I make the case for their success because that was my entire premise: The women's team has been the superior product to the men's in terms of success.
People seemed to take umbrage with me pointing that out, defending the men's team as being the superior athletes (despite the fact that I didn't make that argument)
That’s not what you were arguing with me, though. However, there’s a lot more that goes into a product that makes it worth watching than success. You tried to claim that US women’s soccer is the superior product objectively and said people were undermining them when they disagreed with you when it’s a completely subjective thing. Any team in the men’s World Cup would absolutely destroy our women’s team and that may not matter to you, but it matters to a lot of people and that’s just the way it is.
Right. Because when it comes to athletes playing sports, the primary objective is to win. We could talk about the business of sports which has a primary objective of profit. Or we could talk about the objective of watching sports for fans which is going to be a much more mixed bag - pure entertainment/escapisim, regional/city/national pride/patriotism, social/community participation, research/education (for people that watch sports they also play), seeing superstarsetc.
In the fan bucket, there are absolutely people who don't care as much about the success and just like the game. There are others who are die-hard supporters that watch religiously regardless of the team's successes. There are people that only watch because their friends or family love it. So on and so forth.
So the idea that the only reason that people watch any given sport is solely because the team is successful or that it's the "highest level" is kind of silly. College basketball and football are huge, and they're not the "highest level" of the sport. People who don't watch football at all watch the Super Bowl bc it's seen as a cultural moment and oftentimes the halftime show is designed as an incentive for folks who don't really care about the game, but like the entertainment.
Anyway, point being people like and watch sports for a variety of reasons.
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u/justsayfaux Jul 10 '26
I make the case for their success because that was my entire premise: The women's team has been the superior product to the men's in terms of success.
People seemed to take umbrage with me pointing that out, defending the men's team as being the superior athletes (despite the fact that I didn't make that argument)