[code_duck]

It's definitely a sign of maturity to be able to treat sports and people who are obsessed with sports seriously when you know better. The fact is, the truth is unfortunate. Professional sports are a bunch of grown men playing little kid games who receive an incredibly and disgustingly disproportionate amount of money and adult attention.

I believe that children and adolescents playing sports is fantastic. If people want to continue playing into their adulthood for fun and health, that's great too. Casual interest in sports is fine with me. I prefer to see participation to spectatorship.

What I and many other people have a problem with is sports in schools and professional sports being treated as if it is intensely important, more important than direly serious things that keep people alive, fed, free and healthy.

[skwirl]

And what are you doing to keep people alive, fed, free, and healthy?

[code_duck]

Saying this is about me personally is changing the subject. The alternatives in school and life to which I am referring are pursuits such as medicine, mathematics, programming, electronics, chemistry, politics, business management and so forth.

It's a cliché which I wouldn't think I would have to repeat, but I would love to see people get as excited about mathematics stars in schools as basketball players. I would love to see more people who get as excited about their city council as football drafts. I would love to see the money spent on stadiums and television sports networks spent on improving peoples lives in concrete ways other than entertainment.

It's not that I don't consider sports legitimate entertainment. Clearly people feel that their lives are enriched from participating or spectating. Great. Good for them. The problem I see is a matter of priority. Society as a whole treats watching other people play sports as if it's something as critically important, heck, more important than say, hospitals.

[skwirl]

Why is it that so many people who say "society needs to do so-and-so" feel that they are exempt from doing anything themselves? It blows my mind that you see this as irrelevant. It's always somebody else that needs to do it. They apparently don't see themselves as part of society.

Sports get attention because people choose to follow them under their own volitions. If you want mathematics stars in schools to get attention, then why aren't you attending Mathletes contests? Are you attending/watching at least 16 city council meetings a year (same as the number of games in each NFL team's regular season)?

"Don't make it about me personally, it's something everyone else should be doing."

Meanwhile, the very people whose lives you want the sports industries' money redistributed to are generally the ones who are deriving the greatest amount of life enjoyment out of following those very sports.

[code_duck]

Why would you think that I don't follow my own beliefs?

I never said I want the 'sports industries money redistributed'. That amount of resources shouldn't be devoted to a complete waste of time for society in the first place.

Anyway, I believe people should focus on helping each other survive and thrive, rather than spending billions of dollars on mindless entertainment. The idea that people woold argue with me and pick on me personally over this is nothing new - sports are popular and opposing them is unpopular, which as far as I could tell is the entire topic of this article.