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OT: Watching a game with a non-sports fan

Jaydumo20

Jaydumo20

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Although i try to isolate myself in a panic room with a 6 pack, some water and a TV when UConn is on- there will be times where a non-sports fan is in the room with you.

What things will you not tolerate from these non fans?
Do you set ground rules?
What gets to you the most?

My wife used to stare at me when uconn was down. Waiting for my reaction. Drove me nuts.
P.s. she doesn't do it anymore.
 
Every Super Bowl party here has several non sports fans. You just tolerate their stuff. Best one from this year:

Guys wife: "Are they going to punt?"
Guy: "It's overtime and they are down, no they are not going to punt!"
 
I do not mind watching with non sports fans. I will take any questions and comments they have and try to explain/teach them what is going on in the hopes they will one day be converted. My wife hated baseball when we first started dating and now I have explained to her the intricacies of the game and "forced" her to watch approx 100 Atlanta Braves games a year over our 12 year relationship. She is now a Braves fan and enjoys going to baseball games.
 
Jaydumo20 said:
Although i try to isolate myself in a panic room with a 6 pack, some water and a TV when UConn is on- there will be times where a non-sports fan is in the room with you.

What things will you not tolerate from these non fans?
Do you set ground rules?
What gets to you the most?

My wife used to stare at me when uconn was down. Waiting for my reaction. Drove me nuts.
P.s. she doesn't do it anymore.
Expand ...

Depends.

Normal game? Don’t care.

Big game? I will warn them.

Really big game? I’ll leave.

The inlaws, me and my wife were on vacation last year during the Final Four. I told my wife that I was not watching the championship game with her parents because they would say something perfectly benign and I would melt down. She asked me to try. I did.

At 6-2 San Diego State, my mother-in-law cruised by, saw the score and said, “Wow, UConn is losing”, and I left the condo and watched the rest of the game on a park bench.
 
Jaydumo20 said:
Although i try to isolate myself in a panic room with a 6 pack, some water and a TV when UConn is on- there will be times where a non-sports fan is in the room with you.

What things will you not tolerate from these non fans?
Do you set ground rules?
What gets to you the most?

My wife used to stare at me when uconn was down. Waiting for my reaction. Drove me nuts.
P.s. she doesn't do it anymore.
Expand ...

My wife is a non-sports fan, despite being such a gym freak. Ironically, we met at a UConn game when she was dragged along by some friends of friends.

We went to one game together. When I went to turn on the radio show after to hear player comments, she exlaimed "What? More of THE sports?" We haven't been since.

We have ground rules in our house. I'm allowed to do and say whatever I want, she plays on her phone. But I also am required to watch 3 hours of whatever stupid reality show she's on about as payment.
 
I'll watch any Super Bowl not featuring my team with these people. I don't want to watch a Super Bowl featuring my team with them. It drives me crazy. Regular season football, depends on the game I suppose, if people are talking to each other about things other than the game, I will be fairly annoyed.

For UConn, it's similar to Fishy, but fortunately I don't know any non-sports fans that want to watch college basketball. I go out to watch with a friend at times. So my only problem is setting the expectation that no, I am not free or available to do anything else with anyone during big games. I pre-notified my wife about Marquette a few days ago so she wouldn't schedule me to do something else.

My basement man cave/home theater was really the best thing I ever did. We have as many TV viewing locations as we have people in the house. I go down there and can be left alone. Or invite any true fans over.
 
.-.
husky429 said:
My wife is a non-sports fan, despite being such a gym freak. Ironically, we met at a UConn game when she was dragged along by some friends of friends.

We went to one game together. When I went to turn on the radio show after to hear player comments, she exlaimed "What? More of THE sports?" We haven't been since.

We have ground rules in our house. I'm allowed to do and say whatever I want, she plays on her phone. But I also am required to watch 3 hours of whatever stupid reality show she's on about as payment.
Expand ...
Sort of the same. My wife fooled me. When we were dating, and early on in a streak of 21 straight BE tournaments I attended, she was very gung ho to go with me, and would sit through the four Thursday games - all afternoon and all evening - then the best night with two semifinals, and the final. And we had a great time, or so I thought. After getting married she was ... let's say 'less interested' in attending, which eventually became "I think I'll skip it." Oddly, her mother is a huge sports fan, mostly NHL and college hockey.

Now I watch the games I want, and as long as it doesn't conflict I watch the series du jour with her when she wants. If the conversation in the kitchen is too loud or the game is a big one, I retire to the man cave or my home office.
 
These days, I rarely have to deal with any distractions during games, but I have family coming to visit for the game at Marquette in March.

Thankfully, they're usually pretty good about understanding not to bother me while the game is going, but we'll see.
 
My wife has long since stopped trying to inhabit the same space as me when they're playing, but I will give her credit for one thing: during the regional finals in '14 we were at this resort called Enchantment or something in Sedona and our checkout time ran up against the MSU game. After we had overstayed our welcome by an hour or so and were getting calls from the front desk she went down to the lobby and invented a dispute with the hotel that bought me enough time for the game to end.
 
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I’m very lucky. My wife tolerates my sports watching (Favorite teams on the TV and then if she wants to watch something just for her when there’s something I want to watch, she’ll get the TV and I’ll watch next to her on my laptop.

All in-laws are sports fans, which is funny since my wife is the least sports fan of her family. Like, whenever we visit, they will work their schedules around UConn games or any March Madness games I want to watch. They're golden. No kids and two cats, so minimal distractions at home.

I guess the most annoying recent sports watching issue with people when when I watched UConn/Villanova with a large group at Bobby Vs. The actual UConn/Nova fans were fine…just the clueless people who talked all the time, but I’m good at tuning people out (I’m a middle school teacher, so I’ve got plenty of practice).

That being said, I'm home alone from 6-8:30 today, so I'm excited to watch Marquette/Butler uninterrupted today.
 
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I generally don't mind, but when people, particularly guys (cough cough my father in law), without an ounce of athletic ability yell at players to do things, it takes everything in me not to lose it.

"What are you doing! That's not gonna work! Make your foul shots come on! All he had to do was (insert crazy athletic feat)!"

Just completely out of touch with reality.
 
My mother-in-law insists on commenting on every play as if she's been coaching the sport for 40 years. She is often oblivious to what actually happened and will be righteously indignant about some perceived error that is either fictitious or irrelevant. For example, after an opponent misses a shot:

Her: "Oh my god, UConn's offense is just awful this season."

Me: "UConn is the third best offensive team in the country. Also, UConn is wearing blue."

Her: "Oh. But still."
 
I don’t see or hear anyone when I watch a game they can talk ask questions. I don’t hear them. I guess it come from raising a large family you have to focus through all the chaos
 
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It depends on the person. Non-sports fan that feels like they need to make comments because they can't go 30 seconds without hearing their own voice? I won't even watch the game around them. It's incredibly aggravating, but it usually only happens to me around holidays so I just avoid the TV. This person is only mildly worse than the "sports fan" that only started watching the sport when their kid joined youth sports or when they adopted part of their spouses personality.

Non-sports fans who just play on their phone? Perfect. Id rather watch with this person than a sports fan who is an idiot.
 
JMick said:
It depends on the person. Non-sports fan that feels like they need to make comments because they can't go 30 seconds without hearing their own voice? I won't even watch the game around them. It's incredibly aggravating, but it usually only happens to me around holidays so I just avoid the TV. This person is only mildly worse than the "sports fan" that only started watching the sport when their kid joined youth sports or when they adopted part of their spouses personality.

Non-sports fans who just play on their phone? Perfect. Id rather watch with this person than a sports fan who is an idiot.
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Non-sports fan who just plays on their phone is a very underrated sports watching companion. There is something comforting about having non-sports fan who plays on their phone in the room when a game is on. Not sure why. Good call
 
Fishy said:
Depends.

Normal game? Don’t care.

Big game? I will warn them.

Really big game? I’ll leave.

The inlaws, me and my wife were on vacation last year during the Final Four. I told my wife that I was not watching the championship game with her parents because they would say something perfectly benign and I would melt down. She asked me to try. I did.

At 6-2 San Diego State, my mother-in-law cruised by, saw the score and said, “Wow, UConn is losing”, and I left the condo and watched the rest of the game on a park bench.
Expand ...
I laughed way too much at this because I completely get it and could totally see someone in my family saying the same thing.
 
Jaydumo20 said:
Although i try to isolate myself in a panic room with a 6 pack, some water and a TV when UConn is on- there will be times where a non-sports fan is in the room with you.

What things will you not tolerate from these non fans?
Do you set ground rules?
What gets to you the most?

My wife used to stare at me when uconn was down. Waiting for my reaction. Drove me nuts.
P.s. she doesn't do it anymore.
Expand ...
I love my mom, but last year I was home with her and my brother (Dad at work) for the Iona NCAA game. It took everything in my power to not ask her to leave the house in the first half.

She doesn’t know basketball and every time @aburks41 and I yelled at the TV she would say “oh is that not good for UConn?”

My wife, on the other hand is a saint and respects all my pregame rituals / game time superstitions and even has some of her own she’s made.
 
1986 was my freshman year at Boston U. I went to 2 ALCS games ($15 a ticket) and 2 World Series games ($25 a ticket).

For Game 6, we were in my dorm room with all rabid Sox fans, and not a single one of us uttered a word about finally winning one. There was a knock on the door and a guy comes in, non-sports fan. Strawberry is up to bat, 0-2 count, and the guy says, "2 strikes on Strawberry, that's unusual."

Right then, every Sox fan in the room knew, it was not to be. If not for that idiot, the Sox would've won the World Series in 1986.
 
Mostly I just feel like I’m going to pop a hernia trying to keep bottled up my level of crazy that comes with watching a UConn game.

0/10, would not recommend.
 
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This past season I was watching CFB one Saturday with a group of people that aren’t sports people (they don’t watch any major sporting events such as the Final Four, Golf/Tennis Majors, any baseball, hockey, CBB, CFB, etc) and I asked if we could put on the Ohio State @ Penn State game and they obliged. Within the first 5 seconds someone said “so are these teams usually pretty good?” And my jaw almost hit the ground out of shock. Then spent the entire game explaining rules, players, why it was a big game, etc. Absolutely hilarious experience. “Yeah Ohio State is typically pretty good at football”.
 
I make sure I’m either alone or with a crowd who knows the game when it’s UConn playing. They don’t have to be UConn fans either as long as they know where they stand with me in the room. I have some UConn friends and even my son (love him to death) who I have trouble watching games with. My son, who was and is a pretty good player on his own right, is a referee all game. He sees travels that don’t exist I don’t like to continually tell him it’s not a travel, or at least not anymore.

Love watching alone lol!!!
 
My wife is a non sports fan who grew up in a house full of sports fans. I am bad company when watching my teams. She will check in, look at the score and know what to say. If the Huskies make a basket during her visit, she will say, "I'm good luck" and leave. She is pretty smart.
 
My ex mother in law knew nothing about sports. The ex wife would get a bunch of us together to watch a game and the ex MIL would act like every single play was life or death, overreacting to a missed layup in the first 2 minutes or a random blocked shot when it's 31-31. Instantly she was the biggest fan in the world.

"No!!!!! No no no no no!!!!!"
"Go! Get him!!!! GETTT HIMMM!!!!"

Just talking and shrieking nonstop the entire game. It was worth half my 401k to not watch games with them anymore.
 
I watch either by myself or with my kid who asks a lot of questions throughout the game, but I’m happy to answer because he’s into it.

My wife on the other hand, played college softball and still plays slow pitch to this day but knows next to nothing about basketball, will walk in as I’m sitting there white knuckled clutching the couch during a close game and and say “Ohhhhhh boyyy!”….
 
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