w/ fs shuvs]

fuck u

[botefdunn]

Coach K observed that success in sports is about effective deception. That simple insight was a revelation for me as a viewer, especially when I think about the role sports play in our culture. And maybe fucking. I don't know.

That is interesting. In my humble experience, good number of people fuck like they are trying to get it over with, a goal-oriented mindset masquerading as desire.

[Cuban_Lynx]

Expand Quote

Coach K observed that success in sports is about effective deception. That simple insight was a revelation for me as a viewer, especially when I think about the role sports play in our culture. And maybe fucking. I don't know.

[close]

That is interesting. In my humble experience, good number of people fuck like they are trying to get it over with, a goal-oriented mindset masquerading as desire.

I wonder if Dyrdek uses his matrix calendar to bust a nut as efficiently as possible.

[Llewellyn Moss]

https://youtu.be/CEVdca9U9LM?si=of6BsHc2U4B1-QPj

[ThatIsNotCricket]

I don't know any of the sports you just mentioned mate. What the fuck's soccer?

[ThatIsNotCricket]

Expand Quote

Coach K observed that success in sports is about effective deception. That simple insight was a revelation for me as a viewer, especially when I think about the role sports play in our culture. And maybe fucking. I don't know.

[close]

That is interesting. In my humble experience, good number of people fuck like they are trying to get it over with, a goal-oriented mindset masquerading as desire.

Nah, that's only fucking in your teens/twenties. When you get older and you're in a long-term, committed relationship (not necessary per se, but it adds to it) fucking becomes more like a lovely saturday night barbeque in the summer: there's no rules (apart from keeping it sane, safe and consensual), it's anyone's guess what will happen, but it always ends up being a full evening of nourishment for body and soul.

[ThatIsNotCricket]

[OldieButFrenchie]

I was of the "fuck sports" persuasion when I was young. My dad was president of the local rugby club (it's a big sport in France) and skating was a way for me to rebel and escape from all that organized shit. (rugby was still amateur at the time though, but that's a whole other discussion).
Then getting older I slowly got back into it...Until now where if I miss a 6 nations game, I'll record it. I don't plan my day around games though. But I want to see them!

Also I was 24 in 98, I was in Paris my hometown.... and the sheer joy of a first WC victory converted me to a football fan too. back then football and rugby were rival sports here. now I honestly still get tear-eyed anytime I see images of the France 98 team. It was pandemonium on a massive scale and we had no smartphones then to document it. a shame cause I saw so much crazy shit that night, I'll take it to my grave. and like most french guys, you would never have caught me wearing the national colors before that night! it was considered dorky or straight ultra-right.
Very difficult to explain those events. International football (in the football countries) just brings out the craziest emotions.

edit: just to try to explain for non-french people, France was kind of ashamed of itself after WWII. The occupation, surrender, the collaboration, it was humiliating. So wearing the national colors was almost taboo. and that WC victory, silly as it seems, marked the end of that era. It allowed everyone to reclaim the flag from the ultra-right and the Vichy stain on our history. It also allowed France to start viewing itself as multi-ethnic country. That was important for me too as a brown imported dude who did not really feel french. Of course that rosy feeling did not last. But it's still an enchanted moment in my mind. Fuck I'm waxing lyrical here. sorry for ranting, the WC started yesterday...

[ThatIsNotCricket]

Also, I think OP is really overestimating the whole competitive/rivalry aspect in sports fandom. I can only speak for football really, but it's all good-natured banter at the end of the day. Apart from Germany, Portugal, USMNT, Rangers FC, Chelsea, Linfield, HSV, Real Madrid, MK Dons, Millwall, Lazio, any country that's playing against Holland or Argentina on the day, and any club that's playing against Celtic on the day. Their team and fans deserve to be humiliated and die.

[Síota]

[brycickle]

I liked sports before I started skateboarding. Then I actively hated them until I was in my early 20's, when I realized that soccer/football is really just high speed chess with actual humans. I think I finally came to realize that it's irrational to "hate" sports. You can dislike certain aspects of some of the toxic tribalism built around it, but to completely say that it has no merit is a bit disingenuous. I think you can say objectively, and evidence bears it out, that children who participate in sports are generally healthier, and usually work better in team environments. I've also come to look at skateboarding as one of those activities that can be considered both a team sport and an act of artistic expression. A team sport more in the sense of a loose collective of buddies who get together to think outside the box about how to skate a spot, but also an activity of individual expression, because everyone has a different style to the way that they skate.

I like to say that I started to get back into baseball, because that's just what you do when you turn 40, but I think that more of it has to do with going back to school and really starting to understand how statistics work. I also think that of all of the traditional team sports, baseball is the most comparable to skateboarding. No other team sport really embraces the kooks and weirdos like skateboarding, the way that baseball does.