Consuming Sport: A Double-Edged Sword

I really love basketball. It is a game that I frequently I lose myself in, pick up and play anywhere, and derive joy and purpose out of making incremental improvements. It quite often is the highlight of my week. Playing basketball, that is. For me, watching the game is a bit more of a mixed bag. Especially when it comes to the NBA.

I find the players captivating. But also the statistics, strategies, and subtle salary cap manoeuvres. Once you pierce the surface there are so many avenues to finding something that absorbs you. Recently though, I’ve been questioning my relationship with consuming the game.

First, I find my emotions to be easily swayed by small moments in random games to quite a profound degree. If my team loses, I feel tangibly frustrated. Not just in jest, but no—truly annoyed. I then feel compelled to analyse the game afterwards, listen to someone else analyse it on a podcast, and then repeat the process with other meaningless teams I really shouldn’t care about much at all.

The NBA is also unique in other ways. Each season is 82 games, and teams play essentially once every two days. This almost creates an addictive element. It’s something I can kind of binge watch.

There’s also the American component to it all. I feel like supporting a team that you have in geographic affinity for makes sense. Certainly in a social way. Many sports unite people in an honest, passionate, and indiscriminate way that isn’t easily replicated by anything else. Choosing to support a random American sports team is more of an isolated and alienated experience. I have absolutely nothing to do with the city of Atlanta and neither does anyone I know. Yet, I support their basketball team. When others ask why I chose this team, I say I truly don’t know. Maybe it was the young talent, or their unassuming middle-of-the-pack status, but I honestly think it was just something for me to care about. I wanted something to keep coming back to, like a brilliant novel, or a gripping TV series; except, set in a world I was already familiar with.

Is that bad? I’m not sure.

Is this something that sports fans think about often? Maybe.

But I suppose I’m just not sure whether I actually care about the team at all, or whether I find satisfaction in having a cause to barrack emotionally for.

What I do know is that I spend a lot of time, alone, consuming near-daily NBA games, littered with annoying American ads and frustrating moments. Sometimes, I love it. At other times, it makes me feel a little bit sick that I’m wasting my time watching other people live out their dream, all whilst I could be investing that time with the people that are actually in my life, or perhaps spending it to pursue my own dreams.

Sport is amazing, but I definitely feel as though I’m derive far more value from playing rather than consuming. Right now, that doesn’t align with how I spend my time though.