Is football overrated as entertainment?

VeevaVee

The worst "V"
Scout
Joined
Jan 3, 2009
Messages
46,248
Location
Manchester
We're 2nd in one of, if not the best league in the world in top flight football, and yet for the majority of this season we've been pretty unenjoyable to watch.

This has to be pretty damning of football, doesn't it?

Sure, there's the occasional great game or epic moment, but they're pretty rare in the grand scheme of things, aren't they?
 

Blades1889

Full Member
Joined
Apr 27, 2019
Messages
1,398
Supports
Sheffield United
We're 2nd in one of, if not the best league in the world in top flight football, and yet for the majority of this season we've been pretty unenjoyable to watch.

This has to be pretty damning of football, doesn't it?

Sure, there's the occasional great game or epic moment, but they're pretty rare in the grand scheme of things, aren't they?
Most of my enjoyment comes from actually being at a match so not being able to do that has made it far less entertaining.
 

acnumber9

Full Member
Joined
Jun 21, 2006
Messages
22,253
I think as money has become more and more important the quality has gone down. Teams just can’t afford to lose. Thrown in with pressing to force mistakes being the be all and end all make a lot of games a drag. Or it could be because United aren’t very good.
 

Dansk

Full Member
Joined
May 7, 2017
Messages
1,377
The modern "metagame," for lack of a better term, is just terrible to watch. Everything's so cautious and defensive. There's rarely a game that gets my pulse up, and that's not just United. It's basically all of European football.
 

SER19

Full Member
Joined
Apr 15, 2008
Messages
12,478
For any United fan these days, yes. But overall in recent years possibly yes also. City have walked a title in second gear. Its alot of time to invest over 9 months for something fairly predictable
 

Zen86

Full Member
Joined
Jul 1, 2007
Messages
13,871
Location
Sunny Manc
Stats and spreadsheets seem to be the most entertaining aspect of football now. Football has been a bit gash for a few years.
 

SER19

Full Member
Joined
Apr 15, 2008
Messages
12,478
The modern "metagame," for lack of a better term, is just terrible to watch. Everything's so cautious and defensive. There's rarely a game that gets my pulse up, and that's not just United. It's basically all of European football.
And the few examples that often counter this in recent years have mostly been capitulation of teams rather than great games
 

El Zoido

Full Member
Joined
Jun 7, 2013
Messages
12,259
Location
UK
I grew up watching us in the 90’s and spent my 20’s watching us win in the 2000’s. So I don’t think football will ever get better for me, even if we suddenly became incredible and won 5 league and CL’s in a row, it’ll never top those formative years.
 
Joined
May 22, 2017
Messages
13,122
The modern "metagame," for lack of a better term, is just terrible to watch. Everything's so cautious and defensive. There's rarely a game that gets my pulse up, and that's not just United. It's basically all of European football.
I can only remember the Leeds match this season. I’m not counting the Southampton match.

the vast majority of teams are disciplined and well drilled, no one ever takes any risks.
 

KeanoMagicHat

Full Member
Joined
Mar 31, 2019
Messages
3,940
Yes, it's oversaturated and overpromoted and the authorities are trying to put more and more on top of us, rather than less, by expanding the Champions League, Euros and World Cup.

United at home to Brighton would be standard 3pm on Saturday fodder with about 6 other games about 10-15 years ago. Instead it's on at 7.30 on Sunday on its own. It'd be fine if you had goal updates from other matches. A lot of PL games aren't good enough to dominate the attention on their own.

League football is never that interesting. There's a reason why the FA Cup was bigger than the league for most of English football history. And the CL and World Cup matter so much. It's only Sky's relentless marketing and money that have made the league into bigger than it should be.

I just can't care that much if United finish 2nd or 3rd when they're 17 points behind City. If it was a cup match, Brighton could be knocking us out here, it would make you sit up on your chair a bit more.

The best football remains the CL, Euros and World Cup. But even they were better before, for example the 16-team CL and Euros were the perfect amount of football I think.
 

One Night Only

Prison Bitch #24604
Joined
Oct 16, 2009
Messages
30,643
Location
Westworld
We're 2nd in one of, if not the best league in the world in top flight football, and yet for the majority of this season we've been pretty unenjoyable to watch.

This has to be pretty damning of football, doesn't it?

Sure, there's the occasional great game or epic moment, but they're pretty rare in the grand scheme of things, aren't they?
It's more depressing than anything else. If we win I'm buzzing for 15mins and then forget about it pretty much, unless it's beating city or Liverpool.

If we lose I don't seem to be able to forget it and seems to pop up everywhere, 6 billion replays on TV, BBC have 12 articles on it, and all over Facebook.

I don't enjoy football in general half as much as I used to tbh.
 

Skills

Snitch
Joined
Jan 17, 2012
Messages
42,010
I think we're living through quite an entertaining era of football. Teams generally play quite a progressive, attacking and aggressive brand of football.

Unfortunately, Manchester United aren't one of them.
 

chiz2kul

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Nov 17, 2012
Messages
680
Can't tell if OP is serious or not. Regardless, the position of the club has absolutely nothing to do with if football is entertaining or not. What sort of entitled post is this?
 

OnlyTwoDaSilvas

Gullible
Joined
Feb 4, 2013
Messages
21,623
Location
The Mathews Bridge
Football isn't a great spectator sport for a neutral IMO. What makes it worth watching is having some sort of connection to a team that is playing. The only thing that keeps me watching United is that connection. I occasionally put on a game not involving United and I usually lose interest partway through. Even watching a very well coached team or a team full of superstars just doesn't thrill me as a source of entertainment. For a neutral spectacle, there's a good few other sports I'd rather watch.
 

WeePat

Full Member
Joined
Apr 13, 2015
Messages
17,187
Supports
Chelsea
Most of my enjoyment comes from actually being at a match so not being able to do that has made it far less entertaining.
I'd agree with this. Football was always a social event, either at the game or in some kind of establishment or house with mates. Take that away and you take away about 80% of the enjoyment for me. Watching it on the tele on my own is OK but not being able to share great moments or even terrible days like yesterday with your mates almost makes it all pointless.
 

Patchbeard

Full Member
Joined
Apr 11, 2013
Messages
2,559
There are more goals than ever though in the Premier League. But our home games have been almost as dull as the LVG era.
 

Jonno

Full Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2010
Messages
8,375
Location
Preston, Lancashire
No fans is a compromise of the sport, let’s be honest. Any team can go a goal down and not respond these days, due to lack of stadium support.

i can’t wait for fans to return
 

slored1

Full Member
Joined
May 15, 2016
Messages
3,532
Don't know about you but I still like it. Maybe my standards have dropped, but for me football is not all about winning and enjoying every game, if it were that I'd support City. It's more about supporting the team, talking to friends, being nervous when a game is on, etc. If you are neutral, it's quite boring overall, yeah.
 

Schmeichel's Cartwheel

Correctly predicted Italy to win Euro 2020
Joined
Dec 21, 2014
Messages
11,420
Location
Manchester
Football when played well is extremely entertaining. United haven’t been consistently entertaining since about 2009 though. We had a spell at the beginning of 11-12 where we were incredible & really fun to watch but after the 1-6 to City we tightened up. Since Fergie it’s been the occasional good game in a myriad of boring crap.
 

KeanoMagicHat

Full Member
Joined
Mar 31, 2019
Messages
3,940
There hasn't been a good PL title race now since 2014 really. 18/19 was a close title race, but it wasn't really exciting. Volatility in scorelines or positions makes sport interesting. City won 14 straight games to finish out the season. No volatility at all. Pretty much year after year of hardly anything to play for by April, yet they'll expect people to pay to watch to see if Burnley or Southampton finish 14th or 16th.
 

Spaghetti

Mom's
Joined
Aug 15, 2012
Messages
1,463
Location
Barcelona
Football isn't a great spectator sport for a neutral IMO. What makes it worth watching is having some sort of connection to a team that is playing. The only thing that keeps me watching United is that connection. I occasionally put on a game not involving United and I usually lose interest partway through. Even watching a very well coached team or a team full of superstars just doesn't thrill me as a source of entertainment. For a neutral spectacle, there's a good few other sports I'd rather watch.
This. The connection and passion for a team is the main thing.

Also, the actual watching of the game has never been great, it’s talking about it and arguing about it. And of course, going to the ground / pub with your mates to watch it.
 

Inigo Montoya

Leave Wayne Rooney alone!!
Joined
Oct 1, 2008
Messages
38,543
I think we're living through quite an entertaining era of football. Teams generally play quite a progressive, attacking and aggressive brand of football.

Unfortunately, Manchester United aren't one of them.
Depends what you define as entertaining. We’ve contributed to as much drama and excitement as any team even if some of it has been for the wrong reasons. No team playing us can really predict what Utd can turn up.

Football on the whole as sporting entertainment though? Yes grossly overrated. The rule that a game can end in a draw with no winner generally means teams can be negative
 

Vidyoyo

The bad "V"
Joined
Jun 12, 2014
Messages
21,283
Location
Not into locations = will not dwell
I'll go the other way... I still love watching us play but have zero motivation to watch other teams.

It feels suddenly like there's much less variation in terms of goals scored with footballers themselves more resembling athletes rather than entertainers. It kinda reminds me of Tennis.

This season is especially poor of course because of the lack of crowds.
 
Last edited:

Jev

Full Member
Joined
Apr 7, 2008
Messages
7,851
Location
Denmark
Football has a huge entertainment problem that needs to be addressed if the game is to appeal to younger generations.

Much more needs to be done to encourage and reward attacking football. Maybe the offside rule should be scrapped, maybe you should reward points per goal, maybe there should be a limit to the amount of defensive players in the penalty area. I don't know but something should be done to make bus-parking a less viable and effective strategy.

I also think we should change the length of the game to 2x30 minutes and then make it effective playing time, which would eliminate the absolutely ridiculous amounts of time-wasting and injury-feigning we're seeing.
 

SAFMUTD

New Member
Joined
Mar 14, 2018
Messages
11,787
Football isnt overrated, watch Bayern and youll have as much entertainment as you like, is just that we play awful. But we are not the entire sport, just a poorly coached team.
 

Blades1889

Full Member
Joined
Apr 27, 2019
Messages
1,398
Supports
Sheffield United
I'd agree with this. Football was always a social event, either at the game or in some kind of establishment or house with mates. Take that away and you take away about 80% of the enjoyment for me. Watching it on the tele on my own is OK but not being able to share great moments or even terrible days like yesterday with your mates almost makes it all pointless.
You will forget the majority of games you watch on tv. If you’re a match goer, it’s about the day as a whole not just the 90 mins.
 
Joined
May 22, 2017
Messages
13,122
It probably doesn’t help that every game this season is on tv.

I love Magnum’s but once I’m in my 4th one I’m bloody sick of them.
 

Cassidy

No longer at risk of being mistaken for a Scouser
Joined
Oct 2, 2013
Messages
31,029
Football isnt overrated, watch Bayern and youll have as much entertainment as you like, is just that we play awful. But we are not the entire sport, just a poorly coached team.
I think football has become more about athletes and less about artistry and technicians. Which in my opinion has taken some of the entertainment away. Entertainment and entertainers as players in the game has become somewhat of a luxury
 

KeanoMagicHat

Full Member
Joined
Mar 31, 2019
Messages
3,940
I also attribute my slight loss of love for football on watching too many 90 minute matches and no longer watching Match of the Day. Football is actually quite perfectly made for 10-minute highlight purposes. There are long periods in almost every match where nothing really happens. But because you can watch 90 minute matches, you often do now, even though you'd be better served watching highlights a lot of the time.

It's a bit like watching the news. A half hour TV round-up serves all purposes when a big story breaks. But the temptation is there to watch Sky News or CNN talking heads talk about nothing, just in case something happens live.
 

Massive Spanner

Give Mason Mount a chance!
Joined
Jul 2, 2014
Messages
27,891
Location
Tool shed
I'll go the other way... I still love watching us play but have zero motivation to watch other teams.

It feels suddenly like there's much less variation in terms of goals scored with footballers themselves more resembling athletes rather than entertainers. It kinda reminds me of Tennis.

This season is especially poor of course because of the lack of crowds.
Pretty much the same as me but I can't say I love watching some of our games. Maybe look forward to.

But football in general, not really arsed anymore.
 

Olly Gunnar Solskjær

Marxist bacon-hating kebab-dodging Tinder rascal
Scout
Joined
Jan 26, 2008
Messages
36,895
Location
dreams can't be buy
It's 90 minutes of boredom waiting for the odd random opportunity for 30 seconds of happiness here and there. If it was a film, album or video game giving you that ratio of enjoyment you wouldn't put up with it.
 

SAFMUTD

New Member
Joined
Mar 14, 2018
Messages
11,787
I think football has become more about athletes and less about artistry and technicians. Which in my opinion has taken some of the entertainment away. Entertainment and entertainers as players in the game has become somewhat of a luxury
Its about expectations, we tend to romanticize the past, during the covid break last year espn was streaming a lot of old games from the late 90s early 00s, they were awful games. So slow and more about kicking and running players. I remember thinking how the actual feck does this games where enjoyable when I watched them. Football has clearly improved is just that we've been seeing shitty performances for about 8 years now. It clearly impacts our perception of the game.
 

KeanoMagicHat

Full Member
Joined
Mar 31, 2019
Messages
3,940
Its about expectations, we tend to romanticize the past, during the covid break last year espn was streaming a lot of old games from the late 90s early 00s, they were awful games. So slow and more about kicking and running players. I remember thinking how the actual feck does this games where enjoyable when I watched them. Football has clearly improved is just that we've been seeing shitty performances for about 8 years now. It clearly impacts our perception of the game.
There used to be a magic about European games, because some star players you'd never seen play before, like the Milan or Real Madrid stars. Now you can read, watch and know their every movement before they play us.

You're right that there were just as many bad games in the 90s and 00s but they weren't on TV so some TV producer kindly broke it down to 5 minutes for you and you just continued with your day.
 

Cassidy

No longer at risk of being mistaken for a Scouser
Joined
Oct 2, 2013
Messages
31,029
Its about expectations, we tend to romanticize the past, during the covid break last year espn was streaming a lot of old games from the late 90s early 00s, they were awful games. So slow and more about kicking and running players. I remember thinking how the actual feck does this games where enjoyable when I watched them. Football has clearly improved is just that we've been seeing shitty performances for about 8 years now. It clearly impacts our perception of the game.
Im talking more about the types of players that exist today vs the 90s. I do not think it is romanticising the past at all. The players and type of players are totally different and there is no more any room for the entertainer in a team.
On the other hand the game is more fast paced and played at a higher level tactically now than then. But again in my opinion that has distracted from the entertainment.
A player like Jay Jay Okacha wouldnt survive in the same style he did in the PL at Bolton for instance.
 

SAFMUTD

New Member
Joined
Mar 14, 2018
Messages
11,787
There used to be a magic about European games, because some star players you'd never seen play before, like the Milan or Real Madrid stars. Now you can read, watch and know their every movement before they play us.

You're right that there were just as many bad games in the 90s and 00s but they weren't on TV so some TV producer kindly broke it down to 5 minutes for you and you just continued with your day.
You have a very good point, football wasnt as globalized as today we didnt have access to internet to watch some 3 minute highlights about a game.