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The problem with basketball as a spectator sport is that the marginal importance of any particular small piece of the game is small, and predictable. There may
by jowiar 11y ago
The problem with basketball as a spectator sport is that the marginal importance of any particular small piece of the game is small, and predictable. There may be awesome feats of athleticism and skill, but they really don't count for a lot, and by the end of the game, you could remove any one (or more) of them and the result of the game would have been the same.
When you think about what makes, say, movies exciting, it's plot twists. And a basketball game has a very high change of having none -- the better team plays a bit better than the lesser team, and at the end of the game, they have a few more points.
For football, baseball, hockey, and soccer, there are far more plot twists.
- derekp7 11y agoBasketball gets its popularity from the fact that it is really easy for people to play it themselves (every recess in school has a few hoops in use continuously, and every other driveway has a hoop in it or above the garage).
- jowiar 11y agoAnd every city has plenty of public courts. Soccer in the US has always been more of an organized sport and less of a street/pickup sport. It's more "something you haul the suburban kids to" than "toss a couple objects on the ground, call them a goal, and kick the ball at it". Baseball used to be a street sport here, but really isn't anymore (but it is in the Caribbean).
- jimbokun 11y agoI actually think the experience of watching basketball, hockey, and soccer are more similar to each other in having fast paced, flowing action. Football and baseball are more punctuated, stop-start action.