Favorite sport?

[Roadgeekteen]

Football.

[7/8]

I'll go with the steoreotypical Canadian answer and say hockey!

My family doesn't watch too much sports, but when we do, it's usually hockey. To me, it has a really fast pace with lots of scoring opportunities, which really keeps your attention on the game. It doesn't take long for the puck to get from one end to the other!

[Roadgeekteen]

I'll go with the steoreotypical Canadian answer and say hockey!

My family doesn't watch too much sports, but when we do, it's usually hockey. To me, it has a really fast pace with lots of scoring opportunities, which really keeps your attention on the game. It doesn't take long for the puck to get from one end to the other!

Hockey is too low scoring for me.

[Brandon]

Hockey, but that's a stereotypical answer for a Michigander.  But it's true.  Baseball is a number 2.  Basketball, football, and soccer are a yawn for me.

Let me elaborate:

1. Hockey (and it's just hockey, field hockey is that stuff played on grass).  There's little that matches the beauty of it.  Some claim soccer is the beautiful game, but hockey really is.  The grace and speed on ice, the quickness with which fortunes can turn, the frustration of a stonewall goalie.  No other sport can make me jump out of my chair to bitch at the ref through the TV.

2. Baseball.  Subtle strategy, sitting on the edge of your seat until that pitch is it.  Then all hell breaks loose for a bit.

3. Curling.  Again, a lot of strategy, setting up your rocks, and trying to knock out your opponent's.

4. Show Jumping.  Human and horse, acting as one.  Both with speed and agility as the horse and rider attempt to jump various fences in succession.

5. Bobsled, Luge, Skeleton.  Where else can one fly down the ice at such speed?

6. Skiing, Snowboarding.  Wow, just wow on some of what they do.

7. Figure Skating.  Singles are good, but couples are the best.  It's like a graceful dance on the ice.

8. Speed Skating.

I find the Summer Olympics outside of the equestrian events a bit dull.  I'd rather watch the Winter Olympics anytime.

[Bruce]

1. Soccer
2. Futsal/indoor soccer (and variants)
3. Rugby union
4. Football/Basketball/Hockey/Baseball

[CNGL-Leudimin]

As almost always, I come up with a weird one: Orienteering!

Football.

[disambiguation needed] I assume American football, as opposed to association football which is what just "football" means to me.

[1995hoo]

Hockey, although tonight I'm wondering whether I want to continue to renew my season tickets. Come this fall I'll probably be over it. This year isn't so much a choke as them just plain playing poorly and getting beaten.

[Max Rockatansky]

Hockey, but that's a stereotypical answer for a Michigander.  But it's true.  Baseball is a number 2.  Basketball, football, and soccer are a yawn for me.

Let me elaborate:

1. Hockey (and it's just hockey, field hockey is that stuff played on grass).  There's little that matches the beauty of it.  Some claim soccer is the beautiful game, but hockey really is.  The grace and speed on ice, the quickness with which fortunes can turn, the frustration of a stonewall goalie.  No other sport can make me jump out of my chair to bitch at the ref through the TV.

Hockey was my best team sport, the one I enjoyed playing the most, and definitely is the best to go watch live IMO.  Then again I'm another Michigan native, so I grew up with the sport and the Reds Wings beginning one of the last great sports dynasties.

Really though I love sports in general.  I enjoy baseball, football, basketball, and auto racing in particular.  Really I can even get into stuff like majors in Golf or other second tier sports like cycling.  I think Soccer gets a lot of love from the younger generation in the U.S. as they are exposed to a lot more.  For me it was okay to try for awhile but really there wasn't much to draw me away from sports like hockey, baseball, or basketball.

[epzik8]

Toss-up between hockey and NASCAR.

[slorydn1]

1) Motorsports-road course, oval, drag, open-wheel, stock car, all are fine by me. Only requirements I have are 4 wheels, a steering wheel, and lots of horsepower.

That said, F1 has lost a little luster for me, ever since they went to these 3 part V-6/hybrid power units-my lawn mower sounds better than an current F1 car, but I digress. I still find it hard to argue with a car that keeps breaking all the track records set by the Ferrari F2004, even though that V-10 Ferrari sounded a whole lot better doing it!

NASCAR and it's cheesy playoff (funny when the Chase debuted in 2004 they refused to call it a playoff-now they have banned the word "Chase" to appease the stick-and-ball media) has lost some of its shine for me as well. But I no longer care about the season championship and it's gimmicky nature, each individual race is it's own micro season to me.

2) Football (both NFL and college) Even though Roger Baddel is doing everything he can to make me hate the greatest team sport on earth, I still love the game. Yeah, the QB gets all the credit/blame in any given game, it really is the ultimate team sport. If just 1 of the 11 guys on the field is out to lunch on a given play, that play is doomed to be a disaster.

[Max Rockatansky]

1) Motorsports-road course, oval, drag, open-wheel, stock car, all are fine by me. Only requirements I have are 4 wheels, a steering wheel, and lots of horsepower.

That said, F1 has lost a little luster for me, ever since they went to these 3 part V-6/hybrid power units-my lawn mower sounds better than an current F1 car, but I digress. I still find it hard to argue with a car that keeps breaking all the track records set by the Ferrari F2004, even though that V-10 Ferrari sounded a whole lot better doing it!

NASCAR and it's cheesy playoff (funny when the Chase debuted in 2004 they refused to call it a playoff-now they have banned the word "Chase" to appease the stick-and-ball media) has lost some of its shine for me as well. But I no longer care about the season championship and it's gimmicky nature, each individual race is it's own micro season to me.

2) Football (both NFL and college) Even though Roger Baddel is doing everything he can to make me hate the greatest team sport on earth, I still love the game. Yeah, the QB gets all the credit/blame in any given game, it really is the ultimate team sport. If just 1 of the 11 guys on the field is out to lunch on a given play, that play is doomed to be a disaster.

I happen to love racing pretty much in every form.  The thing that I don't like about modern racing is that every series essentially has become spec cars.  It used to be series like F-1 and CART could get pretty outlandish with design standards which made the engineering probably more fascinating than the actual racing.  For track racing I always thought NASCAR offered the most competitive package, but even still the field is infinitely closer together than it used to me.  That said, I miss the days where automakers played a bigger role with engineering standards.  Before the current spec cars the hood, roof piece, and trunk lid were all stock body panels which the actually car was molded around.  Really when the 1996 Monte Carlo came out it actually was smoking the field so badly that NASCAR started to make aero changes to balance the cars which eventually led to the spec stuff today.  Even further back in the series you had actual cars that were "stock" and then were modified for racing duty...still wish that was a thing beyond local stuff.  I'd settle even for a solid Trans Am level of road track racing which was pretty similar.

[1995hoo]

What eventually frustrated me about NASCAR is how they adjust the rules differently for each "manufacturer" during the season if one isn't doing well enough–for example, they might allow the Chevys to use a taller spoiler than the Fords. I get it, the brand identity is a critical part of NASCAR and they want to keep the manufacturers happy. But it seems to me if you build a less-competitive car, whether because yours isn't as good or because a competitor figured out something better, then you lose until you improve yours (see Ferrari v. Mercedes these last few seasons).

[english si]

Hockey is too low scoring for me.

(American) Football is too low scoring for me.

[ET21]

Hockey

[formulanone]

What eventually frustrated me about NASCAR is how they adjust the rules differently for each "manufacturer" during the season if one isn't doing well enough—for example, they might allow the Chevys to use a taller spoiler than the Fords. I get it, the brand identity is a critical part of NASCAR and they want to keep the manufacturers happy. But it seems to me if you build a less-competitive car, whether because yours isn't as good or because a competitor figured out something better, then you lose until you improve yours (see Ferrari v. Mercedes these last few seasons).

As much as I prefer F1 to NASCAR's top tier, the latter does it to keep manufacturers. Historically, every form of motorsport (CART, USAC, sports-cars, prototypes, touring cars, junior formulae) either leaves things alone to the point where one team/manufacturer dominates and the rest leave, or the rules/formula/format changes to the effect of forcing the best team/manufacturer out of the sport. You have to hand it to that sort of diplomacy, and it's refreshing in a sort of way...not every racing discipline needs to be run the same.

Ferrari is the wild card in all that, because they'll never leave F1 (and go where?), they stick around no matter what happens, even if they convince the FIA to change the rules in the future more or less to their liking. Sure, they threaten to leave the sport roughly once a decade, but the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile isn't going to call their bluff and trade their spot with say...Hyundai.

On the other hand, Winston-Sprint-Monster Cup is a spec-car series with very strict rules on the engine designs, from bore/stroke, vee-angle, leaving a little room on things like valve clearances. F1 has nearly gotten to that point, where really only the engine-vee angle is open, yet RPMs are capped. And they are missing a bit of their soundtrack since moving to 1.6L turbos.

If the racing's good, the sound is secondary, in my opinion...some of the Formula E races have been pretty good, although the talent is really evenly-matched. It probably helps that the cars actually look better than the current crop of F1 cars. Nobody goes to an event to brag about how much hearing they lost, but there's still something to hearing an unmuffled 7.0L Chevy, the whirr of a turbo flat-6, or a V-12 of pretty much any manufacturer, or really anything that pushes (or flaunts) technological boundaries, no matter how good or bad a lap time it's running.

Both of them have a cheesy plastic air to it all that seems more fussed with sponsors and their whims, and in reality, they both have a subset of stupid rules to make the sport as off-putting as possible to spectating newcomers.

[1995hoo]

What eventually frustrated me about NASCAR is how they adjust the rules differently for each "manufacturer" during the season if one isn't doing well enough–for example, they might allow the Chevys to use a taller spoiler than the Fords. I get it, the brand identity is a critical part of NASCAR and they want to keep the manufacturers happy. But it seems to me if you build a less-competitive car, whether because yours isn't as good or because a competitor figured out something better, then you lose until you improve yours (see Ferrari v. Mercedes these last few seasons).

As much as I prefer F1 to NASCAR's top tier, the latter does it to keep manufacturers. ....

That's essentially what I said! (See text in boldface.) I know and understand why they do it. It's an important part of their business model. To me it simply made it less interesting over time. I don't view something like the NFL draft, where the worst team normally gets the first pick, in the same way because it affects the following season, not the current one (assuming a team doesn't tank to finish with the worst record–which itself is why the NBA and NHL have draft lotteries, although in the NHL's case it's partly because the commissioner worked for the NBA before being hired by the NHL and he decided to copy lots of what the NBA was doing). It simply seems to me that if you build a bad car, or you have a bad team, it means you should wind up having a bad season unless you somehow get lucky and outperform expectations on the field (the 2005 Nationals might be a good example–while they finished last, they went 81—81 when almost nobody thought they'd be anywhere close to .500).

[triplemultiplex]

I like football, the type where they don't very often kick the ball.  I used to be much more fanatical about it as a younger man, but these days, I'll skip watching games if it's a nice Sunday and there's something cool to do.  I can't pay attention to football 'news' in the offseason.  Drafts are boring, a 'combine' is farm equipment and I can't stand another minute of sports media fomenting controversies.  I just wanna watch games and root for my team.

A close second is baseball.  I enjoy the nuances of the game and the history behind it.  I like that the skills baseball requires means it's not necessarily only the most athletic or strongest or fastest that can excel.  There's very little brute force in baseball.  It's a classier game.  It's also a nerdier game with all the statistics and large data sets that appeals to one's intellectual side.

[hotdogPi]

Baseball, by far.