[dragonwriter]

> but given how popular sports of all types are (both watching and playing) among so many different types of people I am amazed that the denizens of ivory towers have been able to maintain the stereotype of sports as "low brow" for so long.

I don't think that stereotype actually exists in "the denizens of ivory towers" so much as the stereotype of "denizens of ivory towers" holding that stereotype exists in the minds of people who identify themselves in opposition to "denizens of ivory towers".

Actually academics, whether fairly described as "denizens of ivory towers" or not, seem, IME, to be no less interest in sport qua sport than anyone else -- plenty of them fans of the popular professional sports, and plenty of those that aren't not disdaining them so much as being busier with other things, whether academic/professional pursuits, family, or even their own personal involvement in some form of sport, and not taking time for participation in the ritual of major professional sport spectation.

> It's deeply, tragically ironic when you consider that the origins of those same intellecutal bubbles are rooted in Greek and Roman classical studies, both cultures that prized a well developed body and mind, and considered a man incomplete if he lacked either

I don't think tribal attachment to and spectating major professional sports has any connection to a "well-developed body and mind".