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> Anecdotally, I would assert sports (NFL, NBA, futbol/ soccer) seem to be growing more popular to every day people. Are they? As average IQ continues to rise

by zeveb 11y ago

> Anecdotally, I would assert sports (NFL, NBA, futbol/ soccer) seem to be growing more popular to every day people. Are they? As average IQ continues to rise (the Flynn Effect), I would expect to see fewer and fewer people being as heavily devoted to sports as previously, not because sports fans are stupid, but because intelligent people are capable of enjoying more than just sports. The folks in my D&D game like to talk about the game sometimes, but they have other fun things in their lives too.

wall--e 11y ago
Please tell me you're not suggesting that D&D is a game of higher intelligence.
- ArtDev 11y ago
  Clearly there would be a significant IQ difference between the average sports fan and the an average D&D player. If you are comparing fans of esports vs. D&D players, that gap would probably be narrow to non-existent.
  - dpark 11y ago
    > Clearly there would be a significant IQ difference between the average sports fan and the an average D&D player. Really? What do you base that claim on? The fact that lots of "geeky" people play D&D doesn't mean that the average person playing D&D is actually smarter than the average sports fan. In college I knew some smart people who played D&D, but I knew some dumb people who played it, too.
    - brewdad 11y ago
      The fact that all of those players were in college makes them above average to begin with. Show me the D&D groups made up of high school dropouts.
      - dpark 11y ago
        The people I knew in college who watched sports were also in college... Also, attending college does not guarantee that one is above average intelligence. The average intelligence of college attendees is higher than the average intelligence of all adults, but there are certainly some college attendees with below-average intelligence.
baldfat 11y ago
Cord cutters will not be Sports Fans for the vast majority. Some will pay for online service but MOST are not able to watch sports. As cord cutters increase the sports fans will decrease. The money can only go up if the prices continue to go up to attend the games or watch live. Personally I watch basketball and more and more esports have been more my focus. I don't watch football, baseball nor hockey which I did when I was younger.
- dpark 11y ago
  Lots of cord cutters are buying antennas specifically for live sports. That's what I did.
  - baldfat 11y ago
    So you watch NFL and some college. NBA, MLB, NHL and many NFL and College basketball are not antenna sports for the most part.
dpark 11y ago
>not because sports fans are stupid, but because intelligent people are capable of enjoying more than just sports So it's not that sports fans are stupid. It's just that non-stupid people aren't so interested in sports. Got it. There has been and still is something of a shunning of sports among the "intelligentsia". There have been studies about it, and how people who wish to be perceived as smart tend to avoid the things viewed as common. That still continues but I think it's reducing in frequency at least with respect to sports. I work with a lot of really smart people. A big chunk of them are invested in sports and discuss games at work, wear jerseys on Friday, etc. Also, if the average person is really interested in sports, then generally rising IQ wouldn't change the number of people interested in sports. The number of average people is still the same when everyone's IQ rises.
- zeveb 11y ago
  > It's just that non-stupid people aren't so interested in sports. Got it. No, it's that they have other things they are interested in. Rather than spending 50% of their time on sports, they might spend 10% of their time on sports and 40% on something else. That's not a negative thing: it's just indicative of the fact that the brighter one is the broader one's horizons. > There has been and still is something of a shunning of sports among the "intelligentsia". No doubt because sports is something at which one can excel while not being particularly intelligent. Again, that's not a negative statement: it's just that physical and intellectual ability don't seem (to me) to be highly correlated. > I work with a lot of really smart people. A big chunk of them are invested in sports and discuss games at work, wear jerseys on Friday, etc. I was very careful not to say that intelligent people hate sports, because I too know many intelligent people who enjoy them. All I'm suggesting is that I suspect that as IQ rises people will spend less of their time on sports because they will spend more of their time on other pursuits.
  - dpark 11y ago
    > No, it's that they have other things they are interested in. Rather than spending 50% of their time on sports, they might spend 10% of their time on sports and 40% on something else. That's not a negative thing: it's just indicative of the fact that the brighter one is the broader one's horizons. Has it occurred to you yet that your beliefs here might just be incorrect? You're clearly biased against sports and sports fans, and you're letting that affect your critical thinking. Less intelligent people might spend 50% of their time on sports. They might also spend 0% of their time on sports. There are a million hobbies that people can have and relatively few of them have anything to do with intelligence. Smart people can (and do) watch sports, just as dumb people can (and do) hike, bike, fish, paint, cook, homebrew, and play D&D. > it's just that physical and intellectual ability don't seem (to me) to be highly correlated. That's true. There seems to be little correlation between the two. It's critical to realize that the two are not negatively correlated either, though. > I was very careful not to say that intelligent people hate sports, because I too know many intelligent people who enjoy them. All I'm suggesting is that I suspect that as IQ rises people will spend less of their time on sports because they will spend more of their time on other pursuits. I'm doubting that's really the case. Has interest in sports declined since the 1930s? Because measured IQ has certainly risen.
saturdaysaint 11y ago
I agree, and there's a world of "high intelligence" entertainment options opening up every day - deep videogames, compelling serialized TV, hyperniche social media content. The old model of sports entertainment - mostly passive spectating - seems counter to the richly interactive, highly social trend that software is leading us toward.

by zeveb 11y ago

wall--e 11y ago

Please tell me you're not suggesting that D&D is a game of higher intelligence.

ArtDev 11y ago
Clearly there would be a significant IQ difference between the average sports fan and the an average D&D player. If you are comparing fans of esports vs. D&D players, that gap would probably be narrow to non-existent.
- dpark 11y ago
  > Clearly there would be a significant IQ difference between the average sports fan and the an average D&D player. Really? What do you base that claim on? The fact that lots of "geeky" people play D&D doesn't mean that the average person playing D&D is actually smarter than the average sports fan. In college I knew some smart people who played D&D, but I knew some dumb people who played it, too.
  - brewdad 11y ago
    The fact that all of those players were in college makes them above average to begin with. Show me the D&D groups made up of high school dropouts.
    - dpark 11y ago
      The people I knew in college who watched sports were also in college... Also, attending college does not guarantee that one is above average intelligence. The average intelligence of college attendees is higher than the average intelligence of all adults, but there are certainly some college attendees with below-average intelligence.

baldfat 11y ago

Cord cutters will not be Sports Fans for the vast majority. Some will pay for online service but MOST are not able to watch sports. As cord cutters increase the sports fans will decrease. The money can only go up if the prices continue to go up to attend the games or watch live. Personally I watch basketball and more and more esports have been more my focus. I don't watch football, baseball nor hockey which I did when I was younger.

dpark 11y ago
Lots of cord cutters are buying antennas specifically for live sports. That's what I did.
- baldfat 11y ago
  So you watch NFL and some college. NBA, MLB, NHL and many NFL and College basketball are not antenna sports for the most part.

dpark 11y ago

>not because sports fans are stupid, but because intelligent people are capable of enjoying more than just sports So it's not that sports fans are stupid. It's just that non-stupid people aren't so interested in sports. Got it. There has been and still is something of a shunning of sports among the "intelligentsia". There have been studies about it, and how people who wish to be perceived as smart tend to avoid the things viewed as common. That still continues but I think it's reducing in frequency at least with respect to sports. I work with a lot of really smart people. A big chunk of them are invested in sports and discuss games at work, wear jerseys on Friday, etc. Also, if the average person is really interested in sports, then generally rising IQ wouldn't change the number of people interested in sports. The number of average people is still the same when everyone's IQ rises.

zeveb 11y ago
> It's just that non-stupid people aren't so interested in sports. Got it. No, it's that they have other things they are interested in. Rather than spending 50% of their time on sports, they might spend 10% of their time on sports and 40% on something else. That's not a negative thing: it's just indicative of the fact that the brighter one is the broader one's horizons. > There has been and still is something of a shunning of sports among the "intelligentsia". No doubt because sports is something at which one can excel while not being particularly intelligent. Again, that's not a negative statement: it's just that physical and intellectual ability don't seem (to me) to be highly correlated. > I work with a lot of really smart people. A big chunk of them are invested in sports and discuss games at work, wear jerseys on Friday, etc. I was very careful not to say that intelligent people hate sports, because I too know many intelligent people who enjoy them. All I'm suggesting is that I suspect that as IQ rises people will spend less of their time on sports because they will spend more of their time on other pursuits.
- dpark 11y ago
  > No, it's that they have other things they are interested in. Rather than spending 50% of their time on sports, they might spend 10% of their time on sports and 40% on something else. That's not a negative thing: it's just indicative of the fact that the brighter one is the broader one's horizons. Has it occurred to you yet that your beliefs here might just be incorrect? You're clearly biased against sports and sports fans, and you're letting that affect your critical thinking. Less intelligent people might spend 50% of their time on sports. They might also spend 0% of their time on sports. There are a million hobbies that people can have and relatively few of them have anything to do with intelligence. Smart people can (and do) watch sports, just as dumb people can (and do) hike, bike, fish, paint, cook, homebrew, and play D&D. > it's just that physical and intellectual ability don't seem (to me) to be highly correlated. That's true. There seems to be little correlation between the two. It's critical to realize that the two are not negatively correlated either, though. > I was very careful not to say that intelligent people hate sports, because I too know many intelligent people who enjoy them. All I'm suggesting is that I suspect that as IQ rises people will spend less of their time on sports because they will spend more of their time on other pursuits. I'm doubting that's really the case. Has interest in sports declined since the 1930s? Because measured IQ has certainly risen.

saturdaysaint 11y ago

I agree, and there's a world of "high intelligence" entertainment options opening up every day - deep videogames, compelling serialized TV, hyperniche social media content. The old model of sports entertainment - mostly passive spectating - seems counter to the richly interactive, highly social trend that software is leading us toward.