My Sports Enthusiasm Cooling Down

In case you're wondering why I haven't been peppering this blog recently with sports articles as I have done in the past, this one's for you. I've still been watching sports on TV like usual, right through this pandemic.  I followed the end of the NBA and NHL resumed seasons as well as Major League Baseball's attenuated regular season and expanded playoffs.  I still keep up with professional league soccer, notably the Mexican premier league and Major League Soccer, and regularly watch football, both college and NFL.  But I'm nowhere near where I used to be as far as caring that much who wins or loses...even for my traditional favorites.  Part of the reason is that I've grown to see sports for what it is: entertainment, not something in which I should invest a large part of my emotions, and I never gamble on games.  Since I'm neither a player nor a coach, I have no input into the result of a game I'm watching, so I'm essentially helpless if I do care who wins...other than switch the channel or turn off the TV.  I'm also fed up with the trend on ESPN and other sports media to be full of their own perceived seriousness, as if they were some force in social consciousness with their political correctness and "historical" programming like that annoying series on Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls earlier this year.  I'm tired of sports talk show shock jocks like Stephen A. Smith taunting and deriding certain athletes and coaches they dislike.  But most of all I had an epiphany of sorts when, a few weeks ago following the University of Florida's football loss to Texas A&M, Gator coach Dan Mullen urged for Florida to "pack the Swamp" (their home stadium) in the following week's scheduled game against LSU...Mullen was roundly criticized in the midst of this dangerous COVID pandemic, UF players and staff (including, later, Mullen) tested positive, and the game was postponed. The way I see it, there are too many people in this country who would gladly trade off a few extra deaths in exchange for keeping their supply of sports addiction at the same level that they were used to seeing, flowing freely to them and with full stadiums and arenas...this kind of attitude makes me more inclined to forego even casual sports watching and boycott the entire industry...