For those that love sport, there is nothing better to do with their time than to sit down and watch a match or other event play out in real time. When the Olympics comes around, there will be plenty of people who are glued to their TV screens, desperate to see how people get on in sporting disciplines that they wouldn’t watch at any other time. For others, though, sports are incredibly boring to watch.
There are those that simply don’t understand football and don’t get why it is that people would choose to invest their time watching it, being completely non-plussed when a team scores a goal or a player gets sent off. Why?
Oftentimes, Not Much Happens
If you are the sort of person that needs things to happen on a regular basis in order to enjoy yourself watching anything, there are a number of sports that won’t be for you. Cricket, for example, sees nothing happening for long periods of a Test match. Even in the more exciting versions of the sport, such as T20, more is taking place off the pitch than is happening on it most of the time.
In football, a lot does happen if you’re happy to look at what the players are doing and what the managers are trying in terms of tactics and substitutions, but if you’re purely minded to look out for goals then you’re going to be disappointed.
Apart from the #beer can anyone explain why #football is so popular? It’s so boring. Nothing happens pic.twitter.com/PMPHupsuYT
— Cliff Hannan (@CliffHannan) July 14, 2024
There are plenty of sports in which a lot happens all of the time. Tennis, as an example, sees points won every minute or so. You can look at the beauty of a backhand or the creativity of a shot. Basketball is end-to-end, ensuring that points are scored on a regular basis. For some people, though, that isn’t interesting as it seems as though the majority of the game doesn’t matter and only the last couple of minutes, when a winner is decided, are worth watching.
The National Football League in America seems to grind to a halt more regularly than any sport is actually played, making it deathly boring for certain members of society.
We’re Now Programmed to Keep Busy
The reality of the modern world is that we have now all become programmed to keep ourselves busy at all times. Imagine being in a restaurant having dinner with a friend or romantic partner. You look at the table next to you and see the person sat staring into the distance. How weird would that seem?
You might expect them to be reading a book or using their mobile phone, perhaps even perusing the menu or the wine list, but staring off into the distance and doing nothing? Far too weird. That is because we all want to be doing something all of the time, playing podcasts when we walk around the house or scrolling TikTok whilst eating a sandwich.
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All of this bleeds into watching sport for some people, who lack the ability to simply watch what is taking place in front of them without also wanting to jump on Twitter and offer their opinion on it all or film something that they can upload to YouTube. If you don’t have any real sense of enjoyment from sport then it is little wonder that you might find it boring and frustrating when asked to sit and watch something.
For those that are emotionally invested, every single touch of the ball means something in a football game, each shot choice is to be analysed during a tennis match and the quarterback watched like a hawk in the NFL.
It Can be Difficult to Understand What’s Going On
Depending on the sport that you spend your time watching, it can be incredibly difficult to understand what’s going on. Whilst virtually every sport has its obvious objectives – scoring a goal in football, winning a point in tennis, getting a try in rugby etc. – the exact nature of the intricacies of the sport can be elusive.
It would not be unreasonable for someone who doesn’t watch football very often to be entirely uninterested in the tactical battle between the two coaches during a match, caring little for how one has set up to offer a low-block and the other is trying to break through it with possession football. It can be impenetrable.
The same is true for virtually any sport, of course. The way that rugby works is such that it can appear as though it’s like a chess match with human beings, trying to gain space before everyone falls over again. American football is much the same, with territory being the thing that the two teams are looking to dominate and players are moved around in order to free up space for the quarterback to throw the ball long and someone else to catch it and score a touchdown.
It doesn’t help that players can come on and off depending on the play. If you don’t understand what’s happening, you’re always likely to find something dull.
How to Enjoy Sport More
If you are the sort of person who doesn’t get any enjoyment out of sport but would like to do so, maybe there is a way that you can that doesn’t involve you just faking it. The best way to have fun whilst watching sport is to have some personal connection to it. As a result, the best thing that you can do is to begin to follow a specific team.
You can start small, listening out for news stories about Liverpool, say, when the club signs a player or changes manager. After that, you can begin to take an interest in the specific players that line up for the club that you’ve chosen to follow, perhaps reading into their history and what makes them tick.
The Miracle of Istanbul ✨#OnThisDay in 2005 🌟 pic.twitter.com/l5lX5jzNJ2
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) May 25, 2024
The next thing to do would be to watch some highlights of a match that your team has played in. There are parts of football matches that are a little boring, so ensuring that you only watch a highlights reel will remove the possibility of it being something that you lose focus on. Try to ensure that the highlights are of a match that you have either been told is really exciting, such as the 2005 Champions League final, or that you know your team wins.
We are trying to get you to do something that doesn’t come naturally, so we don’t want to introduce the more boring aspects of it too soon and lose your burgeoning interest in things.
Once you’ve mastered that and are starting to take more of an interest in it, the next thing that you’ll have to do is to watch a full match. The truth is that watching a match in person is always going to be more interesting than watching one on the television.
If you’ve started to take an interest in the players and care about how a team is doing, you will naturally be more engaged with something when it is taking place right in front of you. At football matches, the atmosphere is often key and some grounds promise a better one than others. That being said, don’t imagine that a league match on a Sunday lunchtime will be the most thrilling.
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A game against a relegation threatened side that your team should beat easily is never going to have the same kind of visceral atmosphere as the likes of a European knockout game, so try to pick a match that fits with what you want to experience.
All of these tips are just as useful for any other sort of sport, so make sure to choose a tennis player that you want to watch succeed, say, or follow the peaks and troughs of an American football team. If you really want to enjoy the experience of watching a team or player then doing so in person will always be the most exciting way that you can get involved and begin to understand why other people like it so much.
