In my teens I watched NBA basketball religiously.
In my twenties I was a huge MLB fan.
In my 30s I watched the NFL every weekend.
In my 40s I have athletics daughters and I watch them play and I also watch women’s soccer.
Does it help that the US women are a dominant force in the international area whereas the men are just “no longer a joke”.
Yes, yes it does.
When my highschooler was younger we’d go watch the Washington Spirit at the Soccerplex in Germantown.
It sat about 4,000.
This summer I travelled back to the US and caught a Spirit game in the new stadium in Baltimore. Holy shit what a big difference.
The crowd now had 19,000 in attendance.
Comment on Who Wants To Be A Lemming
Wanderer@lemm.ee 2 months agoI don’t know how so many people are so devoid of understanding of something that is such an integral part if human civilisation the world over.
People find something they like. Let’s say is basketball. They like playing the game and want to be better so like watching people better than them so they tend to watch the best. Then they also find out they like watching it for entertainment sake. But anyone that has ever watched kids play sport know watching lower quality sport rapidly decrease in entertainment value.
Why would you go actively out of your way to watch an inferior product?
There are so many amateur male athletes that are better than female athletes. But no one goes down to their local game and watch a load of randomers play sport.
People watch the top league usually the club and the international if that sport is international. Then they will watch not their favourite team but other teams to get a better idea of the league. Then they will watch the feeder youth league if they want to. Then other countries leagues or lower leagues. All of these link together and all of them will be a better level than top women’s league.
Usually at the point you run out of time to watch any more or you just like sport in general and go watch the top tier of another sport.
There needs to be a reason to watch and the only reason I have found to watch women’s sport was to watch the UFC because that’s a player on player sport not achieving something. But the women have a lot less power and a lot more flexibility so the strategy is entirely different and sport looks different. In that sense in that entertainment value men can’t achieve that, in all other sports men seem to do what women do but better.
USNWoodwork@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Empricorn@feddit.nl 2 months ago
other countries leagues or lower leagues. All of these link together and all of them will be a better level than top women’s league.
That’s just not true.
Wanderer@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Yea it is. Go find me a sport where top level women have played against boys and won? It’s happened in football and it’s happened in ice hockey and boys dominate. I fail to see how a sport that is arguably most about freak athleticism will result in a more even game.
barooboodoo@lemm.ee 2 months ago
So to your first point, what are NBA fans watching when it’s off season?
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Football, baseball, hockey, or some other sport. Or maybe even some other form of entertainment not related to sports. People can be interested in more than one thing.
I’m not into basketball myself, but I do watch both baseball and hockey. The top level (MLB, NHL) in just those two sports have me covered year round.
barooboodoo@lemm.ee 2 months ago
I’m not disagreeing with any of that, just saying their opening salvo is funny because it’s pretty clear they’re not a basketball fan.
Wanderer@lemm.ee 2 months ago
I really don’t know.
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
That’s exactly right.
It’s a different feeling watching a team compete to be the best in their league and watching a team compete to be the best in the world.
When MLB was shutdown early on in the pandemic, Taiwan was able to get their league going before MLB started up again. So I watched that. But when MLB startup up again, I stopped watching the Taiwan league baseball. It doesn’t mean I hate the Taiwan league, it’s just that MLB is a higher level of play, that’s the league “my team” plays in, that’s the league my team’s rivals play in. There’s an ongoing story of your team that you’re tuning in to see. They’re competing to be the best in the world by going up against the best in the world. Everything else is just a curiosity.