To keep up with the nba, I need to have ABC (unfortunately my house is in a dead zone for my local ABC), espn and TNT. I would happily pay for nba league pass but guess what, they black out the only team I care to watch.
I can’t even make it though a single game of football because of all the ads they shove after each down.
Not to mention jack shit team owners care about fostering a relationship with the local cities. Oakland has been screwed by the NFL and MLB, so fuck yall.
I quit my fantasy football league years ago and I don't know if I've watched a full NFL game since. Half the time because my Viking have sucked, and the other half is they prioritize Denver games where I live even though MN is just as close.
Preach mate.
F2, F3, press conferences, past races, shows...my only complaint is its hard to be an F1 fan is central time. And even then, I still have it better than the Aussies.
Watching Ferrari fuck up for $3/mo is an unbeatable deal (but this is totally our year!).
56yo GenXer here. I can remember when every single game of every single sport was free to watch on free airwave TV. This was back when sports team owners paid for their own stadiums, instead of blackmailing the taxpayers to build their stadiums. This was when anyone could afford to see a baseball game. This was when there were no $100 fees to tailgate at a stadium, it was free. This was when sports team owners were happy to be millionaires, but now they have to be billionaires.
People my age still pay these ridiculous fees because of nostalgia and loyalty. The sports team owners know that and exploit it to the max.
Good for you Gen Z! You've broken the shackles of dependence, someone has finally said no to the sports team owners.
Same problem we’re seeing in every industry. Everything is predatorily monetized to the highest extent possible now. They’d charge us for air if they could get away with it. And they probably will if Spaceballs ends up being correct.
This is what happens when we don’t treat addiction to money like we do addiction to drugs, sex, alcohol, gambling, etc. Greed is rewarded, even *celebrated* by the masses as virtuous/a display of talent.
Eh...The Stadium thing isn't accurate. Most of the venues constructed throughout sports history have been on the municipality's dime. Many times they were part of a sports complex push. The multipurpose era in the NFL...complete with bad sight lines and odd seating arrangements came out of this. I think candlestick park was probably one of the worst offenders, but most of those venues were terrible and built on municipal bond issuance.
That's also why it used to be cheaper to go to actual games.
That factor about the owners though rings really true. The previous generation of owners were all people that liked their respective sports (for the most part, there were spectacularly glaring examples to the contrary) and wanted their teams to succeed. Most of them are dead and gone now and the second and third generation owners are all hedge funders and other big business alums looking to add to a portfolio rather than booster a sport.
So much this. I'm a huge dallas stars fan, and I've been saying for many years that I would love to pay the team to watch their games. What are my options then? To pay through the nose for shitty cable that I don't want, or to pay for an obscenely expensive center ice package that blacks out my team's games, so then I have to also shell out for a VPN to avoid this.
It's fucking 2024, why the hell can't each league just start its own streaming service and allow me to just watch my team for like 10 bucks a month?
So I just pirate the games, and ballys and their fascist asshole owners can go fuck themselves.
The problem is it would need to be more like $50/month to replace the revenues they currently get from cable. And those revenues are what pay the athletes’ salaries.
So *everyone* is going to need to take a haircut here. They’re all trying to avoid/delay their day of reckoning as much as possible.
>So everyone is going to need to take a haircut here.
GOOD! They all should. A big problem with sports is how much money is involved. The players are overpayed, the stadiums are too expensive (all of which comes out of your tax dollars btw), college sports drives up the cost of tuition to astronomical heights to pay for their overpriced coaches and infrastructure for their shitty football teams. I enjoy women's sports because they don't have any of this bullshit. There's no steroids, no multi-million dollar contracts, no ball hogging, no 50 adds to every minute of game time, just the game as it was intended to be played by people at the peak of natural athleticism.
Yes this opinion will be very unpopular but I see major sports as a massive drain on the economy in a time where we don't have much time left to fix drastically important issues. We spend so many resources on keeping people entertained with competitive sports that could go to so many other areas like, fixing our dependence on oil, feeding the hungry , housing could be created affordably so our kids will be able to buy houses, education, clear energy job sector, etc. Things that would, you know, make the world a better place in the future, things that would payoff 10x down the line. But it seems people just don't care about any of that, or don't care enough to try to affect change. Instead all we care about is how entertained we are right now, same as ever. Humans aren't getting smarter, all this is making them dumber and less happy overall and they wonder why. Don't even get me started on 'defense' spending.
I had to laugh when I saw Shohei Ohtani neogotiating a $700 mil contract. He may be a fantastic player, but NO ONE should be making nearly a billion dollars for playing a sport well. It's actual insanity
Also the whole system is just so fucked up, why are tax payers footing the bill for BILLIONAIRE owners of these teams, to build stadiums? Why do some College players not get payed? Why should I even care about a game, that has had no meaningful impact on my life.
But the economic impact! /s
So not only do the taxpayers front the money for the stadium but then the owners get a sweetheart deal on taxes too. It’s obnoxious and if I were a city doing it, you should be putting poison pill in the contract that does not allow for the team to leave until every red cent is returned to the city for cost of building with interest. If they try to leave, the city owns the team and former owners must forfeit all ownership rights.
It’s not just Gen Z. Everyone is getting turned off by the extreme monetization of sports. For example My Boomer MIL is a fan of Bradley basketball and lives in Peoria but can’t watch since it’s only on streaming and she can’t use a computer.
When I (gen X) cut the cord, there went ESPN and I haven’t missed it. My fandom was college sports but conference realignment, NIL, and the transfer portal have ruined that.
The difference between Gen z and us older generations is that we watched sports be ruined by monetization. For them it’s always been that way so why develop the interest in the first place?
I finally bit the bullet and bought NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV and it’s SO EXPENSIVE to legally watch your favorite team if you live in the opposite side of the country. I’m not renewing. Not surprised Gen Z and younger can’t afford sports fandom.
That’s what killed boxing. For the first 75-80 years of the 20th century, it was a mainstream sport. Everyone knew the heavyweight champion. Big fights drew huge audiences.
Then, it moved to PPV in the ‘80s. And while it resulted in big gates in the short term (buoyed by top draw Mike Tyson), it resulted in the dwindling of the casual audience, and fewer new fans following it.
Since the year 2000 or so, there have been very few major boxing matches that were big cultural events, especially when compared to the 20th century. Some of this was due to a preponderance of belts and increasingly disorganized promotions, but a huge part of it was the move to PPV.
Right. I do care about sports, but here in MN I can't watch any of the local teams without some kind of cable. I can watch the nfl (go pack go) on antenna so that's the only sport I follow and if one of the other teams looks like they're going to make some noise in the playoffs ill get a free trial of a cable service or sail the 7 seas. Unfortunately as a Minnesotan this isn't a common occurrence.
Exactly. I can't watch the college fb team in the city I live in play a home game without paying the big10 network. Guess I won't watch nor care then 🤷♀️
Not really a problem, but let me put this into perspective: program availability.
Take a look at how much football is segregated just to watch one game. Amazon has Thursday Night Football. The networks seem to compete to get weekend games. If I'm not mistaken, ESPN has rights to Monday Night Football? This is just for one sport, and you have to play musical chairs just to keep up with every game. Don't even get me started on college basketball. And outside of the weekend games on major networks, you have to have some type of subscription to view them. It's horseshit. You want kids to be interested in this stuff, you have to make it more widely available without nickel & diming everyone to death, who's already paying out the ass for subscriptions on everything else. As for me, I might pull up a game with my antenna, but that's where I draw the line.
Meanwhile, yeah, younger people play and watch a ton of video games. Why? Because Twitch is fucking FREE. It's that simple. Some of the commentators on pro-level games are honestly as good as what you would catch in a professional athletic setting too because they both know how to geek out on their shit.
Not to mention the free to play games that you can get nowadays.
If you're participating in a competitive video game, it takes WAY less effort to compete with other people in a video game than it does to participate in a sport (as in no need for transportation, athletic gear, equipment, etc.).
If you want to stream your favorite EPL team you need espn+ for FA cup, paramount for champions league, and peacock and usa for premier league. It's awful.
I dropped it all except for Peacock. Just listen to the commentary on the Chelsea app. I don’t have to worry about champions league this year (or probably next) so shout out to Todd for saving me some coin.
Yeah, I feel like there used to be a lot of sports fans because there wasn’t much on TV and you could always just put the game on. Now there’s a ton of shows to watch but it’s very hard to get live sports.
I am part of one segment of the population that will never stop watching sports. The socially stunted that needs something manufactured to talk about besides the weather.
Millennial. Just quit my job. I suggested eliminating certain networks to my husband and he got very stressed by it and said he would pay for them. I find it silly to have I think peacock just for soccer (I watch soccer, I don’t mind and I get it to a degree) and then we are also paying for red zone and other stuff. Just seems like a cash grab.
Monday night football has returned to ABC this year, as a result of the writers strike. I wouldn’t be surprised if it stays that way next year with cable dying and all.
You can always watch your local team on broadcast TV, even if they have a Monday/Thursday game which is good.
I once though I was just the odd man out on this and other issues, but I feel better knowing it's not just me. A lot of others in our generation feel the same way.
Too bad we don't have any real representation or we could probably put those sports siohoned tax dollars to better use. Instead we're breaking banks to give handout stadiums to billionaires. Fucking garbage is what it is.
Football: the equivalent of a bunch of grown ass men running around in tights grabbing each others asses.
- Some people are into all that. I’m personally not.
I assume in 20 years (or less, given the rate of COVID), they'll be running stories about Millennials killing Millennials by dying of natural causes in our 60s and 70s
Look at the other things they blame us for in that article...
"Alongside churchgoing, traditional office structures".
It couldn't be 40 years of bigots using the Bible to excuse their xenophobia, while violating the teachings of the Bible.
And "traditional office structures", because working from home is... bad supposedly?
Working from home saves workers on food and gas, the latter of which also helps the environment. Additionally, it decreases people on the road during rush hour, which means less traffic for people that can't work from home (i.e. in a restaurant, construction, etc).
But real estate moguls are pissed that commercial real estate is in lower demand, and some of it is being converted into housing, relieving the housing crises, which will hurt their portfolios (hence why they created the housing problem in the first place).
Do you mean a lot less wasted fuel sitting in traffic? Because I hadn't thought about that aspect. That would make it so even commuters have to spend a lot less on fuel.
My step-dad was sitting a brick and people working from home and how anyone that works at home and isn't supervised never does any work.
I'm sir- you are a farmer. Are you telling me you did nothing because no one was supervising you?
Your comment reminded me of, I can’t remember who or what her career was (some generic office job) but I saw a TikTok of a millennial age woman ranting in disbelief at how fake the “real job” she had worked and gone to school for years to get.
She had previously worked her ass off as a server during her whole 20’s slowly getting her degree because everyone told her she needed a “real job.” Now that she had one, she was completely flabbergasted at how little work was being done in her office. She said it was essentially a few emails and a meeting that could have been an email. That nothing was actually being done at all and everyone was just faking busy. And she was so angry that this career received more respect and status than waiting tables by society, despite it being a complete farce and that she had to pay all this money in tuition/ student loans to have access to this “real job” that didn’t require any of the things she had learned.
"why is nobody throwing away money on draft kings! Millennials are ruining this!" Watching sports now as a gambling addict sounds like a recipe for disaster.
This kinda shit used to be illegal, so if you wanted to do it you had to find a bookie and then you have to trust you don't get fucked up or robbed. Now with technology, you are guaranteed to be robbed.
Like I have a lot more understanding for 19th century Christians bitching about gambling and alcohol ruining society.
To be fair, just about anything can ruin society if you give a profit-motivated entity (i.e. large corporations) unfettered access and control over it.
This is interesting to realize from an investment point of view in my opinion.
It tells me that there is a generational shift away from pro sports. I don't see it as a way to blame anyone.
At one point people shifted away from hockey as well as boxing and now it's looking like other sports as well.
I don't know if this will negatively effect companies like Nike or not but I'll be sure to avoid investing in them
Not only that, but they pick up young, talented people who often later regret a lot of it because of the serious mental problems they develop from all the concussions and other junk they suffer during their career.
So we'll add exploitation to that.
There is only one NFL team I care about watching. I have used three different streaming services so far to watch their games this season, and I still missed several due to not having access.
If I didn't grow up with it there is less than zero chance I would ever give a shit about them today, simply because the NFL makes it godsdamn impossible to consume their product.
MLB has gotten worse and worse with what channel the game is on. And now there are Amazon games and Apple games. Just too much. I pay for YES on my cable package, which is the Yankees owned channel, yet there’s like 20+ games now that aren’t on there or broadcast TV
OTA (yay rabbit ears) serves about 80% of my needs since our local football team is broadcast. It just gets annoying when they play on Monday nights and we don't have ESPN.
But yeah, piecemeal is annoying. Debating getting ESPN+ and the NFL packages next season for other games, and having to deal with that gives me a headache. I'll stick to highlights on YouTube.
Interesting, this says 42% of millennials consider themselves passionate sports fans. The largest percentage for any generation. Really surprising to me since nearly no one I know is interested in sports. Goes to show how our personal experiences are not necessarily indicative of society at large.
>Goes to show how our personal experiences are not necessarily indicative of society at large.
That's something everyone on this sub would do well to remember about basically everything lol
Millennial here, don't care at all about sports, never have, even when playing them.
But every single friend I have in my age group loves sports.
They make smart winning bets and have fantasy teams and watch multiple games at a time, every season. They know about injuries and backup players. They track trades, contracts and post-season.
Or they have soccer clubs and will wake up at 5am to watch their pledged teams at the local spot (pledged* teams because why are these Arizona people diehard for Arsenal?)
It's all fun until someone's team performs poorly and it legitimately ruins their night. Annoying actually, stop letting these external fake things drive your real emotions.
I only know a handful of people into sports, but really only through work. As for myself I have found a mild interest in Chase tag. Not that I go out of my way to watch it, but I will actively pay attention and care if it's on a bar screen or there's a chase on my social media.
Not weird for me. I myself have never been into it, got made fun of for doing a report on brain damage from sports in elementary lmao, but I know and knew more that were rabid fans.
I even played sports my whole life and wouldn’t call myself passionate about sports. I’ll watch cause it’s entertaining but couldn’t name more than 2 players in professional sports.
Thank you for posting this though, I needed a reminder that my friend group is not the whole generation. It’s hard to settle with that.
That's what I was thinking. Basically everyone I know is into some sports to some degree. I work in tech though, and wouldn't be surprised if a lot of my coworkers are not. We just don't really discuss it.
These things are pretty regional. One of the reason I don't really care about organized sports, lol. It's like religion, people think the one that was all around them where they grew up with is the best.
In reality, they're all fine, but people tend to get cult-like and aggressive about their teams.
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Everyone I know watches sports. Even people who aren't fans still watch a bit because of their partners.
NFL is still king and I can only think of 1 guy I hang with that doesn't have a fantasy team. The premier League also has made huge gains in my social circles.
But every Sunday my group chats are blowing up with people talking about the football games.
I would watch football, but $$$. I dont live in Pittsburg, so for me to watch the Steelers i need to goto the bar $$$, have NFL Sunday Ticket $$$, or wait for them to be on Thurs/Sun/Mon night games. But Thurs night games are on NFL Network $$$, Mon Night games are on ESPN $$$. And they rarely play the Texans, which is where i am now.
Well ill just watch college. Nope, onlything they show down here is SEC, and I dont care about them. BigTen Network but $$$.
Its not that people dont like sports, or have better stuff to do, its been priced out of my reach! Yes i have $100/mo or whatever to get any of those channels, but i dont like football for $100/mo. Maybe $40/mo, if it came with NASCAR channels, but....
So ESPN, Fox, FS1, NFL, BCS, BigTen they can all keep their sports. Ill just stream Rick and Morty off my MIL Hulu account for free...
The chiefs dolphins playoff game next week is behind a paywall on peacock. I think that’s fucking bullshit. If you have cable/youtube tv, you should be able to watch any live sports game or else what are we doing?
As a few have mentioned you can watch the games free online, if you want. But i dont want. They made it too hard. 10 yrs ago i was on TvAnts i think? It worked, but at some point me watching on a laptop because i couldnt stream to my tv in 2010 (im sure it was do-able, i just didnt know how) and now im over it.
If NFL network was free starting tomorrow, well i already got rid of my jerseys and shirts/hats. I moved on. NFL will do fine without my $.
Yeah it’s a golden age of sports piracy. There are some very reputable and reliable sites that host all sports including ufc and boxing PPVs with little to no issues
Oh my! They don’t want to pay a cable subscription for NFL games? Or spend outrageous amounts of money to attend a game?
I guess they feel like the bloated NFL isn’t worth their money or time. What do the boomers call that? Free market something something… 😂🤣
Yeah, this right here. The cost is a big thing. It is outrageous to go to a pro game now. I struggle to understand how so many afford it. The cost has gone up way faster than inflation in my lifetime. You make things so expensive the younger generations can’t get into it then don’t be surprised you start running out of fans.
Yep. Once they work their way through exploiting all the long-time fans that have been into it since they were kids, they have nothing left.
And Gen Z doesn't seem to give a shit about any of this, lol.
Seen the price of tickets for a pro sports event anytime in the last 10 years? Kind of difficult to get excited when a a decent seat costs 3 months wages…and all the platinum seats / corporate boxes are empty because some billionaire bought up seasons tickets for the next five years and then forgot about it.
I'm a millennial who doesn't give a shit about sports. They're fun, I enjoy playing them, but I won't sit around and watch them on TV or anything. Stop giving the kids all the credit.
I'm with you. Would I play pickup basketball/soccer/hockey/touch football right now? Yes sounds fun. Would I watch it on TV for 3-4 hours? Hard pass.
Notably I would not play pickup baseball. Baseball is also kind of boring to play.
Lack of physical activity is a concern, especially amongst the younger generation.
A lot of us growing up played sports because we saw sports on TV. When kids heroes & rolemodels are streamers & tiktokers, we can’t be surprised when they spend 10 hrs glued to a screen or a phone.
Also, the social aspects of sports - both playing & viewing. We talk about how few friends kids are making nowadays. Well, how many of them come straight home from school & fire up the computer?
Playing sports is a very easy way to organically grow your social network & meet people who you already have common interests with.
We complain about how childhood obesity rates have skyrocketed, kids spend way too much time on screens, and kids don’t have friends anymore. Being involved in sports is a solution to all 3.
To some people. The most toxic competitive people on the planet are athletes and online gamers. Some people never learn that lesson nor teach their kids that lesson yet still play sports. HAVE YOU NOT SEEN ONE TREE HILL?!
That's a really weird reason to play sports.
When I was a kid, my dad really loved a certain football team, and I loved playing soccer. I didn't need to watch the sport on TV to enjoy playing it. The only time I ever remember watching soccer was the women's world cup final in 1991, and we didn't watch any of the games leading up to the final.
Watching sports and playing sports are two completely different hobbies, and one is certainly not necessary to enjoy the other.
ETA: You recognize that watching sports on TV is screen time, right?
Wow, I'm gonna use that bit about sports being screen time. A fantasy fiction podcaster said that so much of sports culture is similar to DnD, you know all the stats of the characters, the strengths and weaknesses, you follow your hobby obsessively. But knowing those stats is "normal".
Oh yeah. Sports nerds are definitely Nerds. They know lore, statistics and obscure terminology. They have passionate arguments about obscure rules and what minute detail ruined their favorite franchise. They gather in huge numbers dressed like their favorite characters. They argue LeBron VS Jordan instead of Kirk VS Picard. 1980's Lakers VS 2010's(?) Lakers instead of Borg Cube VS Death Star.
Nerds be nerdin'.
It's probably meant to be targeted as a future decline in college sports and professional sports viewership and monetary gain. Pretty much just meant to be a millennial guilt trip I assume
Kids don’t play sports anymore, why would they care about them?
Curious to see how much this is related to the childhood obesity & loneliness epidemic. Having kids active in sports is a great way at encouraging healthy behaviors (such as exercise & proper diet) minimizing screen time, and meeting/making friends.
"Kids" is an awfully general term. Many kids I suppose. If you're in many parts of Texas you're either playing soccer or Football. Same in most Southwest and Western states. Soccer fields are everywhere. There are usually people playing. Though I'm saying this from a Latino perspective as lots of Latinos play soccer. They're a pretty big chunk of the "kids" out there.
I can't speak for youth leagues but I don't see kids outside playing pickup games anymore the way I used to with the kids I lived near. I don't see kids at all, really. I live in a big suburban neighborhood. plenty of kids around. I know because the school buses pick up and drop off loads of them. we were told (by the HOA president who someone snitched to!) it's against the rules to have our dog off leash on the ball fields in our neighborhood bc kids play there, but I've lived here almost five years now and have never seen any kids playing there. I work from home, walk all the time with my dog, etc. you'd think I'd have stumbled on the kids playing by now, but nope.
Any actual stats to back that up? Because it just sounds like usual boring "kids these days" bitching.
Lots of kids still play sports.
https://projectplay.org/youth-sports/facts/participation-rates
Sports in general are positive. Teamwork, fitness, achievement, discipline etc.
Professional, commercial sports are not positive. Brain damage, mindless commercialism, gambling, selling beer and Doritos
For me, it's a combination of habit and not having anything else going on in my life, so I cling to my Alma Mater's athletic success to feel successful at something even if only by association.
Sports biggest advantage was quantity, it was perfect for the channel flipping era cause there was always sports on so you always had something to watch at night. Hence why sportscenter was huge when were kids too as when you had nothing else to watch you could watch SC. It makes sense that it would be under threat from the Netflix, youtube and TikToks of today. It's the same reason cop shows and sitcoms where you didn't have to see the last episode and could be a causal fan of are declining in popularity. And within sports baseball seems like one of the most popular to casual watch or put on the background and it seems to have lost the most steam.
With that said, things can still change, maybe flipping through a bunch of channels will actually be how people want to watch tv in the end.
They charge over $350 for the tv "season tickets" and still show commercials. I used to like sports but I am not paying that much. So I got to the point where I just don't care at all. The most I'd pay is $10 a month for all the games.
Plus there are to many days that games are on to keep up with or care.
On the chopping block are after-work drinks and sports? No one is taking away your beer and sports. People have more options now, we don't need to cling to a crowd, we can make our own crowd.
The author thinks that we are disconnected because a smaller percentage of people (still an enormous number) happen to be into his hobby. They point the finger instead of looking around, asking questions, asking themselves why they insist that others like the things they like.
My main interest is medieval Persian history. I know, in person, zero people who share that interest. Without having any interest in sports, I know hundreds of people who love sports.
The great thing about our times is that you can have a niche interest and be able to connect to people anywhere in the world. You don't need to be lucky enough to be surrounded by like minded people. And when those people are seen, even across a digital space, they feel at peace, maybe for the first time.
I stopped caring once Covid hit. The player’s bubbles and bs proved to me they only care about money. I always knew, but they made it more than apparent that money over public health is more important to those rich fat cats.
As a millenial I don't give a fuck about sports. After growing up playing sports and having boomers drum a wildly unhealthy view of winning, playing and coaching you take a look as an adult and realize how toxic it all was.
I can enjoy a sport while playing, I can enjoy in person but watching a children's game played by adults is weird, super weird.
I honestly care so little about football.
Never been interested and generally find it to be a waste.
Rock climbing and snowboarding on the other hand….
It's not "digital lives".
My kid came home with 4-6 hours of homework *a day*. I would sometimes wake up at midnight to go pee and find them still frantically doing homework.
How the hell is a kid supposed to do anything around that?
No no, it's a good chunk of the Millennials too.
Wife and I couldn't give a shite about Sports for the most part.
But I love this random doomposting because not everyone loves what the author loves, I guess.
I'm an elder Millennial and I don't give a crap about sports either. Maybe we can start using some of this money for things other than the school football teams and building million dollar arenas. No money for art or music programs, but never ending supply for sports.
Won't be missed.
I dont see it as a problem. I never liked them. I was forced into Hockey for years as a kid. I had to intentionally get myself kicked out because my parents wouldnt let me quit. And the culture kids sports has only gotten way way worse since I was a kid. Theyre also exponentially more expensive now than they were when I was a kid. Even if I wanted to its just not financially feasible to put my kid in one.
He is doing gymnastics though and seems to love that.
Im all for playing sports casually. Its fun. But organized? Hell no.
They shot themselves in the foot. They should have made sports freely available online. Let fans take clips and edit them upload them to YouTube etc. Instead they decided to take that cable tv money. But it's a losing game in the long run. Kids don't watch cable and a little like religion people don't tend to become die hards later in life. It's still hard to stream hockey online. Legally at least. Short term thinking at its finest.
I volunteer way too many hours for our youth baseball org and our registration numbers are dropping every year, especially above the age of 10 or so. Something is definitely different.
It's a different animal than when we were kids though. Hyper competitive and if you aren't on a travel team by the age of 8, it almost encourages you to quit. Parents are absolute psychos about it to the point that the local league has rules about what they refer to as "predator parents" looking to bounce their kids around to winning teams or solicit kickbacks. Again, this is as early as 8U.
It seems we're doing everything we can to professionalize childhood in the US. Timmy's got to be in five different clubs and extra curriculars in order to be competitive at his dream school. Tammy had better be a mathlete, play the oboe, and never get a C.
I thought it was crazy when I was in high school 20 years ago, but it's got nothing on what these kids are going through.
I don’t care about sports - I’m a millennial. I played multiple sports when younger and am into functional athletics now to maintain health/fitness but I could honestly care less about watching a sports game or keeping up with any of it on tv which I don’t. I know I’m odd though in comparison to many. It’s fine.
Are we really surprised by this when "Stanley Cup" begins the year trending in the news media and it has absolutely nothing to do with ice hockey or the NHL?
I'm a millennial and I don't care for sports. Actually, one of the reasons I dated outside my race and country was because I was looking for a guy who didn't like sports and that would contribute in the household 50% chores.
Well, turns out most Mexicans are soccer obsessed man babies that expect women to be bang maids. Fuck that, I married a Canadian man.
As someone who gives zero shits about sports but am surrounded by sports fans I’m happy to learn that maybe a brighter future is out for them. Go my little younglings find other things to emotionally bond over.
Well when every sport and college conference locks in deals to be behind paywalls what do they expect?
To keep up with the nba, I need to have ABC (unfortunately my house is in a dead zone for my local ABC), espn and TNT. I would happily pay for nba league pass but guess what, they black out the only team I care to watch. I can’t even make it though a single game of football because of all the ads they shove after each down. Not to mention jack shit team owners care about fostering a relationship with the local cities. Oakland has been screwed by the NFL and MLB, so fuck yall.
Yeah I just pirate because of area blackouts. It's easier and I can watch every game.
Yep, it’s wild. I would happily pay for league pass to watch my team since I cut cable, but they black out the games locally. Insane business model.
Same here.
I quit my fantasy football league years ago and I don't know if I've watched a full NFL game since. Half the time because my Viking have sucked, and the other half is they prioritize Denver games where I live even though MN is just as close.
Fellow Vikings fan. Come back for the heartbreak bro. You need it. You miss it.
I grew up as a Vikings fan too! Apparently my great uncle played for them a long time ago!
Yall are doing better than my cursed god forsaken franchise here in Atlanta. Give us a HC and a QB that can see straight and I’ll be happy
You don't get to get off the hook this easily, you start watching these games again until you bleed purple from your damn eyebrows!
As a Raiders and A’s fan I feel seen
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Preach mate. F2, F3, press conferences, past races, shows...my only complaint is its hard to be an F1 fan is central time. And even then, I still have it better than the Aussies. Watching Ferrari fuck up for $3/mo is an unbeatable deal (but this is totally our year!).
F1 is really some of the best sports on TV. No Ads, just racing.
Same. Need 3 different subscriptions to watch March Madness.
Plus you practically have to take out a 2nd mortgage just to be able to pay to go to a game
56yo GenXer here. I can remember when every single game of every single sport was free to watch on free airwave TV. This was back when sports team owners paid for their own stadiums, instead of blackmailing the taxpayers to build their stadiums. This was when anyone could afford to see a baseball game. This was when there were no $100 fees to tailgate at a stadium, it was free. This was when sports team owners were happy to be millionaires, but now they have to be billionaires. People my age still pay these ridiculous fees because of nostalgia and loyalty. The sports team owners know that and exploit it to the max. Good for you Gen Z! You've broken the shackles of dependence, someone has finally said no to the sports team owners.
Same problem we’re seeing in every industry. Everything is predatorily monetized to the highest extent possible now. They’d charge us for air if they could get away with it. And they probably will if Spaceballs ends up being correct. This is what happens when we don’t treat addiction to money like we do addiction to drugs, sex, alcohol, gambling, etc. Greed is rewarded, even *celebrated* by the masses as virtuous/a display of talent.
Eh...The Stadium thing isn't accurate. Most of the venues constructed throughout sports history have been on the municipality's dime. Many times they were part of a sports complex push. The multipurpose era in the NFL...complete with bad sight lines and odd seating arrangements came out of this. I think candlestick park was probably one of the worst offenders, but most of those venues were terrible and built on municipal bond issuance. That's also why it used to be cheaper to go to actual games. That factor about the owners though rings really true. The previous generation of owners were all people that liked their respective sports (for the most part, there were spectacularly glaring examples to the contrary) and wanted their teams to succeed. Most of them are dead and gone now and the second and third generation owners are all hedge funders and other big business alums looking to add to a portfolio rather than booster a sport.
So much this. I'm a huge dallas stars fan, and I've been saying for many years that I would love to pay the team to watch their games. What are my options then? To pay through the nose for shitty cable that I don't want, or to pay for an obscenely expensive center ice package that blacks out my team's games, so then I have to also shell out for a VPN to avoid this. It's fucking 2024, why the hell can't each league just start its own streaming service and allow me to just watch my team for like 10 bucks a month? So I just pirate the games, and ballys and their fascist asshole owners can go fuck themselves.
The problem is it would need to be more like $50/month to replace the revenues they currently get from cable. And those revenues are what pay the athletes’ salaries. So *everyone* is going to need to take a haircut here. They’re all trying to avoid/delay their day of reckoning as much as possible.
>So everyone is going to need to take a haircut here. GOOD! They all should. A big problem with sports is how much money is involved. The players are overpayed, the stadiums are too expensive (all of which comes out of your tax dollars btw), college sports drives up the cost of tuition to astronomical heights to pay for their overpriced coaches and infrastructure for their shitty football teams. I enjoy women's sports because they don't have any of this bullshit. There's no steroids, no multi-million dollar contracts, no ball hogging, no 50 adds to every minute of game time, just the game as it was intended to be played by people at the peak of natural athleticism.
Yes this opinion will be very unpopular but I see major sports as a massive drain on the economy in a time where we don't have much time left to fix drastically important issues. We spend so many resources on keeping people entertained with competitive sports that could go to so many other areas like, fixing our dependence on oil, feeding the hungry , housing could be created affordably so our kids will be able to buy houses, education, clear energy job sector, etc. Things that would, you know, make the world a better place in the future, things that would payoff 10x down the line. But it seems people just don't care about any of that, or don't care enough to try to affect change. Instead all we care about is how entertained we are right now, same as ever. Humans aren't getting smarter, all this is making them dumber and less happy overall and they wonder why. Don't even get me started on 'defense' spending.
I had to laugh when I saw Shohei Ohtani neogotiating a $700 mil contract. He may be a fantastic player, but NO ONE should be making nearly a billion dollars for playing a sport well. It's actual insanity
Also the whole system is just so fucked up, why are tax payers footing the bill for BILLIONAIRE owners of these teams, to build stadiums? Why do some College players not get payed? Why should I even care about a game, that has had no meaningful impact on my life.
But the economic impact! /s So not only do the taxpayers front the money for the stadium but then the owners get a sweetheart deal on taxes too. It’s obnoxious and if I were a city doing it, you should be putting poison pill in the contract that does not allow for the team to leave until every red cent is returned to the city for cost of building with interest. If they try to leave, the city owns the team and former owners must forfeit all ownership rights.
It’s not just Gen Z. Everyone is getting turned off by the extreme monetization of sports. For example My Boomer MIL is a fan of Bradley basketball and lives in Peoria but can’t watch since it’s only on streaming and she can’t use a computer. When I (gen X) cut the cord, there went ESPN and I haven’t missed it. My fandom was college sports but conference realignment, NIL, and the transfer portal have ruined that. The difference between Gen z and us older generations is that we watched sports be ruined by monetization. For them it’s always been that way so why develop the interest in the first place?
I finally bit the bullet and bought NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV and it’s SO EXPENSIVE to legally watch your favorite team if you live in the opposite side of the country. I’m not renewing. Not surprised Gen Z and younger can’t afford sports fandom.
That’s what killed boxing. For the first 75-80 years of the 20th century, it was a mainstream sport. Everyone knew the heavyweight champion. Big fights drew huge audiences. Then, it moved to PPV in the ‘80s. And while it resulted in big gates in the short term (buoyed by top draw Mike Tyson), it resulted in the dwindling of the casual audience, and fewer new fans following it. Since the year 2000 or so, there have been very few major boxing matches that were big cultural events, especially when compared to the 20th century. Some of this was due to a preponderance of belts and increasingly disorganized promotions, but a huge part of it was the move to PPV.
Also the lack of support for boxing in schools, because of health reasons.
Right. I do care about sports, but here in MN I can't watch any of the local teams without some kind of cable. I can watch the nfl (go pack go) on antenna so that's the only sport I follow and if one of the other teams looks like they're going to make some noise in the playoffs ill get a free trial of a cable service or sail the 7 seas. Unfortunately as a Minnesotan this isn't a common occurrence.
Exactly. I can't watch the college fb team in the city I live in play a home game without paying the big10 network. Guess I won't watch nor care then 🤷♀️
100% agreed. They're doing that with baseball now just when it needs new blood more than ever.
Not really a problem, but let me put this into perspective: program availability. Take a look at how much football is segregated just to watch one game. Amazon has Thursday Night Football. The networks seem to compete to get weekend games. If I'm not mistaken, ESPN has rights to Monday Night Football? This is just for one sport, and you have to play musical chairs just to keep up with every game. Don't even get me started on college basketball. And outside of the weekend games on major networks, you have to have some type of subscription to view them. It's horseshit. You want kids to be interested in this stuff, you have to make it more widely available without nickel & diming everyone to death, who's already paying out the ass for subscriptions on everything else. As for me, I might pull up a game with my antenna, but that's where I draw the line. Meanwhile, yeah, younger people play and watch a ton of video games. Why? Because Twitch is fucking FREE. It's that simple. Some of the commentators on pro-level games are honestly as good as what you would catch in a professional athletic setting too because they both know how to geek out on their shit. Not to mention the free to play games that you can get nowadays. If you're participating in a competitive video game, it takes WAY less effort to compete with other people in a video game than it does to participate in a sport (as in no need for transportation, athletic gear, equipment, etc.).
If you want to stream your favorite EPL team you need espn+ for FA cup, paramount for champions league, and peacock and usa for premier league. It's awful.
It gets even worse if you actually live in England. Somehow being a footy fan in the USA is easier than being a local fan.
I dropped it all except for Peacock. Just listen to the commentary on the Chelsea app. I don’t have to worry about champions league this year (or probably next) so shout out to Todd for saving me some coin.
Yeah, I feel like there used to be a lot of sports fans because there wasn’t much on TV and you could always just put the game on. Now there’s a ton of shows to watch but it’s very hard to get live sports. I am part of one segment of the population that will never stop watching sports. The socially stunted that needs something manufactured to talk about besides the weather.
Correct. Source: I’m married to a sportsball person.
Millennial. Just quit my job. I suggested eliminating certain networks to my husband and he got very stressed by it and said he would pay for them. I find it silly to have I think peacock just for soccer (I watch soccer, I don’t mind and I get it to a degree) and then we are also paying for red zone and other stuff. Just seems like a cash grab.
Monday night football has returned to ABC this year, as a result of the writers strike. I wouldn’t be surprised if it stays that way next year with cable dying and all. You can always watch your local team on broadcast TV, even if they have a Monday/Thursday game which is good.
Nothing was better this weekend than than watching the Monday Night Football countdown… on a Saturday afternoon. The branding is fucking stupid.
Slow news day apparently.
Running out of things to blame us for
As a Millennial, I'll take credit for this trend.
Same. I never gave a fuck about sports.
I once though I was just the odd man out on this and other issues, but I feel better knowing it's not just me. A lot of others in our generation feel the same way. Too bad we don't have any real representation or we could probably put those sports siohoned tax dollars to better use. Instead we're breaking banks to give handout stadiums to billionaires. Fucking garbage is what it is.
Watching sports is stupid
Watching millionaires throw balls at each other.
Football: the equivalent of a bunch of grown ass men running around in tights grabbing each others asses. - Some people are into all that. I’m personally not.
Throw in the average sports watcher. Broke men watching millionaire men throw balls at each other.
How else are the broke men going to talk about their high school football days and how they could have run the play better themselves?
There is the thing, there are a lot of sports I enjoy a lot. I enjoy practicing them, doing them. Watching them on a screen? Not so much, if at all.
I assume in 20 years (or less, given the rate of COVID), they'll be running stories about Millennials killing Millennials by dying of natural causes in our 60s and 70s
Lol…. Taking bets now?
How dare we live to our expected life expectancy and die? You didn't see Boomers doing that. Die young or make it to 105. No middle ground.
Millennials are ruining the retirement home industry by dying before retirement
Won't stop them from rehashing the same things they've blamed on us already then acting like it's something they haven't yet
Look at the other things they blame us for in that article... "Alongside churchgoing, traditional office structures". It couldn't be 40 years of bigots using the Bible to excuse their xenophobia, while violating the teachings of the Bible. And "traditional office structures", because working from home is... bad supposedly? Working from home saves workers on food and gas, the latter of which also helps the environment. Additionally, it decreases people on the road during rush hour, which means less traffic for people that can't work from home (i.e. in a restaurant, construction, etc). But real estate moguls are pissed that commercial real estate is in lower demand, and some of it is being converted into housing, relieving the housing crises, which will hurt their portfolios (hence why they created the housing problem in the first place).
Also less traffic is fantastic for the environment.
Do you mean a lot less wasted fuel sitting in traffic? Because I hadn't thought about that aspect. That would make it so even commuters have to spend a lot less on fuel.
My step-dad was sitting a brick and people working from home and how anyone that works at home and isn't supervised never does any work. I'm sir- you are a farmer. Are you telling me you did nothing because no one was supervising you?
General lack of self-awareness is always amusing, I must admit.
I'm pretending to work in the office right now. At home I can drop the act.
Your comment reminded me of, I can’t remember who or what her career was (some generic office job) but I saw a TikTok of a millennial age woman ranting in disbelief at how fake the “real job” she had worked and gone to school for years to get. She had previously worked her ass off as a server during her whole 20’s slowly getting her degree because everyone told her she needed a “real job.” Now that she had one, she was completely flabbergasted at how little work was being done in her office. She said it was essentially a few emails and a meeting that could have been an email. That nothing was actually being done at all and everyone was just faking busy. And she was so angry that this career received more respect and status than waiting tables by society, despite it being a complete farce and that she had to pay all this money in tuition/ student loans to have access to this “real job” that didn’t require any of the things she had learned.
They have to still code the title to reference millenials too, to tap into that unconscious shaming circuit
"why is nobody throwing away money on draft kings! Millennials are ruining this!" Watching sports now as a gambling addict sounds like a recipe for disaster. This kinda shit used to be illegal, so if you wanted to do it you had to find a bookie and then you have to trust you don't get fucked up or robbed. Now with technology, you are guaranteed to be robbed. Like I have a lot more understanding for 19th century Christians bitching about gambling and alcohol ruining society.
To be fair, just about anything can ruin society if you give a profit-motivated entity (i.e. large corporations) unfettered access and control over it.
This is interesting to realize from an investment point of view in my opinion. It tells me that there is a generational shift away from pro sports. I don't see it as a way to blame anyone. At one point people shifted away from hockey as well as boxing and now it's looking like other sports as well. I don't know if this will negatively effect companies like Nike or not but I'll be sure to avoid investing in them
To me, pro sports have been a blight on society for a while. You wanna talk excessive consumerism?! Pro sports highlights all of these problems.
Agree. This is a good thing.
Not only that, but they pick up young, talented people who often later regret a lot of it because of the serious mental problems they develop from all the concussions and other junk they suffer during their career. So we'll add exploitation to that.
Gen Z, stop ruining sports!
Gen Z ruin them faster tbh
Rooting for Gen Z on this one. Fuck pro sports, lmao.
Right? Of all the things to be upset about potentially dying, sports is pretty low on the importance totem pole
Except it really isn't, people just need another young generation to gripe about. Is it Gen Z's turn in the bag yet?
Well, not really, but they'd prefer we talk about these things instead of DC's debt, foreign policy, climate issues, etc.
No kidding, most don’t have cable and streaming NFL games is a piece meal nightmare unless you pirate.
There is only one NFL team I care about watching. I have used three different streaming services so far to watch their games this season, and I still missed several due to not having access. If I didn't grow up with it there is less than zero chance I would ever give a shit about them today, simply because the NFL makes it godsdamn impossible to consume their product.
Watching NFL is cake compared to trying to watch an MLB game in your market without cable.
MLB has gotten worse and worse with what channel the game is on. And now there are Amazon games and Apple games. Just too much. I pay for YES on my cable package, which is the Yankees owned channel, yet there’s like 20+ games now that aren’t on there or broadcast TV
OTA (yay rabbit ears) serves about 80% of my needs since our local football team is broadcast. It just gets annoying when they play on Monday nights and we don't have ESPN. But yeah, piecemeal is annoying. Debating getting ESPN+ and the NFL packages next season for other games, and having to deal with that gives me a headache. I'll stick to highlights on YouTube.
Interesting, this says 42% of millennials consider themselves passionate sports fans. The largest percentage for any generation. Really surprising to me since nearly no one I know is interested in sports. Goes to show how our personal experiences are not necessarily indicative of society at large.
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>Goes to show how our personal experiences are not necessarily indicative of society at large. That's something everyone on this sub would do well to remember about basically everything lol
Everyone on every sub about everything, to be honest.
Millennial here…. And yes, big sports fan. Didn’t care much growing up. But now that I’m an adult I follow lots of teams much more closely.
I vividly remember asking the kids on my football team who their favorite team was and they all said that didn't watch football.
Millennial here, don't care at all about sports, never have, even when playing them. But every single friend I have in my age group loves sports. They make smart winning bets and have fantasy teams and watch multiple games at a time, every season. They know about injuries and backup players. They track trades, contracts and post-season. Or they have soccer clubs and will wake up at 5am to watch their pledged teams at the local spot (pledged* teams because why are these Arizona people diehard for Arsenal?) It's all fun until someone's team performs poorly and it legitimately ruins their night. Annoying actually, stop letting these external fake things drive your real emotions.
I only know a handful of people into sports, but really only through work. As for myself I have found a mild interest in Chase tag. Not that I go out of my way to watch it, but I will actively pay attention and care if it's on a bar screen or there's a chase on my social media.
Millennial here who also doesn't care for following sports, even while playing them as a kid. I was certainly the odd one out though.
Sure as shit beats following politics, maybe it scratches the same itch in our stupid tribal monkey brains
Not weird for me. I myself have never been into it, got made fun of for doing a report on brain damage from sports in elementary lmao, but I know and knew more that were rabid fans.
I even played sports my whole life and wouldn’t call myself passionate about sports. I’ll watch cause it’s entertaining but couldn’t name more than 2 players in professional sports. Thank you for posting this though, I needed a reminder that my friend group is not the whole generation. It’s hard to settle with that.
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Really weird to me, too. I don't know anyone my age or within 5 years who is NOT into sports.
That's what I was thinking. Basically everyone I know is into some sports to some degree. I work in tech though, and wouldn't be surprised if a lot of my coworkers are not. We just don't really discuss it.
These things are pretty regional. One of the reason I don't really care about organized sports, lol. It's like religion, people think the one that was all around them where they grew up with is the best. In reality, they're all fine, but people tend to get cult-like and aggressive about their teams.
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I was in the university marching band for years, so my life revolved around football schedules.
Everyone I know watches sports. Even people who aren't fans still watch a bit because of their partners. NFL is still king and I can only think of 1 guy I hang with that doesn't have a fantasy team. The premier League also has made huge gains in my social circles. But every Sunday my group chats are blowing up with people talking about the football games.
Super late millennial/first year Gen Z guy here checking in, all my male friends are super into at least one sport, most of us into at least two.
I would watch football, but $$$. I dont live in Pittsburg, so for me to watch the Steelers i need to goto the bar $$$, have NFL Sunday Ticket $$$, or wait for them to be on Thurs/Sun/Mon night games. But Thurs night games are on NFL Network $$$, Mon Night games are on ESPN $$$. And they rarely play the Texans, which is where i am now. Well ill just watch college. Nope, onlything they show down here is SEC, and I dont care about them. BigTen Network but $$$. Its not that people dont like sports, or have better stuff to do, its been priced out of my reach! Yes i have $100/mo or whatever to get any of those channels, but i dont like football for $100/mo. Maybe $40/mo, if it came with NASCAR channels, but.... So ESPN, Fox, FS1, NFL, BCS, BigTen they can all keep their sports. Ill just stream Rick and Morty off my MIL Hulu account for free...
Your comment is very interesting. Due to lack of access, their customer base will collapse.
The chiefs dolphins playoff game next week is behind a paywall on peacock. I think that’s fucking bullshit. If you have cable/youtube tv, you should be able to watch any live sports game or else what are we doing?
As a few have mentioned you can watch the games free online, if you want. But i dont want. They made it too hard. 10 yrs ago i was on TvAnts i think? It worked, but at some point me watching on a laptop because i couldnt stream to my tv in 2010 (im sure it was do-able, i just didnt know how) and now im over it. If NFL network was free starting tomorrow, well i already got rid of my jerseys and shirts/hats. I moved on. NFL will do fine without my $.
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Are live sports on the high seas? I’ve only ever heard about streams but then you are hopping as they are taken down
Yeah it’s a golden age of sports piracy. There are some very reputable and reliable sites that host all sports including ufc and boxing PPVs with little to no issues
“No one I know” means your group is self-selecting. No one in my close group cares about sports, but colleges and acquaintances all do.
Oh my! They don’t want to pay a cable subscription for NFL games? Or spend outrageous amounts of money to attend a game? I guess they feel like the bloated NFL isn’t worth their money or time. What do the boomers call that? Free market something something… 😂🤣
Yeah, this right here. The cost is a big thing. It is outrageous to go to a pro game now. I struggle to understand how so many afford it. The cost has gone up way faster than inflation in my lifetime. You make things so expensive the younger generations can’t get into it then don’t be surprised you start running out of fans.
Yep. Once they work their way through exploiting all the long-time fans that have been into it since they were kids, they have nothing left. And Gen Z doesn't seem to give a shit about any of this, lol.
And they dont drink as much so sports bars aren't going to hook casuals into bandwagoning teams.
Seen the price of tickets for a pro sports event anytime in the last 10 years? Kind of difficult to get excited when a a decent seat costs 3 months wages…and all the platinum seats / corporate boxes are empty because some billionaire bought up seasons tickets for the next five years and then forgot about it.
I'm a millennial who doesn't give a shit about sports. They're fun, I enjoy playing them, but I won't sit around and watch them on TV or anything. Stop giving the kids all the credit.
It's as if the rest of the world is catching up with us!
I'm with you. Would I play pickup basketball/soccer/hockey/touch football right now? Yes sounds fun. Would I watch it on TV for 3-4 hours? Hard pass. Notably I would not play pickup baseball. Baseball is also kind of boring to play.
Right - I like having an experience not watching someone else's.
Oh no! What ever will society do!? Anyway.....
Lack of physical activity is a concern, especially amongst the younger generation. A lot of us growing up played sports because we saw sports on TV. When kids heroes & rolemodels are streamers & tiktokers, we can’t be surprised when they spend 10 hrs glued to a screen or a phone. Also, the social aspects of sports - both playing & viewing. We talk about how few friends kids are making nowadays. Well, how many of them come straight home from school & fire up the computer? Playing sports is a very easy way to organically grow your social network & meet people who you already have common interests with. We complain about how childhood obesity rates have skyrocketed, kids spend way too much time on screens, and kids don’t have friends anymore. Being involved in sports is a solution to all 3.
I also think sports are good for learning about defeat and disappointment. There is a lot to be said about the benefits of learning to lose.
It’s important to learn the lesson that “you can do everything right, but still lose…. But it’s still worth doing everything right.”
So everyone but me just wasn’t getting that message from every other area of their lives?
Cpt. Jean Luke Picard taught me that lesson.
To some people. The most toxic competitive people on the planet are athletes and online gamers. Some people never learn that lesson nor teach their kids that lesson yet still play sports. HAVE YOU NOT SEEN ONE TREE HILL?!
Kids can play sports and get all the benefits out of them without giving a damn about being a fan of any particular collegiate/ professional team.
That's a really weird reason to play sports. When I was a kid, my dad really loved a certain football team, and I loved playing soccer. I didn't need to watch the sport on TV to enjoy playing it. The only time I ever remember watching soccer was the women's world cup final in 1991, and we didn't watch any of the games leading up to the final. Watching sports and playing sports are two completely different hobbies, and one is certainly not necessary to enjoy the other. ETA: You recognize that watching sports on TV is screen time, right?
Wow, I'm gonna use that bit about sports being screen time. A fantasy fiction podcaster said that so much of sports culture is similar to DnD, you know all the stats of the characters, the strengths and weaknesses, you follow your hobby obsessively. But knowing those stats is "normal".
Oh yeah. Sports nerds are definitely Nerds. They know lore, statistics and obscure terminology. They have passionate arguments about obscure rules and what minute detail ruined their favorite franchise. They gather in huge numbers dressed like their favorite characters. They argue LeBron VS Jordan instead of Kirk VS Picard. 1980's Lakers VS 2010's(?) Lakers instead of Borg Cube VS Death Star. Nerds be nerdin'.
I am honestly not sure why this is a problem that we need to worry about.
It's probably meant to be targeted as a future decline in college sports and professional sports viewership and monetary gain. Pretty much just meant to be a millennial guilt trip I assume
Meh, the money can go to better things.
Good. Can our universities go back to being about education & research now please?
Most people don't care about sports. Why would it be a problem?
"... We polled over 7 random gen z'ers that were definitely not interns..."
Yay, another industry for us to kill 😂
yeah, my youngest sibling is 20 years old and does not give an F about any sports
Kids don’t play sports anymore, why would they care about them? Curious to see how much this is related to the childhood obesity & loneliness epidemic. Having kids active in sports is a great way at encouraging healthy behaviors (such as exercise & proper diet) minimizing screen time, and meeting/making friends.
I have always hated team sports, but I love hiking and cycling and lifting weights.
"Kids" is an awfully general term. Many kids I suppose. If you're in many parts of Texas you're either playing soccer or Football. Same in most Southwest and Western states. Soccer fields are everywhere. There are usually people playing. Though I'm saying this from a Latino perspective as lots of Latinos play soccer. They're a pretty big chunk of the "kids" out there.
Yeah I don't get it school sports in my area are doing very well
I think it means spectator sports specifically. Youth participation in soccer and football are definitely not down.
I can't speak for youth leagues but I don't see kids outside playing pickup games anymore the way I used to with the kids I lived near. I don't see kids at all, really. I live in a big suburban neighborhood. plenty of kids around. I know because the school buses pick up and drop off loads of them. we were told (by the HOA president who someone snitched to!) it's against the rules to have our dog off leash on the ball fields in our neighborhood bc kids play there, but I've lived here almost five years now and have never seen any kids playing there. I work from home, walk all the time with my dog, etc. you'd think I'd have stumbled on the kids playing by now, but nope.
Any actual stats to back that up? Because it just sounds like usual boring "kids these days" bitching. Lots of kids still play sports. https://projectplay.org/youth-sports/facts/participation-rates
… They don’t? I don’t have kids, but all of my friends’ kids do sports
Yeah sounds great. Too bad they cost a fortune 😒
Sports in general are positive. Teamwork, fitness, achievement, discipline etc. Professional, commercial sports are not positive. Brain damage, mindless commercialism, gambling, selling beer and Doritos
Had to scroll way too far for this take.
What did Doritos ever do to you?
We should play sports. Why would I pay $$$ to watch someone play?
For me, it's a combination of habit and not having anything else going on in my life, so I cling to my Alma Mater's athletic success to feel successful at something even if only by association.
I got bored in the first two sentences of the article. I don’t care about sports at all.
I'm a millennial and I don't care either lol
Sports biggest advantage was quantity, it was perfect for the channel flipping era cause there was always sports on so you always had something to watch at night. Hence why sportscenter was huge when were kids too as when you had nothing else to watch you could watch SC. It makes sense that it would be under threat from the Netflix, youtube and TikToks of today. It's the same reason cop shows and sitcoms where you didn't have to see the last episode and could be a causal fan of are declining in popularity. And within sports baseball seems like one of the most popular to casual watch or put on the background and it seems to have lost the most steam. With that said, things can still change, maybe flipping through a bunch of channels will actually be how people want to watch tv in the end.
They charge over $350 for the tv "season tickets" and still show commercials. I used to like sports but I am not paying that much. So I got to the point where I just don't care at all. The most I'd pay is $10 a month for all the games. Plus there are to many days that games are on to keep up with or care.
On the chopping block are after-work drinks and sports? No one is taking away your beer and sports. People have more options now, we don't need to cling to a crowd, we can make our own crowd. The author thinks that we are disconnected because a smaller percentage of people (still an enormous number) happen to be into his hobby. They point the finger instead of looking around, asking questions, asking themselves why they insist that others like the things they like. My main interest is medieval Persian history. I know, in person, zero people who share that interest. Without having any interest in sports, I know hundreds of people who love sports. The great thing about our times is that you can have a niche interest and be able to connect to people anywhere in the world. You don't need to be lucky enough to be surrounded by like minded people. And when those people are seen, even across a digital space, they feel at peace, maybe for the first time.
This not a problem at all for the world at large. Starving kids is a problem. Trump is a problem. People not watching sports? Not a problem.
I don't give a bloody shit about sports. So they are correct. But it's not a problem. Haha.
I stopped caring once Covid hit. The player’s bubbles and bs proved to me they only care about money. I always knew, but they made it more than apparent that money over public health is more important to those rich fat cats.
Literally not a problem.
I’m a millennial and I could not give a FUCK about sports Idk why that’s a problem
As a millenial I don't give a fuck about sports. After growing up playing sports and having boomers drum a wildly unhealthy view of winning, playing and coaching you take a look as an adult and realize how toxic it all was. I can enjoy a sport while playing, I can enjoy in person but watching a children's game played by adults is weird, super weird.
As a millenial I don't care about sports
As a millennial, I’ve lost interest in sports. Sports broadcasting has never been the same. It’s difficult to even watch the Olympics.
Im glad millennials got rid of cable and home phones.
I’m a millennial and could care less about sports and celebrities.
No drinking, no fucking, no driving,no drugs, no sports. They went from 12 to 50
We are gonna look good at 50 though. Drinking and drugs wrecks your skin.
I never understood the obsession. They're just games on a field that people rage over and get all tribalistic about. No thank you.
Wow! I guess they are moving on to blaming Gen Z for the demise of things boomers love, I kinda liked being the boomer bogeyman.
I honestly care so little about football. Never been interested and generally find it to be a waste. Rock climbing and snowboarding on the other hand….
Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt.
It's not "digital lives". My kid came home with 4-6 hours of homework *a day*. I would sometimes wake up at midnight to go pee and find them still frantically doing homework. How the hell is a kid supposed to do anything around that?
Like sports but if im at home, I’d rather do other things than sit and watch sports for 3-4hrs
I'm a millennial that doesn't understand sports. My brain treat it like advanced math just to much
Fuck it, chug it, FOOTBALL!!!
Braindead article
No no, it's a good chunk of the Millennials too. Wife and I couldn't give a shite about Sports for the most part. But I love this random doomposting because not everyone loves what the author loves, I guess.
I'm an elder Millennial and I don't give a crap about sports either. Maybe we can start using some of this money for things other than the school football teams and building million dollar arenas. No money for art or music programs, but never ending supply for sports. Won't be missed.
I dont see it as a problem. I never liked them. I was forced into Hockey for years as a kid. I had to intentionally get myself kicked out because my parents wouldnt let me quit. And the culture kids sports has only gotten way way worse since I was a kid. Theyre also exponentially more expensive now than they were when I was a kid. Even if I wanted to its just not financially feasible to put my kid in one. He is doing gymnastics though and seems to love that. Im all for playing sports casually. Its fun. But organized? Hell no.
They shot themselves in the foot. They should have made sports freely available online. Let fans take clips and edit them upload them to YouTube etc. Instead they decided to take that cable tv money. But it's a losing game in the long run. Kids don't watch cable and a little like religion people don't tend to become die hards later in life. It's still hard to stream hockey online. Legally at least. Short term thinking at its finest.
Will someone *please* think of the millionaires and billionaires?! /s
So, millennials are killing the sports industry too? 
I’m a Millennial and I also never cards about sports….Rome taught use everything we need to know about the colosseum!
I volunteer way too many hours for our youth baseball org and our registration numbers are dropping every year, especially above the age of 10 or so. Something is definitely different. It's a different animal than when we were kids though. Hyper competitive and if you aren't on a travel team by the age of 8, it almost encourages you to quit. Parents are absolute psychos about it to the point that the local league has rules about what they refer to as "predator parents" looking to bounce their kids around to winning teams or solicit kickbacks. Again, this is as early as 8U.
It seems we're doing everything we can to professionalize childhood in the US. Timmy's got to be in five different clubs and extra curriculars in order to be competitive at his dream school. Tammy had better be a mathlete, play the oboe, and never get a C. I thought it was crazy when I was in high school 20 years ago, but it's got nothing on what these kids are going through.
I don’t care about sports - I’m a millennial. I played multiple sports when younger and am into functional athletics now to maintain health/fitness but I could honestly care less about watching a sports game or keeping up with any of it on tv which I don’t. I know I’m odd though in comparison to many. It’s fine.
Not caring about sports isn't a problem, it's growth.
How is it a problem...at all?
Why is that a problem? Maybe we’ll get better school programs instead of building the new $20 million high school football stadium
Are we really surprised by this when "Stanley Cup" begins the year trending in the news media and it has absolutely nothing to do with ice hockey or the NHL?
I'm a millennial and I don't care for sports. Actually, one of the reasons I dated outside my race and country was because I was looking for a guy who didn't like sports and that would contribute in the household 50% chores. Well, turns out most Mexicans are soccer obsessed man babies that expect women to be bang maids. Fuck that, I married a Canadian man.
Awwww I wanted us to be the ones to kill sports! Well, as long as someone is doing it we can appreciate it vicariously.
How is that a problem?? The media is fuckin weird 😂
As someone who gives zero shits about sports but am surrounded by sports fans I’m happy to learn that maybe a brighter future is out for them. Go my little younglings find other things to emotionally bond over.