Comment by vessenes

The most fun I’ve had with regards to baseball is either getting tanked watching the local team in clllege on cheap beer and a short walk to the stadium, or a team-management game for Wii where the main focus was building your team and playing the whole 200+ game season. There was still a game of sorts for the actual play, but it was by no means the focus in terms of presentation nor mechanics.

My grandmother (b. 1906)—a very intelligent lady (held her J.D.)—always had MLB game the broadcast tuned in anytime I was visiting her. The tempo and information needs of the game makes it perfect for delivery by radio.

Sounds like heaven.

Football is just a really complicated sport; one reason I think it’s popular is that it’s fun on a visceral physical individual level (“Wow, look at that run/block/hit/kick”) for ‘beginners’ watching and is also intellectually engaging as you learn more, “wait, how did they shift the secondary just now??”

Baseball - I like it in lots of forms, too. But I think a good radio announcer can get you most of the fun out of a critical at bat narrating.

Football is so unique in that the way it’s presented makes it almost impossible to understand what’s going on. There are a million rules, which even die-hard fans don’t understand. And the broadcast doesn’t even make an attempt to explain or even show the offensive or defensive formations and plays being chosen.

It feels like what we’re shown on tv is a very narrow slice of what’s going on. We see the ball moving down the field but have no idea what the coach or quarterback is doing. Somehow it’s still an incredible watch though.

I went to a ball game to watch a buddy's kid throw a first pitch. I didn't know that there was more than one first pitch. We sat around talking after their first pitch and it was already the 3rd inning before I realized the game had actually started. I must have missed the "play ball" announcement.

The first time I saw baseball from box seats after 30 years of upper deck, it was two different games. While you couldn’t hear, seeing the players speak to one another was a blast.

Lots of Olympic events seem well suited to the format. BMX racing, freestyle skiing, luge/skeleton, and a variety of track and field events all have runs that last for less than a couple of minutes. Not sure if there’s anything comparable in the realm of professional sports besides highlights

That's actually an interesting question. Table tennis, maybe? Each volley is the right length for a TikTok video, and some of them (certainly not all) have spectacular long-distance lob+smash plays.

Seems like it plays well with vertical video orientation too.

Joke answer but it would be fencing, if only we could convince people to turn their phones to landscape.

I wish it were chess boxing. I love chess boxing.

Basketball trick shots and single plays?

Swimming and diving.

post-game Chess analysis, diving, skis/snowboards/bikes/skateboards/etc doing tricks, any sports bloopers or amazing single plays (like the dad holding a beer and a baby who manages to also catch a foul ball, racing crashes, curling throws...

>TV ownership? trending down.

Do you have sales or survey data to support this claim? I’m willing to believe individual households might be less likely to purchase TVs, but my understanding is that manufacturers are producing as many or even more screens than ever, though that might be for commercial or business use. Incidentally, it’s efficiency from this scale that allows manufacturers to sell televisions at such low prices, not a lack of demand.

I get that you don't like football and you don't like television, which is fine.

As someone who's been analyzing video content industry trends for a few decades now, I just want to let you know you've reached some incomplete or misleading conclusions based a variety of category errors and assumptions. Traditional living room televisions are just one way of consuming video content. And "over-the-air broadcast" is just one way of distributing video content. Assuming broadcast television viewership shrinking also means less video is being created and consumed is like assuming music consumption is down because CD sales are down or the printed word is dying because fax machine sales are down.

The reality is quite the opposite. Video content creation, distribution and consumption are all growing at very high rates and have been for a long time. The industry puts a lot of effort into reproducible, audited measurement and has developed deep understanding of how viewership has shifted and multiplied across video consumption platforms, consumption modes, and distribution channels - ranging from streaming long-form to social snacking. While it's true that broadcast television is shrinking and traditional living room TV sales are down, far more video content is being created, distributed and consumed today than ever before, and not by a little - the growth trends are explosive regardless of how we count: viewers, views, hours, titles, revenue or reach. All the metrics measured across the entire video content lifecycle reflect the same incredible growth.

I suggest you focus on the myriad ways video content can be bad, is getting worse or has negative effects on kids, culture or human progress. But arguing video isn't growing is neither accurate nor necessary to support your point.

Hmmm. NFL revenue continues to grow, with something like half of it from media licensing. So, I think you’re wrong. My son watches NFL on his laptop, but there’s little to distinguish how he watches it from the experience he would have on a Samsung tv - he’s not like in some chat group trying to get Ochocinco to write his name on a jersey - he’s passively consuming an edited video feed of a football game with commentary.

> football as a televised spectator sport? trending down.

AFAIC, NFL football is almost always the top 99 out of 100 most viewed television programs in the US every year. The Oscars usually manage to claw onto the list and in election years a couple presidential debates make it, displacing a few regular season games. Since your claim conflicts with my current understanding, I just had AI do a quick search of recent credible sources. Here's the summary:

> "The claim that football (American football/NFL) as a televised spectator sport is trending down is not true based on recent data.

>Regular season NFL viewership saw a minor dip of about 2.2% in 2024 (averaging 17.5 million per game), but rebounded strongly in 2025 with significant gains—averaging around 18.7 million viewers per game (up 10% from the prior season in some reports, marking the highest in 36 years or second-highest on record when including updated measurement methods like Nielsen's Big Data + out-of-home viewing). Networks like CBS, Fox, NBC, and Amazon all reported year-over-year increases, with streaming platforms showing particularly strong growth.

> Super Bowl audiences continue setting records: Super Bowl LIX (2025) averaged 127.7 million viewers (up 3% from the previous year), marking consecutive record highs. Playoff games, including wild-card and divisional rounds, also showed double-digit increases in multiple cases. While some earlier seasons had slight declines (often tied to factors like election years or measurement changes), the overall trend since 2024-2025 has been upward, reinforcing the NFL's position as the dominant U.S. televised sport."

Your impression may arise from shifting measurement platform data due to increasing out-of-home, mobile, streaming, DVR, etc viewership. Just comparing traditional old-school Nielsen in-home diary data alone hasn't been accurate for over a decade. Even if we discount recent cross-platform measurement data, the overwhelming dominance of NFL football is also well supported by the audited financial reports of what broadcasters and streamers pay the NFL and further by what advertisers pay for slots. The sheer money being paid dwarfs all other sports and types of television programming (news, drama, comedy, etc). The recent dramatic growth of legalized sports gambling in the US will likely push NFL viewership across all platforms and formats even higher.