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Why I Hate Football

Earlier this week, I spoke of my dislike of football (for international readers, I mean american football, not the game we in the US call soccer). I thought I would explain further why I have a negative reaction.

To me, football is the most incredibly dull sport to watch either in person or on television. I cannot stand to watch a football game on televison for two reasons.... a) the players are so indistinguishable from each other (only a number tells them apart) that I have no vested interest in any of them, and b) the crowd roar that is broadcast via television jars at my nerves. Below I attempt to explain both ideas further.

Reason A

To me, if I were to watch sports, I need to feel invested or involved in the pursuit. I feel much more involved and invested when watching sports involving competition between individuals than I do with sports involving teams. For me, if a sporting event is a team activity, my interest will automatically drop to at least 1/2 if not less than for an individual sports activity. There are only three team sports that I actually find tolerable, and two of these are tolerable in only relatively small quantities. The first team sport I can enjoy watching is baseball. The second team sport that is tolerable for certain periods of time is soccer, and the third team sport that is marginally tolerable for certain periods of time for me is ice hockey.

Football (nor basketball, although if push came to shove, I would much prefer to be forced to watch basketball) leaves me utterly disjointed and uninterested. The players have no personality (to me anyhow) on the field. They are akin to faceless blobs of color distinguishable only by number. Additionally, the basics of the game of football are too coarse and uninspiring to me to offer any mental interest. Compare this absence of "finnese" in football to the creativity and coordination of baseball, soccer, or even hockey, and I think you will see what I mean. Football is simply about pushing, fighting and struggling any way you can to force your will upon another team. It is dull as hell to watch.

For me, the sports I truly enjoy are sports featuring individuals. There are so many that are enjoyable: Golf, distance running, track and field, autoracing, tennis, motorcycle racing, swimming, bicycling, etc. And even the relatively new "extreme" sports that a lot of young people perform on ESPN2 (skateboarding, etc) are very pleasant and enjoyable to watch. I become engaged in their efforts.

Reason B

Noise. I, like many people am a person who is sensitive to certain types of noise. However, the TYPES of noise I am sensitive to may be quite different from others, especially those who enjoy football. The crowd noise as broadcast over television or radio literally drives me up the wall. This is an unfortunate aspect of virtually any sort of stadium team sport, and so when I watch baseball or soccer or hockey, I need to turn the sound down significantly if not fully. No one will do this for football (at least in our family circle). The football tv has to be on to a volume that (in my opinion) rattles the bones and threatens to wake the dead for those who like the damn sport.

If I am in the same room with a television with non-stop, loud, active, crowd noise, within ten minutes or so, I am so tense and aggravated and keyed-up that I either have to leave the room or I risk becoming rude to others because of the overload to my senses. Luckily for me, my family growing up did not watch football all that often (my father would occasionally watch a few moments of a game with the sound off to catch a score, but he was not particularly interested long-term.

So, to summarize. I like and enjoy sports. Yet, most team sports are dull to me, and football is for ME, a true abombination.

PipeTobacco