I saw this stat in a few places, you can find one for yourself on a search engine, here’s one random article: https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2024/05/17/gen-z-live-sports
Not a zoomer but I have not liked sports for a long time, anyone else feel the same way?
Online people call sports “sportsball” sometimes with intended negative connotations
Esports
Unfortunately, my hope was sports was being replaced with something better, but it seems like zoomers might be replacing sports with “esports”, aka video gaming… and I’d probably like esports even less than sports in some ways
Why Interest is Declining
I was joyfully researching this topic as a sports fan lamented to me that people are losing interest in sports, so I was wondering why, and a lot of the reasons do become somewhat obvious: sports can often be boring and long games and content today can be short instead online. Sports have become competitive to a point that it can’t relate to the average person. The competitiveness of sports at the current level makes injuries that were less known, more common today. The cost of sports gear, travel, and so on makes them a bigger commitment than a lot of people want to make. There are more “entertainment” options available today over sports. And so on.
Qualities of Alternative Activities
I think for me, there’s just a lot of things that are left to be desired with sports versus some other activity, so it always feels like there’s something else I’d rather do than play or watch sports. Take contributing to an open source program for example. There may be a sense of competition, but usually it’s not as zero sum or “winner take all” in creating some software. If you create new software, it can be used, even if some better software comes along. With sports if you lose, you simply lose, and there’s only one winner of all of it. Or likewise with music, when the orchestra plays together, everyone’s efforts can create an even better musical production.
Other individual physical exercises, like simply walking, may avoid the unpredictable injuries of contact sports.
If you’re creating a work of art for example, it either has a technical aesthetic quality or not; I suppose there is some subjectivity is involved (“beauty is in the eye of the beholder”) however it avoids the problem of there being corrupt officials to make bad calls which destroy the integrity of the game (as there have been accusations of officials doing so in sports games in recent years).
I’ve seen sports rivalries, even on a local level, inspire vandalism and acts of violence. Naturally such “toxic” cultures exist in other places, but I guess I would find ways to steer clear of them. I don’t know of as much “toxicity” for example among farmers and gardeners, who are just focused on creating a tangible project. Maybe corn and potato producers feud more than I’m aware of? That brings up another issue, where sports is often a consumptive activity - it doesn’t really create something tangible like a “piece of art” or a food we might eat.
Anyway, some of these concerns with sports might be applied to examples I gave, but usually have enjoyed finding alternatives to sports.
Ways to Fix Sports?
A lot of times I’ve found ways to convert sports into something that’s not a sport, but might be related to it, in a way that’s satisfying to me.
Like there are “freestyle footballers” (soccer in the U.S.) who just do a bunch of “tricks” with soccer balls. Alternative contests like the “home run derby” (baseball) or “slam dunk contests” (basketball) seemed like an interesting side “contest” that felt a little less sports-like in a good way, maybe a little more fun.
One thing that limits the sense of hypercompetitiveness is in switching things up like this, so that there may be less people competing at a narrow goal - to that end people are maybe creating new “sports”.
In BMX riding there are “best trick contests”, which do have negative features of sports to me, but perhaps just a “best trick” event without choosing winners would be exciting to see (informally this happens sometimes at skateparks or trails, people are showing off the best things they can do and each person is judging what they like best from what they’re seeing).
Conclusion
There also used to be more of an “nerds versus jocks” divide, perhaps implying that being too interested in sports was a betrayal of the intellect. I share some of this oldschool attitude, but I acknowledge my interest in other things might be more due to personal preference. Maybe I am simply yearning for a “reform” of sports, or want to see them become something different? But I hope to open up the conversation on the topic, to see what maybe we should be doing, whether it’s playing and watching sports in our free time or if we should be doing something else.
Overall what’s your thought on the state of sports?
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Interesting to read. Pro sport is largely a wash. Geared only for obscene profits and for distract.ion - It’s not really interesting. There’s more coverage of the soap dramas around the sport, than there is in the game, and people eat it up. Interestingly, this is how it’s supposed to be : as far back as Rome, large scale sporting contests are meant to distract the citizenry from politics, more than anything else .
Community sport is much better. However as you have said, it’s not immune to boorish behaviour, usually when alcohol and testosterone are involved. Much of this can also be attributed to dwindling social capital - the phenomenon whereby we behave awfully to each other, because we don’t know each other well and don’t feel any obligation toward each other. This of course isn’t helped by rampant individualism.
I would urge you to look again though - maybe a women’s sport, but ideally in game you love, where your own respect and enjoyment of the game transcends winning and losing. Plus, amateur sport has much more accessible players - which make it easier to invest in their success.