It used to be that they'd put baseball games on broadcast TV.

Now you basically need a subscription to watch the team in my area. It's like they don't want anyone to see the games.

I had many of the same revelations when I got out of the military. I worked nights and Armed Forces Network played literally every game. I watched so much football on my last deployment. Once I got out, I realized how hard it was to follow football. Once I stared a family I gave up completely.

Capitalism has a price and enshittification is the consequence.

Same way I've always felt about professional sports. Do what you want, have fun, but you're taking a game way too seriously.

I want you to do a little thought experiment with me...

Sports make a shit ton of money. They have advertisements crammed anywhere they can. When you go to a stadium, the shots of crowds are almost always pre-recorded, or actors, so they can package the emotions they want to convey without risking a genuine moment from genuine fans not going exactly how they want it to.

They gouge you with ticket prices, they gouge you with food/drink prices, the gouge you for parking. If you're watching at home, you have to subscribe to their specific streaming platform, and even then it doesn't guarantee you'll be able to see the game they want.

They recruit kids in high school and college and use them knowing full well that less than 1% will have anything resembling success. They spend millions upon millions exploiting these kids.

They give quasi-legal performance enhancing drugs to their athletes. Ones that are labeled as supplements and aren't technically against the rules, but do the exact same thing.

They hide studies that say their sport causes long-term injuries. They bribe local officials to get huge tax breaks on building new stadiums. They have teams of lawyers and PR personnel to cover up all but the most extreme controversies from their players. They have people working night and day to find new ways to keep people's attention and have them consume more. They found a way to make gambling legal again and have been pushing HARD for it.

Now I want you to look at all these underhanded and slimy tactics they use, and really ask yourself: "Are the games themselves rigged?". If your immediate answer is "No, of course not! They would never mess with the integrity of the game itself!" why do you feel that way? Why do you trust organizations, that have shown they hold nothing sacred if it means more money, to NOT mess with the game itself? You know they would if they could get away with it; and with the state of the world today, do you really think they COULDN'T get away with it?

I followed futbol 𖦹°ᯓ⚽ ( european leagues and international tounaments mostly), for close to 15 years. (Mid 2000's till the pandemic)

The biggest ones for me were:

Time sink.- Games are long, I get restless now. Also, too many hours a week spent watching tv.

Keeping track of too much info- It stopped being fun when I had no one esle to discuss it with in a casual way.

I've always pirated futbol so ease of access was never an issue for me, but looking for sources is also kind of a chore.

Social media.- there's always been big scandals in sports, but now we get to know too much about the players / others themselves: this guy is a racist, this one a wife beater, or a rapist, etc. (and look, no consequences!). It was easier back then to just focus on the games. I find it hard to enjoy a match when I know the quality some of the people involved.

There's also the corruption, the lack of ethics (like Qatar building the world cup infrastructure with slave labor)... Sigh

When the world cup was on, I used to sit through all the games I could, even had them on the background while at work. Now, I'm not really excited for next one, even though it's the last thing that I still followed.

I might watch some games, but I don't feel passionate about the sport any more.

I've never been interested in the "big" pro sports as many times it's watching a bunch of millionaires working a sweat. Ever since they invented the multi million transfers, it stopped being about a sport and just became watching an investment firm

I'd rather watch local amateur games

You hit the nail on the head. The enshittification is real.

I'm a diehard Astros fan. Game tickets are still pretty affordable but everything else is expensive af. When I was living in Austin where Astros games weren't really syndicated on TV, I still couldn't watch them even if I subscribed to MLB.TV because I was in their blackout area. They make it a pain in the ass to even watch games and then they wonder why MLB attendance is down.

I'm still a big fan of all my teams but I really only casually follow sports at this time. You can still be a sports fan while not taking it super seriously.

I used to watch as much sport as I could find. Now I can't find any unless I revert to paid, or questionable, streaming sites.

I started as a foundation member of my local A-League club and remained for over 12 years, my seat never changed, but they would classify my seat differently from silver to gold to platinum, this substantially increased the cost, now it's not affordable.

I get far more enjoyment watching the 1st team of my son's soccer club – it's cheaper and I'm happy to volunteer my time around the club.

It all went wrong when the Cubs won the World Series in 2016. The Curse was there for a reason and breaking it shifted us into an unstable configuration of possibility space. More and more unlikely and incomprehensible things will keep happening unless the timeline is corrected. I'm not saying we need to rewrite history... but I'm not saying it's not worth a try, either.

I'm with you. Professional sports have gone downhill. I used to be a diehard Denver Broncos fan. I had DirectTV specifically so I could get every NFL game. During football season, I'd watch every game I could. If I were to do that now, I'd need a number of different streaming services. Apart from that, I began watching less and less a few years ago when every other commercial, and every commentation, became about betting. Draft Kings, Fan Dual, MGM, and whatever else there was. It stopped being about watching the game and became more about gambling.

With baseball, they're digitally putting ads on the pitcher's mound. A couple years ago, they added advertising patches to the damn uniforms. It's disgusting. People don't play for a team anymore, they play for a brand.

Yet, even with all the additional ad revenue, ticket and concession prices have skyrocketed. It used to be that you could take a family of four to a game and not break the bank. Now, a single game is the cost of a full vacation. With four tickets, concession, and parking, you're paying at least $500. And that's without any sort of souvenirs. To make it worse, every team is wanting a new stadium and they are forcing the cities and states to pay for it through taxes. It's greed on top of greed on top of greed.

I can't stand watching professional sports anymore. On the plus side, I now have a lot more time to do other things that are a more fun and give a better sense of accomplishment than, "Hey, my team won."

I've tried to get into watching sports a number of times before. I do enjoy the athleticism and strategy needed to play and win, but I think you picked out the bug bears I also had fairly well.

I've found playing sports much more rewarding than watching them.

I find the amount of gambling present outright obscene

I quit watching all sports, cold turkey, four years ago and haven't looked back. I feel so much better now and have more free time.

I have my favorite teams and sometimes I liken sports as a form of escapism. But, I do not ever religiously watch sports shows, listen to a lot of sports networks and actively follow anything closely. I am only there when the World Series, NBA Finals and the Super Bowl happens.

Can't say I've ever attended a game, paid a ticket, bought any merch and whatnot. All of that just sound like money sinks to me. I am as minimal effort as they come when it comes to sports.

I think quite frankly, that athletes are simply overpaid. I always often wonder as to how much of their salaried contracts could go to better things than just dumping multi-millions into a few year long contract. And trust me, I get it, it's a lot of hard work for an athlete to be in shape, remain in shape and deal with the grueling travel and schedules of some leagues. But, still, we're talking millions to people who're all set for life, regardless unless they turn out to be trainwrecks of human beings.

You should try following Sumo. Its -extremely- traditional, so the commercialism has a hard time sneaking in. Only the top two divisions are pro. There's a major tournament starting today (Sunday 9th nov) for the next two weeks. You can easily catch replays on youtube.

It is not possible for me to care less about sports. I maybe gave half a shit here and there over the years, but now the world burns. Sports are just overpriced bread and circuses.

There is so much money involved. I would almost say that there is too much money involved to leave the results up to the athletes.

How much corruption is there that never gets publicized or even discovered?

Our struggle has been the enshittifcation of streaming the games. We don’t live in the market of our hockey team we like to watch. In order to actually get (legally) 95% of the games we would need to subscribe to about 5 different services and still be blacked out for the games against the “local” team, which is 4 hours away from us, unless we also pay for cable/satellite television as well. We used to legitimately pay for the service that the NHL offered where we could get just our team, or all of the games, for one season price. Then they split everything to all the different networks so now we’d need sling, TNT, espn+ (and the highest tier of it), nhl network, prime, Apple TV +, and a cable subscription

Jays fan, so it was an interesting year. quite the finish, very entertaining

but holy fuck do I ever hate SportsNet for having such a shitty fucking streaming service. and jesus fucking christ the gambling ads.

I doubt I'll pay them next year - I only did this year because of how well the Jays were doing at the end of the year. last year I canceled mid year I think because I was sick of how shitty their fucking app was. also, what happened to the 2 minute 5 minute and 10 minute recaps? that shit was great, perfect for sitting down to eat breakfast or lunch and catch up on last night's game. I fucking loved those things in 2024 but this year they just didn't do it or something.

I never really cared about professional sports and probably never will. Everything of it is overpriced and more often than not the fans of any party are insufferable/ extreme. Hooligans and stuff like that.

I once started watching LoL eSports (G2 mostly) and even then I found the fans of any club extreme.

Love sports. All the sports I watch are currently on the one service. Occasionally I'll go to a game but prefer the lounge room stadium.

I've moved workplace in the last few years and having sport to talk about made it so much easier socially.

I do wish the gambling ads would fuck right off though.

I feel the same about sports as I have my whole life ... worthless waste of time and money.

I enjoy watching sports, but I do not obsess over it. I have a MythTV DVR setup to record OTA broadcasts. It records some matches, I watch those matches. I skip all the commercials and a lot of the boring bits TBH. Sometimes I go watch highlights on Youtube of my favorite teams.

I've stopped caring about physical sports and their broadcast literal decades ago. I only occasionally watch relatively niche sports during the Olympics (climbing for example), but that's it.

What I do watch is eSports. More exciting than watching a bunch of people run over a field repeatedly, trying to get a ball into a things or whatever.

I used to be into it more in high school and college. My hometown teams were winning and it was a great bonding experience with other guys and my dad.

After I had kids and was working full time, I didn't have time. Not to mention I was an early cord cutter, so I couldn't follow games like I used to when I had cable. Another factor was that the research on CTE made watching American football feel gross.

I came to realize, I didn't really miss it all that much. I will watch an occasional game here or there if it's special, but otherwise meh. There's plenty of other things I either have to do or would prefer doing instead. Maintaining a home and kids' activities take a lot of time. When I do have free time I'd rather play a game or watch a good show. I will keep up with the headlines just so I can have a conversation with my dad or father in law about whatever is happening, but it's pretty minimal at this point.

I normally watch some motorsports and things haven't been too bad. I've loved watching F1 but I don't want to sign up for AppleTV just to watch next year. I haven't decided if I'm going to bother watching on pirate sites or just remove it from the list of motorsports I follow.

I do watch the occasional ball sports game with my dad, or a hockey game with my wife if she wants to, and oh my god the ads ads ads. They're constant and it's unbearable. Especially all the gambling ads, it makes me have a pit in my stomach thinking about all the money they're taking from people by preying on addicts.

I feel like following a specific sports team feels like a full time job now. You can't just watch the games live, you have to follow all the players on social media, watch for trade rumors, following the pre and post seasons, know all players names and play fantasy sports. I used to like to casually watch most of the local teams play but the expectations around being a fan is too high. Since I am male it is assumed that this is my whole life and hobby when really I don't care that much. Now, I only want to watch a game with my friends as an excuse to hang out. It feels not worth the effort because there is too much content and you need to consume it all to engage with it. Makes me want to opt out

I play sport near-daily but I don't follow professional sports, and I honestly think ideally it should be abolished. It's exploitative entertainment.

• Athletes often end up with horrible overwork injuries. I remember an interview where a range of former Olympians were asked "Was it worth it?" and the overwhelming answer was no, they now had life-long injury from training.
• Sport doesn't need to be professional to be enjoyable to play and watch at a high-level.
• Like OP has said, it's a business. They are parasocial and don't care to truly involve you. They will platform advertisers who foster addiction, to make money. And I feel disgust every time I see a stadium absolutely covered with ads and uniforms covered in sponsorships. It might as well be a billboard with a patch of grass on it.

I'm obviously not against either sports or high-level competition, but as a profession? No way.

While many existing sports develop some useful life skills (physical skills, communication, decision making, strategy, ... ) I have an interest in alternative games that emphasise these. Two of my favorites at the moment are Firefigher's Olympics and Three-Sided Football.

It's all bought and paid for. Nothing much left for the masses unless they pay a fee.

We've already see baseball start to respond to some of the problems you listed, but I see it continuing to be a major issue for most leagues as the teams have got caught up in the asset appreciation seen in other kinds of assets.

The public wearing of nice jerseys has really fallen off. I live in a diverse city and in the decades of the past one seem jerseys from various sports and teams worn here. It's a very rare occasion to see more than a ball cap or beanie with a team on it now. Might be my perception of it all too, though.

That's why we Germans own our clubs so we can vote against many of the things you described above.

Good summary. Agree. The only time I enjoy sports now is watching my kids play. For me, seeing adults take sports seriously is a bit like meeting adults who still believe in Santa Claus.

I don't follow pro sports, sometimes watch the college teams or the international gymnastics amateur competitions. Occasionally a soccer (football) match of our not top division but good local team but not often. Just not into watching men play games usually. But stuff like gymnastics and ice skating is so entertaining to watch. Competitive dance too.

There really isn't any value past entertaining you, right? If it's not entertaining you anymore, the value is gone.

Oh I guess I forgot rugby. I do not follow it at all but find it fun to watch. And the college used to put the basketball games on their TV channel with all the timeouts, halftime, everything taken out so it was just st gameplay and I always enjoyed those too. So sometimes I do like watching men play games if they are all action and not too long.

For me I stopped watching sports because it was impossible to stream it for a fair price. They won the piracy fight against me personally so now I just don't watch at all.

The gambling is really concerning for me, if I have kids I want them to play sports for the exercise, but I think the downsides of all the gambling almost out weigh that at this point. It's crazy that sports aren't family friendly anymore.

If they aren’t all fixed. They are just being used to promote gambling at this point. And I’m not going to the stadium to pay $50 for parking and then $20 for a drink. Plus in a closed system like the nfl, losing doesn’t actually mean anything. You can have 0 wins and as long as someone is making money, no one cares.

The PWHL (as viewed in the states) so far has been very refreshing since you can just watch on youtube with the only real advertising being specific sponsored elements (power plays are sponsored, maybe something else too?), and the stuff on the boards— which they don't (as best as I can remember) digitally animate and change all the time during the game, any ad breaks on the US youtube broadcast just get a "we'll be right back" screen and/or a few team "ads"

Yeah the last sport I was really into anymore was basketball, but over the last few years the NBA has been doing everything in their power to get me to stop watching. They really succeeded too because I can't watch it anymore.

Mostly that gridiron football is a public health crisis and should be treated as such

I hate how gambling is everywhere so I refuse to put money into it but I still watch football every sunday.

I understand the need for entertainment. I just think the current value of watching live sports is little to none. In the NFL's case, why would you buy a cable subscription to watch a program that's only 11% the actual game I want to watch(source: trust me bro). That's like asking if someone would want to watch a show that's 90% filler.

I don't follow pro sport at all. Only the formula 1, and only through articles on news sites.

I just don't care. It's not affecting my life.

I also find it hard to stay fan of a team, when the players constantly switch to other clubs. If the people are constantly changing, how can a club stand for anything?

This week players are all about how this club is their favourite, next week they get a transfer and suddenly that club is a better fit. ...

I can't even figure out how to buy access to watch Formula 1, the F1 website offers me to buy live time track, which I don't want, maybe it's because of my region or something. I can probably research this more and find out, but the point is just have a huge button that says WATCH HERE, make it easy, it's so much easier to watch "somewhere" else

Sportsball.

So much wasted money and effort.

Play your games but stop acting like they're the most important things on the planet.

Would it be weird to say that I don't feel anything about it at all?

In other words your beloved teams are sucking…

Tickets and concessions have always been through the roof.. like fast food it has always been expensive..

Pro sports have always had advertising on everything, nothing has changed.

Time???

I don’t I what to say to you.. Al pro sports are better on time than they have ever been..

Gambling.. who cares…

Pro sports don’t involve you.. huh???

Watch and enjoy….