Why I don’t watch sports, but keep going to games anyway

I’ve been thinking about this for a while. This is me trying to figure it out.

I don’t watch sports.

That usually surprises people, because I don’t dislike sports. I actually think sports are great, just not as something to sit still and watch.

If you ask me to go outside, throw a ball around, and tackle someone, I’m in. But if you ask me to sit on a couch for three hours while people line up, stop, reset, and repeat, especially in football, I’m out. Completely out.

It’s not the competition I struggle with. It’s the way it’s packaged.

I’m a bit of a nerd, and I’ve never been naturally good at sports.

Which might be part of why I don’t enjoy watching them, but it’s also why I’ve come to value doing them.

A football game can last three hours, and only a small fraction of that is actual play. The rest is waiting. Timeouts, commercials, resets. That’s where I lose it. If I’m at home, I’ll change the channel to something with a plot.

And I think that’s the key. I need a story.

I’ll watch a sports documentary immediately. Ted Lasso, Welcome to Wrexham, The Barkley Marathons, Unbreakable, Brittany Runs a Marathon, Miracle, Shoresy. All of them.

What those have, and what live games don’t, is context. Stakes. A reason to care. I know who these people are. I know what they’ve failed at. I know what they’re risking. By the time the big moment happens, I’m already invested.

A game doesn’t give me that. It expects me to already care.

But I do care about sports. Just not in that way.

I run.

I’ve completed two marathons, more shorter races than I can count, and I’m currently training for my first ultramarathon. I’m not elite. I’m not competing with anyone else. I’m competing with myself, trying to go longer, faster, or just finish something that felt impossible the last time I tried it.

Running, for me, is about a lot of things. Mental health is part of it. But it’s also about doing hard things on purpose.

When I’m running, what matters isn’t the event, it’s the challenge. The effort. The internal story I’m telling myself to keep going.

That’s the part of sports I connect to.

Which is probably why I like sports stories more than sports themselves.

Except… that’s not entirely true.

Because I do like going to games.

My wife and I have gone to hockey games for years. Back in the 2005-2006 season, she bought us season tickets to the Washington Capitals. We got to see Ovechkin and Crosby in their rookie years.

And we were there for that goal.

Ovechkin, sliding on his back, stick out, somehow flipping the puck into the net while facing the wrong direction. It didn’t make sense in real time. The whole arena just paused for a second, then it exploded.

Everyone was on their feet. People yelling, laughing, grabbing strangers next to them. Not because they were on the same side, but because they had just seen something incredible.

That’s what I remember about those games.

We’ve followed the Red Wings. The Capitals. And now that we’re in Columbus, we’ve been going to Blue Jackets games over the last few years.

And I still genuinely enjoy it.

Hockey works for me in a way football never has. It’s fast. It doesn’t stop every few seconds. It flows. There’s always something happening. And more than that, it’s the experience. The energy in the arena. The shared moment. Being there with my wife.

It’s not passive. It’s not something on in the background. It’s something you’re inside of.

But lately, something has been off.

The worst part of going to games isn’t the game. It’s the fans.

I’ve seen people move into seats that aren’t theirs and then act annoyed when the actual ticket holders show up. I’ve seen grown adults screaming at opposing players like they’re not just opponents, but something less than human.

I’ve seen people throw drinks at other fans.

And I know none of this is new. Sports crowds have always had that edge. But it feels different now, or at least it hits me differently.

The part that really bothers me is the kids.

There are more and more children at these games watching all of this. Watching how adults treat people who aren’t on their team. Watching casual cruelty. Watching dismissal, hostility, and aggression being treated as normal.

And I can’t shake the feeling that we’re modeling something here.

This is how you treat people who are different from you.
This is acceptable.
This is just part of the experience.

And it feels like a step backward.

What I can’t tell, and what I’m still trying to figure out, is whether this is actually new.

Are fans more aggressive now? Are people more comfortable being openly rude and hostile in public? Has something shifted culturally?

Or am I just more aware of it?

Maybe it’s both.

I remember a time when a moment like that brought people together. Now I see more moments that push people apart.

It’s hard not to think about the broader world we’re living in right now. The way people talk to each other. The way “the other side” gets treated in general. It doesn’t feel like sports exist separately from that anymore.

So I don’t know the answer.

I don’t know if sports culture has changed, or if I have.

But I do know this:

I still don’t like watching sports.
I still love a good sports story.
I still believe sports are better to play than to watch.

I just wish the crowd didn’t make me question it.

Curious what others think. Has fan behavior changed, or am I just noticing it more?