What can you tell about someone based on the sporting events they watch? Here is what I have watched the last couple weeks:
Everton v. Wolverhampton (English Premier league)
Ten minutes of BYU v. Kansas State (second round NCAA tournament)
Real Salt Lake v. Houston Dynamo (MLS)
One inning of Mariners v. Rockies (MLB preseason)
Tour of Flanders (Cycling)
The last 6 minutes of Duke v. Butler (NCAA championship game)
The second half of Arsenal v. Barcelona (UEFA Champions league)
Conclusions?
Am I a Euro snob?
Possibly. I am a French professor after all and seek to identify with Europe in my professional life. This could be spilling over into my entertainment choices.
Does age have something to do with it?
I confess I just turned 40. I used to watch more baseball and follow the NCAA tournament from start to finish. I even used to watch NBA games regularly. Now I find basketball rather tedious, and don't have the time to sit through a four hour baseball game. Maybe my shift in preferences suggests a certain boredom with the sports I watched since I was a boy.
Does geography play a role?
Certainly. One of the reasons I am following soccer is because I enjoy going to Real Salt Lake matches and this has sparked an interest in European football as well. If I watched a few minutes of the BYU game it is because I teach at BYU.
What about social class?
I don't like to think of myself as a social climber, but maybe I am... Cycling is something I watched regularly before I started to ride, but that I watch more now that I am a practitioner. And cycling is an expensive sport in the US. So does watching it mean I'm trying to adopt practices of the upper class? Both soccer and cycling are more working class sports in Europe, however. But again, in the US soccer is a sport that has an upper middle class and an immigrant following. Am I trying to show both my social status and my global awareness by following cycling and soccer?
What have you watched in the last 2 weeks? What does the fact that Bob watched three hours of Muddin', two hours of bass fishing, and five hours of hunting programming tell us about him?