How to Become Sports Literate?

I've always enjoyed watching "the game" with friends, but aside from those moments I never really paid attention to sports. Obviously I know some basic stuff like the rules, divisions, big teams, and the more well known athletes, but I don't know much else. But I realize that having a minimal knowledge of what's going on is great for shooting the shit until you can slowly change the conversation to an area where you have more expertise.

So how do I go about doing that? How do I build that subsistence level of knowledge about college and professional basketball and football so I can make that random comment or add something to the discussion? Now I'm not talking about being able to say something truly significant, but rather just being able to listen to the other guy talk, and make a few small comments of my own.

 

Kinda the same as talking about any topic. For example, me with Finance/Deals/Economic Trends. I didn't know crap about M&A in the summer, but this semester for about 30 minutes each weekday I would log on to the schools database and look up deals. After a few months, I finally got the hang of the general market, league tables, trending industries, and big deals done. And now I am very comfortable talking finance with bankers and the conversations go further than just scratching the surface.

Immerse yourself in it daily - just 10 minutes a day will help you keep up with the news. In your case, since you are trying to build up that level of knowledge of general and overarching themes, it will take a while of repetition but you will soon be at it in months.

Memorizing certain things helps too - can you name every team in the MLB, NBA, NFL? Can you name the past 5 champions in all those leagues? What about in college?

 
orangebull:
Kinda the same as talking about any topic. For example, me with Finance/Deals/Economic Trends. I didn't know crap about M&A in the summer, but this semester for about 30 minutes each weekday I would log on to the schools database and look up deals. After a few months, I finally got the hang of the general market, league tables, trending industries, and big deals done. And now I am very comfortable talking finance with bankers and the conversations go further than just scratching the surface.

Immerse yourself in it daily - just 10 minutes a day will help you keep up with the news. In your case, since you are trying to build up that level of knowledge of general and overarching themes, it will take a while of repetition but you will soon be at it in months.

Memorizing certain things helps too - can you name every team in the MLB, NBA, NFL? Can you name the past 5 champions in all those leagues? What about in college?

can you explain how you did this more? I'm a stem major and have a hard time getting the trends down myself as opposed to just me morizing what another analyst writes in their reports....

 

Just watch sportscenter. For the most part they are going to highlight all the big stories, important stats and overarching themes. I personally can't stand ESPN anymore but for someone who wants to learn what is going on this is the easiest way to start. 30 minutes a day.

This to all my hatin' folks seeing me getting guac right now..
 

There are a few things you can do. Scan ESPN for 15 minutes at the beginning and end of the day and read the headlines. Try and keep up with the local teams in your city, any big games that are happening, and the predominant teams in your office. Playing fantasy lets you get well versed with the individual players and isn't a huge time commitment (especially if you're playing football). Remember in Monkey Business when one of the authors gets his offer by talking about the Knicks during the entire interview? Not saying that's gonna happen but never know...

 

ESPN has Sportscenter on roughly 12 hours a day, try to catch 20 mins/day. Get good feel for seasons (i.e. know most college football teams play cupcake non-conference games in September, college basketball non-conference is November/December, NFL playoffs January, MLB playoffs October, etc.) Easy way to figure out top players is to look at all-star teams and top 30 selling jerseys in each league. Spend 10 minutes scanning ESPN/Yahoo Sports/SI.com. It's really not too difficult, just don't try to memorize all of this. Instead, soak in the 20-30 minutes/day and you'll eventually feel comfortable.

 

Join a fantasy team with money on the line. This will get you interested very fast.

I have a friend that's in a team which not only has him drop on the draft, but on every trade. They end up with enough money to do the next draft in AC or Vegas for a couple of nights. Pretty intense stuff.

 
yeahright:
bleacher report all day. playing fantasy sports will help you gain details pretty quickly
bleacher report is an abortion of a website
If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses - Henry Ford
 
happypantsmcgee:
yeahright:
bleacher report all day. playing fantasy sports will help you gain details pretty quickly
bleacher report is an abortion of a website

Wait a second...you don't want to read an endless supply of mindless lists about shit you don't care about that has a slight relation to sports?

When I heard that Bleacher Report sold for $200 million(!) I almost lost my shit.

 

If you want to learn more about deeper-level analysis for a sport like football, I'd recommend you read every article Bill Barnwell puts out on Grantland.com. He does a great job breaking things down analytically and really dives into the numbers. There are other sites out there that are worth checking out, such as Footballoutsiders.com and footballperspective.com that provide great analysis.

Also, I can't emphasize enough how much just watching a ton of a sport will help you learn. I've been a borderline-obsessive NY Giants fan all my life, and for the past 4 years or so, I've watched pro football games almost every Sunday / Monday night during the season, and I still find myself picking up new things here and there. It's easy to pinpoint the big name guys, but watching the games will allow you to understand the importance of good line play and how the play of non-skill position players can affect the outcome of games.

Granted, it's not worth doing all of this unless you're really a big time fan, or you're really interested in learning more.

 

I'd also add, it's perfectly fine to just ask questions. I have a couple friends who know virtually everything about football, and I feel like I can always learn something from watching the games with them. No shame in asking questions to learn some more.

 
Whgm45:
Most people know nothing about sports but read espn enough to know the major story lines. Just browse it for 10 mins every morning and you'll be fine

There is truth to this.

There are regular articles/blogs on ESPN & Grantland for about any sport you want to follow. Dig in man.

 

If you're looking for a few books there are quite a few kick ass ones out there.

Michael Lewis wrote The Blindside which is a great look at the evolution of football till present day. Shows how football coaches innovate and what positions become more important as the years go by. Really fascinating stuff.

He also wrote Moneyball, which is a good look at baseball and the concept of players as assets and how the Oakland A's created various formulae to devise a way to judge players and ascertain which ones give them the best bang for their buck. Essentially a behind the scenes look at the stats revolution taking over baseball.

Grantland has a few writers who really get in deep with their alotted sport:

1) Bill Barnwell - NFL 2) Chris Brown - NFL 3) Jonah Keri - MLB 4) Zach Lowe - NBA 5) Kirk Goldsberry - NBA
6) Mark Titus - NCAA Basketball

If you don't want to get this deep into sports, browsing SportsCenter is great. ESPN.com is a great resource as well. And if you are looking for things from a different POV, then deadspin.com is a great website.

 

Bill Barnwell is motherfucking retarded. If that guy was half as smart as he thought he was, he would be running NASA and CERN at the same time.

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses - Henry Ford
 

What everyone said about keeping up on the day's news (Sportscenter, ESPN.com, Bleacher Report, etc.) is all great advice. It'll efficiently keep you abreast of all the current happenings in the world of sports.

However, to answer your question of going beyond the basic knowledge then you might want to start listening to sports radio as the radio hosts often add a lot of opinion and prediction as oppposed to the standard objective reporting you get from news sources (eg: scores, highlights, etc.). It's actually pretty easy to incorporate into your routine (assuming you work somewhere that let's you work with headphones on). At least personally I've found it pretty easy to do my work while listening in.

My recommendation is that you check out Colin Cowherd. He's actually pretty entertaining and talks about sports in a way that even novice sports fans can easily follow. He also mixes it up a fair amount of non-sports takes that are pretty funny. You can even check out some of his clips on YouTube.

 

Seems to me like sports radio is the point where you cross over from casual conversation to total sports nerdom. Everyone was into sports in my office but this one dude would spout off his opinion on every team/sport/player all day long and everyone hated him. He would also print out long-from ESPN articles to read on the crapper and would leave them on the floor so whoever was next could also learn al the minute details of teams no one in our office cared about.

 

Seconded. It's not going to ruin your career or anything, but it's such a common interest among the general population, which makes it an easy conversation piece. Easy conversation piece = easier to talk to someone. Easy to talk to someone = easier to be around. Easier to be around = good work environment and (somewhat) culture.

 
Best Response

Well, the first thing that you need is an understanding of the game and the rules. If you don't know about basketball and haven't watched much of it, you could google NBA news and gain enough knowledge to talk about the trade of CP3 to the Rockets. But unless you understand the game, and therefore can have an opinion on how he'll fit in with the Rockets, it'll be hard to have an intelligent conversation about to. And you're not going to connect with an interviewer because you can talk about the topic of the day, the second that it gets beyond that it'll be obvious that you don't really know what you're talking about.

If you want to know sports, then pick a favorite team and start watching them. Doesn't have to be full games, just highlights. Start following them, reading about them, learning players' names. Once you start understanding things like why CP3 and Harden together could be good or bad, start expanding to reading about the entire league. By that point you should be able to carry a conversation for long enough to impress.

But the real way to connect is being able to intelligently talk about THEIR team. That takes you following the entire league and understanding each team well enough to talk about it for a couple minutes. Ideally you'd be able to understand their scheme and know how their specific players fit in.

I think starting with the NFL is a safe bet but my personal favorite is college football. I could talk about CFB for DAYS.

 

The best way to get into sports is to pick one sport and follow a local team closely for an entire season. This is how I got interested in the English Premier League.

Lucky for you Major League Baseball is just starting! Find a team close to your city and follow their progress all season. There are plenty of bars that have groups of fans watch games and you can get to know the fans and will pick up valuable lingo. You don't have to become a huge fan of that team (but you might), this is the easiest way to become immersed in a sport. You can repeat this process for American Football later this year.

Going sport by sport is better than a shotgun approach. By the end of this season you should be fairly well versed in baseball lingo and know some basic strategy. Hopefully you can find a sympathetic friend that will explain the rules for the sport as you watch games. This is much more helpful than reading about them without the context.

Hope that helps!

"Everybody needs money. That's why they call it money." - Mickey Bergman - Heist (2001)
 

First, learn the rules. Although it might be a bit nerdy, buy the rulebook and have it by your side when you're watching games. I was the kid who had the rulebooks for the NFL and NHL whilst in grade school. Kids might have made fun of me, but I shut them up on the court, field, etc. My passion for hockey never stuck, but I still know the rules and can have a conversation and understand the statistics.

As my interest in sports has dwindled over the years, I believe using it as a conversation starter is incredible helpful. How often do you walk into a bar to find Sportscenter or the game on the television? That said, watching Sportscenter is a great way to get an overview of all sports and keep you up to date on the happenings, but you won't learn the games unless you watch and try to understand. While the rulebooks might be good, nothing can substitute a friend who will enthusiastically share the minutia of the game with you. After all, sports are about competition and revelry.

 

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- Capt K - "Prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. If you want to make ambitious people waste their time on errands, bait the hook with prestige." - Paul Graham
 

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