[canvia]

There are several reasons why I dislike sports.

Professional sports are expensive and inefficient forms of entertainment. What is your cost (and opportunity cost) per hour for sports? Compared to films, books, video games, or board games you are burning money/time on a completely passive experience. When was the last time you learned something about yourself or others while watching a sporting event? Do they cause you to think at all?

Sports create an "us VS them" mentality that creates division. I much prefer following space exploration in which the opponent is objective based and nature itself.

Live events are used as delivery mechanisms for the marketing of inferior products like fast food restaurants, poor quality beers, fashion brands, processed foods, etc. The mentality that "I must watch it live" is constantly reenforced, requiring consumption of marketing. The phenomenon of the sports bar further encourages consumption of unhealthy food and poor quality beer (leading to drinking and driving).

For those reasons I no longer watch any sporting events. Now I watch eSports on Twitch to get my dose of live entertainment.

[billyvg]

- You can watch sports at home, on a TV, through your OTA antennae, costing you nothing

- When was the last time you learned something about yourself or others while watching an eSports event? Do they cause you to think at all?

[canvia]

Except for the games that are only carried on cable networks like ESPN, Fox Sports, NFL network etc. which you MUST watch if you are a true fan.

The hosts of many Twitch channels talk about their philosophies on life and interact directly with their fans to have meaningful discussions.

[dinkumthinkum]

I'm curious, does supposed high quality beer not lead to drinking and driving? As far as the us vs then situation, what do you call board games? Do you play board ganes that do not allow competition, same eSports? Why do you think you can learn more about people from video games than sports? I'm not sure, this just seems like a fancy way of saying, in an elitist way, that you don't get into sports because other people do.

[canvia]

It does, but the producers of that product do not encourage the practice with (often sexually) manipulative television marketing.

There are many excellent cooperative board games such as Pandemic and Forbidden Island. Video games like Minecraft and Portal can be played cooperatively as well.

I am not into professional sports because they are inferior to other forms of entertainment. I have watched and understand pretty much every type of sport. My favorite is UFC. I also enjoy hockey but I would rather play NHL 94 than watch it on TV or in person.

Another thing I don't like is how little innovation there is in professional sports. It seems like I could watch an hour of highlights at the end of the year and see anything unique that might have happened. These games have been played for decades. With Twitch there are constantly new games with new mechanics and strategies and it's exciting to watch people figure out optimal play methods and new techniques.

[znconrad5]

What eSport are you watching where it is NOT "us VS them"? Starcraft is a 1v1 game. LoL is a 5v5 game. Not sure what other eSports there are, but the major ones are always pitting humans against eachother...

[Dylan16807]

us. them. plural words. the viewer and player being part of the same group.

You're badly misinterpreting that line. It's about the fans, not whether the players compete (obviously the players compete). "us vs them" is when you hear a fan say a phrase like "we won".

It's certainly possible to get wrapped up in a fandom in eSports, but from my limited perspective it's much less common.