Hey, folks! I've been playing fantasy NFL for about four years now. At first, I expected to hate it. Just, ya know, always a pop culture contrarian. It turned out after a year or two, I really enjoy it!

I've been watching hockey on and off since probably 2007. Would love to see if NHL Fantasy can drive my NHL enjoyment similarly to football.

Not all of our little NFL group wants to try hockey. If you'd like to give it a whirl, I'd be happy to share the link to join! I need a few folks.

I watch it every year, though it's not ideal to follow from the Pacific time zone of the United States.

My daughter and I always get up super early on Sunday morning (6 AM) to watch the last hour of the race. My dad has started coming over to our house to watch the last hour with us, too.

Hello, I'd love for the ~sports and specifically ~sports.football topics to be more common, so I figured I would post something that's been on my mind a lot lately: Do you care about other results being spoiled while watching football matches?

I don't have as much time as I used to to watch football all day, so I tend to watch games either on weekends if I can, or via recordings of matches. I'll usually put on a game each night, sometimes actively watching it and other times just as some background noise on my second monitor while I game or browse the web, but still pay attention to the goals and big moments in the game.

Recently the Champion's League Round of 16 started, so I've been watching those games in the evenings when I can. And what happens is that while I'm watching one game, the commentators/announcers will just randomly say "Oh btw, so-and-so just scored in the other game, making it 1-0". And it sucks because I was looking forward to watching that game next. But by watching one game I end up knowing the results for both games because the announcers update you all throughout the coverage of the game you're watching.

I get that the games happened at the same time in real life, so the announcer was letting people know of the results live as they happened, but why? Does it bother anyone else or do most people just not care or don't watch games after the fact?

I remember watching games as a kid on Brazilian television, and they had a much better solution to spoilers: an animation would appear on the screen whenever a goal was scored in another match, then after a few seconds the information would pop up about who scored and what that game's current score is. It gave you the perfect opportunity to change the channel or just look away and cover your ears for a few seconds if you were planning on watching the other games later. It's not a perfect system, since when there's only two games happening at the same time (like in this CL round of 16), you know exactly when a goal was scored in the other match, just not which team scored it. But it's miles better than just straight up announcing 'oh look the other team has tied, the other game is now 1-1'.

I can understand how in certain circumstances, other results might be super important to someone watching a game, like the last day of a league when all the matches are played at once, or the final games of a group stage where your team depends on other results to advance. But those should be the exceptions, not the norm. Maybe update people during half time or something, which already happens anyways. But let me watch the games spoiler-free at my own pace please.

Every other year besides this one I have suffered from several injuries on all of my teams, but this year I seem to have zero injuries on my two teams. I guess this is great considering I kept Michael Thomas on my team a year or two ago when he was out for nearly the entire season, hoping he would come back and save my team (that didn't happen).

Anyways, just wanted to see if anyone else was doing as well as me, think I have a shot of winning this year which I've never done before.

I became a fan of Premier League Soccer after an epic battle with YOShInOn, my smart RSS reader. (I tried to convince it I liked American football and not the other kind of football but in the process of trying to understand why it couldn't learn the difference I changed my mind.)

There's a free Premier League game on NBC OTA TV around 12:30 PM EST and once I got hooked a Peacock subscription seemed like a good idea so I can catch games (somewhat) early on Saturday and Sunday. The university I work at has men's and women's soccer games that I go to (it was fun to go to one where youth players showed up and I felt like we were part of a huge soccer universe) and sooner or later I am going to check out the games of the college on the other hill.

I know there's Major League Soccer here in the US and I understand it's gotten better than it used to be, and I understand you can get an add-on subscription to Apple TV which has all the games. Is there anyone out there who follows MLS?

I try to post a few articles a week about the Premier League and European Soccer and I think it would be great if somebody did the same for MLS, as something interesting has to happen every gameday.

Good afternoon, I hope all of my fellow baseball enjoyers are having the best days you can. I am a new account holder here on Tildes but I've been lurking for a bit, and would like to hear from folks on how and why you first started to get into baseball.

To get things started, my story may be a little different than some. Today baseball is the only sport I follow, but I didn't really grow up with it like many people do when they first become fans. I think I played one season of little league and my only real memories of that experience as a young person were sitting out in right field during practice and hoping no balls got hit my way, and sitting on a hot metal bench and chewing gum. I'm not sure that I ever got a hit.

Somewhat later on in life, when I was in grad school, I wanted to get back into following a sport solely for the reason of having something to talk about with folks in the mindless office jobs I was working in at the time to pay the bills. I settled on baseball because there were games every day for much of the year, and it seemed pretty intuitive to me to read a box score and get a sense of what happened in a game even if I didn't have time to watch.

But what team to follow, where I had no real allegiance to any growing up? I didn't want to be a fan of the Yankees or Mets, which would have been the logical choice given where my school and work were, because it felt like people who had been fans of those teams their whole lives would run circles around me, a baseball novice. So I essentially ran the 30 teams through a random number generator and ended up settling on the Texas Rangers by chance. Fortunately for me this was just prior to the Rangers' two world series teams in 2010 and 2011, and I've been hooked ever since (even if I might have some misgivings about franchise ownership... and the leadership of the state of Texas as a whole).

I would love to hear other folks' stories, and look forwards to the rest of the season. Thanks for your time.

Surprised there wasn’t a topic already posted! What kind of motorsports do you all watch? What is your favorite?

Personally, I dabble in nearly everything four wheeled (two is not for me). However, my mains are F1, Indycar, IMSA, and WEC.

I got into F1 in 2018 and been a religious follower ever since. I became a Max fan as he was able to fight the Mercedes, kind of funny that now he’s in the annoyingly winning spot. I also pull for McLaren and the wife Williams, so we have a nice time watching the midfield with some banter every week.

I was very much casual Indycar, but making an effort this year. Palou seems to be just running off in the sunset Max style but I’m really hoping Grosjean can pull a win out. It looked so promising to start the year.

The endurance series are fun to watch too. I started to watch last year and it seems like I picked a perfect time with the Hypercar class coming into its own. Very excited to see who all comes into the class as time goes on!

I'm not a follower of the NFL, but I do love NCAA football. When I was a freshman in high school, two of the seniors on the team would come around and pep talk us before games and practice with us and such. As an underclassman, this grew into some degree of "idolizing" those guys. The following year, they both were accepted to Clemson, one of them with a football scholarship, the other playing as a walk on. For me, it was super cool to see those guys who were cool with me now on TV, playing for Dabo Swinney, and my fandom for the Clemson Tigers was born. Both graduated and moved on to real life, neither went on the play for the NFL or anything, but I never had a stronger reason to shift my loyalty to any other team afterwards, so they've remained my favorite NCAA football team ever since.

Who's your team, and what's your story?

Mookie Betts has been having another awesome year and is on pace to smash the personal season home run record he set last year.

While he had a few starts at second base last year, the Dodgers have also turned him into a utility player this year by regularly starting him at 2B and, to a lesser degree, short stop in addition to his usual RF (the choice every day comes down to a combination of who is healthy, who needs a day off, and how other line-up options are expected to fair against the opposing starter). Defensively, he’s been solid at those positions and ranks particularly well in OAA at 2B in addition to his usual Golden Glove outfield performance.

His season got me wondering about, who is the best utility player of all time? The Wikipedia article on utility players includes a number of notable ones, including guys that have played every position and guys who played multiple positions during at least one year they were all-stars, however most have average or below average offensive numbers.

Is there a widely considered greatest all-time utility player? If not, who would you nominate for the title?

Here, I am asking you to talk about the sports you love. They may be either obscure or popular and well-known. What is their place in your life? Have you practiced those sports, or are you simply a fan and an expectator? What people don't get about the sport you love? What are some common misconceptions you would like to dispel? How would you convince someone to learn more about those sports?

I've tried searching for wrestling tags on ~tv and ~sports a few times and haven't seen any posts. I wonder how many other people have done the same and have just given up when they saw there was no discussion.

Feel free to leave a comment here if you're a fan of any kind of wrestling. We can use this thread to gauge the audience. If other fans here see that there's enough interest, they might be more willing to drop some their own OC on tildes. When we get enough people here we can start making live discussions for the shows.

The 24 hours of Le Mans is about 6 hours in! Anyone watching? Thoughts?

Besides the hour-long safety car during the rain, it's been a lot of fun so far. It's my first year watching after getting into F1 and Indycar in the past few years and I'm having a blast.

This is probably bad form but here goes.

I have just posted about the Man vs Horse race that happens in Llanwrtyd Wells, Wales on an annual basis and it got me to thinking, is it a UK idiosyncrasy to have silly sports or is it World wide?

Apart from Cheese rolling at Cooper's Hill (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdKRx30s6sk) and Shin Kicking (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rajJJaiEdPE) what other silly sports are there?

Anyone into SUP/iSUP? I got my iSUP about 3 years ago and use it all the time. It’s a big one, able to carry 400 lbs so my entire family gets on it and cruises around lakes and rivers sometimes. What does everyone else have?

I'm making this post because I haven't been able to find decent (English) articles for some of the matches I've watched, so that should probably be the focus of this thread. If you can find good articles for a match you've watched, post them in the group instead.

I'm a Red Sox fan so don't have much invested in this WS but it has been AWESOME so far! I'm at a point where I really want the Rays to win but wouldn't be bummed to see Mookie and Joe Kelly get another ring. Also, redemption for the Astros shenanigans.

My favorite moment is likely a predictable one but I'll say it anyway... the walk-off hit in game four was just an emotional roller coaster.

Anyone else watching? If so, what are your thoughts so far?

Once more, with feeling.

I liked the responses I saw last week and was interested to read everything, so please don't feel your contribution goes unappreciated. Again, feel free to chime in with any ideas or suggestions about this thread, and please try to keep spoilers out of top-level comments.

OK, let's give this a shot.

Feel free to share your thoughts about anything going on this week in the world of sports - an event you're looking forward to, a great game you watched that you recommend, a story that you're keeping tabs on, whatever tickles your fancy. Also, if you have any ideas/suggestions about this thread itself, feel free to chime in. My one suggestion is to please keep spoilers out of top-level comments.

Edit: We don't have a theme tune (yet) but just imagine this is the intro (other brands are available).

Follow-up to an idea I mentioned here.

My "specialty" is definitely soccer. I primarily follow the Spanish league but more or less keep up with the big 3-5 European leagues. I can easily post related content. I have a medium level of interest in other sports in general but am pretty out of the loop with most American sports.

Any thoughts on what you want to see?

What were your thoughts so far? What do you think of the piped crowd audio? The sound in general? Plans for crowd participation? Has Adam Silver done a good job thus far in bringing basketball back?

It's lacking some excitement for me, but pleased to have basketball back in any way shape or form.

I'm in the middle of the Seattle vs DC game. It's great to see a more polished XFL back.

For the unaware, the XFL has modified traditional NFL rules to prioritize a faster, leaner game. A 25s play clock (down from 45s with the NFL), a modified kick off where teams are five yards apart, with the kicker and receiver on their respective 35 yard line (teams wait until the receiver touches the ball before they can move.)

All in all, this game is pretty fun. The pace isn't crazy fast compared to the NFL, but you definitely have fewer long breaks.

The broadcast is also great. They're constantly detailing the differences in play. They also have more interaction with coaches and players, which is fun.

Here's a full set of rule changes

I would host a competition that measured strength, speed, agility, endurance, and intelligence. I would measure strength using some strongman and some powerlifting lifts. I would measure speed with 100 meter sprints. I would measure agility with some kind of ropes course, obstacle course, and gymnastics meet. I would measure endurance with a triathalon plus rowing (a quadrathalon?). I would measure intelligence by testing ability to memorize a bit of text in their mother language, teaching them the rules to a made-up game (Calvinball anyone?), and testing them on some trivia game with a format like Jeopardy. What would you measure, and how would you measure it?

Today I just learned about the uncaught third strike rule in baseball:

On an uncaught third strike with (1) no runner on first base, or (2) with a runner on first base and two outs, the batter immediately becomes a runner. The strike is called, but the umpire does not call the batter out. The umpire may also signal that there is "no catch" of the pitch. The batter may then attempt to reach first base and must be tagged or forced out.

Honorary mention to the defensive possession after a touchdown in American football. I can't find it in the rulebook right now, but the essential concept is that, after a score, the team that was scored on actually has a choice on whether to receive the ball and start the next possession on offense (which is normally what happens), or whether to kick off the ball and defend (considering that the team that just scored on you gets the ball back to do it again, I don't see how this could ever be a good idea in today's game).

I'm a American football official and was wondering if there were any other officials on Tildes.

What sport(s) do you officiate? Why do you officiate? Why do you think officiating is declining? What's something you'd change to improve the experience?

I'll chime in after the discussion gets started! Look forward to having some quality discussion!