Today’s blog is about something that has been on my mind for a long time. It’s not OCR or Fitness related but it’s just something I wanted to write about. This is something that for the majority of my 37 years, has taken up a lot of my free time. Now I’ve never played organized sports, besides a local bowling and billiards league. (And I wouldn’t compare them to a real team sport like football or baseball anyway).

So I’ve pretty much been a sports fan my whole life. I root mostly for the NY teams, except for football. I spent a lot of years with the schedules of the teams I rooted for in the back of my mind. I would plan things around those schedules so I wouldn’t miss a game. I would plan to be places where I could watch the game and if someone wanted to hang out during a game, well they would have to watch too.

I lived and breathed those teams. Followed every move. Every win felt amazing. Every loss was painful. I remember countless arguments with people about why my team was better than this team. I feel stupid saying this but there was a lot of times where a big loss would completely ruin my day or the week for me. Put me into a negative funk. I remember thinking to myself “this is what it means to be a real fan!”

The amount of time I invested into these teams. The amount of money spent on apparel and tickets and merchandise. I don’t even want to know. You could say I was pretty obsessive in my fandom.

About a year or so ago, I started training as often as I could for the different races I was doing. At the beginning I knew training was going to take up a lot of free time that was being used to keep up with pro sports. But I knew it would be worth it because of the goals I wanted to reach. However after several months of watching less and less sports, I realized I didn’t care about those teams like I used to. Where they were in the standings wasn’t even a thought, I was more concerned with where I was in the Spartan Age group standings.

It also helped that the media and ESPN has made pro sports a joke. Every comment by every player or coach or cousin of a player is dissected ad nauseam. Instead of seeing highlights about sports, it because about which player is kneeling today, or which player hates Donald Trump Today. I didn’t care about that. When I did watch sports, I wanted to watch the game, not hear announcers shove political agendas down my throat. I didn’t care about all the soap opera drama, just wanted to watch the game. But that became harder and harder to find.

So I stopped watching. I stopped seeking out the games. Sure if one of the teams I liked was on tv and I wasn’t doing anything, I would watch. But I no longer planned my schedule around game times. Previously I would NEVER miss watching my teams games. Now I can barely tell you about the last regular season game I watched. Pro sports just doesn’t feel important.

Live sports are still an amazing experience to me. Nothing like seeing athletes in their prime competing at a high level. That’s something I will always enjoy watching.

I still consider myself a fan. I still have my “teams”. But they’re not important to me anymore. I refuse to get into the team A vs team B arguments, or why player x is better then player y. Those arguments make me laugh because they’re made by people who think they have better sports knowledge then the athletes and coaches who do it for a living. If you’re the type of person who takes the elevator to go up one flight of stairs, you probably shouldn’t be criticizing a players 40 yard dash time. #JustSaying

So instead of spending my time and money on sports teams and players who already have way too much money anyway, think I’ll focus more on improving me and my family.

Anyway, this got kinda ranty and is very different from my normal posts. Curious what anyone reading this thinks about it. Please comment and let me know, I appreciate and suggestions or criticisms. Thanks!