Old people seem to wonder why young people don’t seem interested in sports anymore. You probably already know why, it’s because sports are boring. The sports in question would be games like baseball, football, and basketball, rather than the interesting stuff like cycling or rock climbing or MMA.

If you’ve ever wondered why your dad or granddad seemed so interested in sports, it’s because back in their day, it was pretty much all kids had for entertainment. They didn’t have cell phones, so cell phone games weren’t a thing. And video games were the thing of hobbyists, they weren’t mainstream like they are today. When a sports team came to town, it was the main thing people around town talked about for weeks beforehand, and for weeks afterwards. If you got tickets, then you were hot stuff. Anyone who couldn’t go but wanted to know what happened had to turn to those who did.

Did anyone do anything other than sports for entertainment? There were movies, but they were mostly films that kids wouldn’t appreciate. Superhero movies weren’t as mainstream as they are today. Movies were mainly geared towards grownups, so a kid either had to develop grownup tastes, or find something else to do. Oftentimes, it was sports, because that was one thing that was accessible to everyone.

The selection of toys was far more limited, too. If a kid got a Pogo stick, he was considered the coolest kid on the block. Everyone wanted to hang around the kid with the Pogo stick. There wasn’t much expectation that the kid would let anyone else play with it, except his close friends. If he chose you, it felt great, even if you fell off the thing. If another kid on the same block got a Pogo stick, then the kids started taking sides. Because suddenly that cool kid with the Pogo stick got a rival.

By the way, if you’re wondering what a Pogo stick is, here’s a picture of one:

And yes, those things were for real.

If you want evidence of how boring sports are, try attending a sporting event. You’d probably have an uncomfortable seat tightly nestled between other seats like sardines. If you attend a large event, you likely won’t be able to hear the game itself over how noisy the crowd is, and you’ll have just one view of the game, whether it’s ideal or not (almost always not).

It used to be that if you went to a game, you wanted front row seats. Nowadays, you’d want skybox seats. That’s because there’s a party going on up there, with no one really paying much attention to the game.

Simply put, sports are boring. If I had a choice between a sporting event and playing a video game I like, the video game would win, pretty much every single time. But I can’t go to a sporting event any time I wanted, only when one is scheduled, and when one is going on, it’s still immediately competing with anything else I could do for fun, nearly all of it I’d rather do. Even if I were to play a sport, I can think of things I’d rather do.

Not only are there video games, I can watch anime on my phone any time I want, even selecting the episodes I want to watch from among multiple seasons. Or I can do redneck science and blow stuff up for fun. That’s just a few examples of the things that sports has to compete with for my attention. The fact is, sports are boring.

Here’s a thought experiment. Think up a few things you really like doing. Then, imagine yourself at a sporting event, squinting at a game you can barely see, and can’t hear over a screaming crowd. Would you rather be at the sporting event? If so, you’re boring. Otherwise, you now understand how boring sports are. QED.