Football is literally one of the most complex sports that exists in the world, where every play has basically 8-10 highly specialized things by professional athletes happening at once, including one of the most difficult singular sports position of all time (quarterback). You can literally spend a half hour breaking down each piece of a single football play because there is so much going on on the field.
I am not a huge fan of football culture, as the tendency in the past was to oversimplify the sport, and there isn’t really any excuse for how damaging it is to the players nor the pervasive ownership culture that exists within it, but football in theory is one of the coolest and most unique sports of all time, and I am absolutely looking forward to flag football in the Olympics.
Football is a sport for nerds who were shamed out of their other nerdy hobbies. There’s collectables, data and statistics, fantasy leagues, and like you said every game is back-to-back complex interplay of strategy and tactics. I prefer different nerd shit, but I respect those nerds.
bruh there’s 8 minutes of action in a 3.5 hour broadcast of an nfl game. no amount of complexity or amazing feats of athletics is gonna make up for that
How is this objectively any different than any other of the most popular sports, where the majority of the game is passing shit around with maybe 30 to 40 attempts on goal per game with maybe scores once every half hour. You’ll know a football game is bad when you wake up after an hour and nothing has happened, but that’s your average soccer game. Every second of those 8 minutes matter.
Unless you are talking about basketball where defense has essentially become a joke in the last decade. I like basket-ball alot though, they are just in a rough spot analyically for the game.
In the field sports model, rugby and hurling are superior games for the spectator, however, there is way less going on on the pitch for either of those sports during moments of play.
and none of those games/activities are hugely popular spectacles which form the cornerstone of people’s social lives. football is way, way more popular it should be based on pure entertainment value
If you’re interested in football (or any similar activity where there are built-in pauses to strategieze), the pauses are largely entertaining, too. It really comes down to whether you understand/care about what’s going on.
A few seconds to think “wonder what they’ll do here,” a few seconds to think “what does it look like they’ll do from the alignment,” and a few seconds to think “OK they’re moving some guys before the ball is snapped, what’s that going to mean?” are not boring if you are interested in the sport.
Most of the people saying “football is boring because there is too much downtime” would find an 8-minute condensed version of a game similarly boring. They just don’t like football.
Soccer is an interesting comparison, because if you don’t understand or like it most of the action just looks like dribbling the ball around. What’s interesting is much more a function of if you like and understand the thing than some sort of objective standard. Plenty of people liked Bob Ross and that was a dude painting forgettable landscapes!
I don’t know of any condensed games that are all the way down to 8 minutes, but there are ~40 minute versions like this that are pretty common.
I am absolutely looking forward to flag football in the Olympics
Genuinely would like to see this,. Although with as many players moving as quickly as they are, I suspect we’re still going to see a lot of injuries. Hopefully far fewer TBIs, though.
Football is literally one of the most complex sports that exists in the world, where every play has basically 8-10 highly specialized things by professional athletes happening at once, including one of the most difficult singular sports position of all time (quarterback). You can literally spend a half hour breaking down each piece of a single football play because there is so much going on on the field.
I am not a huge fan of football culture, as the tendency in the past was to oversimplify the sport, and there isn’t really any excuse for how damaging it is to the players nor the pervasive ownership culture that exists within it, but football in theory is one of the coolest and most unique sports of all time, and I am absolutely looking forward to flag football in the Olympics.
Football is a sport for nerds who were shamed out of their other nerdy hobbies. There’s collectables, data and statistics, fantasy leagues, and like you said every game is back-to-back complex interplay of strategy and tactics. I prefer different nerd shit, but I respect those nerds.
bruh there’s 8 minutes of action in a 3.5 hour broadcast of an nfl game. no amount of complexity or amazing feats of athletics is gonna make up for that
Death to America
How is this objectively any different than any other of the most popular sports, where the majority of the game is passing shit around with maybe 30 to 40 attempts on goal per game with maybe scores once every half hour. You’ll know a football game is bad when you wake up after an hour and nothing has happened, but that’s your average soccer game. Every second of those 8 minutes matter.
Unless you are talking about basketball where defense has essentially become a joke in the last decade. I like basket-ball alot though, they are just in a rough spot analyically for the game.
In the field sports model, rugby and hurling are superior games for the spectator, however, there is way less going on on the pitch for either of those sports during moments of play.
You could do the same math for a game of chess, or any other activity where you get some time to think about your next move.
Pausing to think about your next chess move: fun.
Watching someone else pause to think about their next move: most likely boring.
and none of those games/activities are hugely popular spectacles which form the cornerstone of people’s social lives. football is way, way more popular it should be based on pure entertainment value
Death to America
If you’re interested in football (or any similar activity where there are built-in pauses to strategieze), the pauses are largely entertaining, too. It really comes down to whether you understand/care about what’s going on.
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I’m not a TicTok kid
A few seconds to think “wonder what they’ll do here,” a few seconds to think “what does it look like they’ll do from the alignment,” and a few seconds to think “OK they’re moving some guys before the ball is snapped, what’s that going to mean?” are not boring if you are interested in the sport.
Most of the people saying “football is boring because there is too much downtime” would find an 8-minute condensed version of a game similarly boring. They just don’t like football.
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Soccer is an interesting comparison, because if you don’t understand or like it most of the action just looks like dribbling the ball around. What’s interesting is much more a function of if you like and understand the thing than some sort of objective standard. Plenty of people liked Bob Ross and that was a dude painting forgettable landscapes!
I don’t know of any condensed games that are all the way down to 8 minutes, but there are ~40 minute versions like this that are pretty common.
Genuinely would like to see this,. Although with as many players moving as quickly as they are, I suspect we’re still going to see a lot of injuries. Hopefully far fewer TBIs, though.