Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 10:57 PM UTC

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #284

dragonwriter wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is more to "sports" than watching them on TV. How about participating in them? The context here -- starting with the article, and followed in the thread prior to your response -- was participation in the culture of fandom of popular professional sports. Obvious, individual direct participation in sports is a completely different thing (and often a thing that competes with participation in fandom culture.)

No, there is a direct relation. At least outside the US, many many children are inspired to go out and try and imitate their favourite sporting heroes, and even if they aren't athletic they usually are included in the larger community and get to play and socialize. This is definitely the case with soccer and cricket. I haven't seen a single case where being a fan has precluded children from going out and playing. Per…

Post by parineum » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 10:57 PM UTC

kyllo wrote: post #175

metellus wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/nflexempt.asp Specifically, "Claims that the NFL is using a tax exemption to avoid paying the tax due on these revenues are simply misinformed. The confusion arises from the fact that there is one small part of the NFL, unrelated to all this business activity, that is tax-exempt: the NFL League Office. The league office is the administrative and organizational arm of the NFL and d…

The fact that NFL teams get taxpayers to foot the bill for new stadium construction and then the team retains the facility as private property, now that is what I have a problem with. Those facilities are bought with public money and should be public parks.

Post by lg » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 10:59 PM UTC

anextio wrote: post #276

kulak wrote: post #243

To my ears, this "cultivated disinterest" label comes off as something of a cheap stereotype. Simply put, not everyone who lacks interest in professional sports nurtures a "cultivated distinterest" in the subject, nor are we driven by some need to display this disinterest as some kind of marker of class rank or intellectual superiority. We simply lack interest in the subject, period. And when pressed on the subject,…

> nor are we driven by some need to display this disinterest as some kind of marker of class rank or intellectual superiority. Not to disagree with you, but I was under the impression that most research on social signaling has shown that it is not a conscious phenomenon. You don't do X because you think it will signal Y. You just do X, whether because of unconscious social signals you have received or because the inf…

Post by agarden » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 11:00 PM UTC

wutbrodo wrote: post #30

angersock wrote: post #5

Part of the reason I don't like watching, say, American football is that I used to play it in highschool. Once you've actually played the game, watching other people play is kinda boring. Especially when you see what a comically capitalized affair the whole thing is. Also, this part from the article is kind of silly: The machoness and absence of women in the highest levels of most professional sports bothers me deepl…

> Part of the reason I don't like watching, say, American football is that I used to play it in highschool. Once you've actually played the game, watching other people play is kinda boring. I've tried so hard to explain this to people my entire life, and gotten nothing but blank looks in response. I LOVE playing almost any sport, and when I watch other people running around on the field having fun my only response is…

Post by rwallace » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 11:01 PM UTC