I got interested in sports mostly coming from a gambling background (and then fantasy, which hits most of the same psychological buttons as gambling), a hobby I

I got interested in sports mostly coming from a gambling background (and then fantasy, which hits most of the same psychological buttons as gambling), a hobby I think nerds tend to be slightly more likely to care about. Betting money on a game certainly gives you a reason to care. Even without the money, people watch sports for the narratives. If it really is just two teams of people you know nothing about, then for most people, it's going to be boring. Most sports fan watching a league they're not familiar with will be bored, even if it's the same sport. How many American football fans enjoy Canadian football? Once you get to know some of the players, their successes or struggles, it makes more sense why people enjoy it. It's basically a soap opera with testosterone. And while many nerds might not be interested in sports of soap operas, the majority of time you can find some activity they enjoy that does follow the basic tenets of enjoying narratives about other people that are essentially meaningless to your life. I would say that in many ways Hacker News has it's own players and teams that it follows (Google, Apple, Zuckerberg, Stallman, etc). While the stories of these people and companies probably does impact a lot of people here in some big ways, I think a non-neglible amount of interest is derived from the same storytelling aspect that sports provides. And of course there is the tribal aspect of it, and being able to share something with other people, that glaugh touches upon, as well as the appreciation of athletic talent and strategy.