To me it sounds like you just don't like "ORGANIZED SPORTS". Have you tried something a little more individually involved such as tennis / ping-pong / martial arts / etc.?
My heuristic for personal enjoyment of a sport is that I must directly interact with the related equipment for a minimum of 30% of the time. That immediately rules out most organized sports such as football or baseball. Ultimate frisbee is contingent on a maximum of four vs four people.
I'm just not a fan of spending vast amounts of time running up and down a field waiting for the opportunity to potentially participate. I can already do that - it's called running.
In college I did sports medicine as an extracurricular activity and spent lots of time preparing and rehabbing athletes, talking with them, and also watching the sports right from the sideline, and I developed an understanding of the stakes and passion and decisions involved.
I've developed a board gaming obsession over the past few years, so I notice strategy in a lot of areas now, and I can firmly say that I can respect and enjoy the strategy in a game now. I also have become a huge fan of youth sports as a parent, seeing how desperately they need activity and time with their peers for their development, even more so than when I was their age.
The only thing I just don't really get about sports is the fervor. I don't have it in me to commit to a team or player and track entire careers, have arguments, refer to the home team's performance in the second person ("we", "us"). I will gladly watch a sports movie or documentary, though, and occasionally a game (preferably as close to the field as possible)
It might help to think of sports less as "people playing a simple game" and more as "a demonstration of human athleticism at the highest level". The game is just a pretext. When you watch table tennis, you're viewing people with some of the most finely honed fast twitch muscle fibers, reflexes, and hand eye coordination in the world demonstrate their skills, not just people bouncing a ball back and forth across a table.
You might also enjoy the data analysis aspect of sports. Sports are increasingly being dictated by statistics. It's somewhat cliche at this point to recommend it, but if you haven't already, it might be worth watching the movie Moneyball (or reading the book it's based on).
I think youth sports can be really great for people but a lot of people have a bad experience or don’t get the opportunity and that’s a problem. (A friend of mine has thought a lot about how to run a youth soccer team that develops the best players but is still a lot of fun for the average kid). Bitching about the refs’ calls is a ‘game within a game’ that players, coaches and fans all indulge in. India and Pakistan could have had a nuclear war but instead they have the greatest sports rivalry in the world.
Last year I was getting bored doing photography and decided to try sports photography because my office overlooks the sport complex. Since then I’ve attended almost any kind of match at the college level, met a lot of people, learned a lot and had a great time. I still can’t stand to watch baseball on TV but the new facility my Uni is fan-friendly and intimate and I enjoy the smells and sensory experiences.
If someone experienced what you did, it wouldn’t matter if it was sports or anything else (band, karate, even programming) … that’s clearly not the intended experience.
I’m sorry to hear what you went through.
For you it is sports, for someone else it could be that they cant see the value of music or theater or debate. To each thier own as they say.
When I'm around men that talk sports teams, wear sports jerseys and that, I just kind of zone out. It's just a circus to me. I get that it can be a fun time. I don't get why someone would absorb it (or any fandom really) into their identity. Very strange thing to me.
Also, I'm convinced that all professional sports are fixed and that there's a lot more going on off camera than we think. I think that's true of anything worth a lot of money that happens in the public eye.
I also hated doing sports - I was a fat heavy smoker for most of my life. But about 5-ish years ago I became a health freak, which also involved starting to do some exercises. I hated it in the first year+, it was a real chore. But as I got better gradually, it also grew on me slowly. Today I can't even imagine a day without a good sweaty workout...
A few observations:
1. Exertion is an unavoidable part of the human condition. Golf is a sport. Axe throwing, sport. Nascar/f1, sports. 2. Competition. Competing to some feels like fighting and has negative connotations. I don’t compete much, but having competed countless times in my life. 99.9%, it’s been in the spirit of entertainment and not judgment 3. Entertainment.
Do i despise sports? I could rephrase to: do i despise competition based entertainment? Answer, no, i cherish it. My guess OP is that you—like me—don’t like conventional sports in your country? Baseball football … snoozefest! Surely there is SOME sporting you cherish. I’m into cycling, the disc/frisbee games. Replace sport with “hobby” and ask “is there a competitive hobby im into?” Maybe on ESPN “The Ocho”? eSports? …competitive puzzles?
Skilled athletes might have had a similar experience with academics. Excuses to treat people badly abound. Imagine how it was for poor students who were not good at sports. Good luck.