How Healthy is Your Football Addiction?

A few years back, I wrote a blog about "why watching sports is a waste of time." Here's a link to the blog if you want to go back and see why I felt that way. While I mostly still stand by that—sports can often be a distraction from more productive endeavors—I do believe watching sports can serve a purpose as well.

Now, let's be clear: I'm talking specifically about watching sports, not playing them. Every single young boy and girl should be involved in as many sports and athletic activities as possible. In fact, every adult should seek out ways to stay physically competitive as well. I recently did a Spartan Race 10K, and it was one of my favorite days this year. The issue isn’t playing sports; it’s watching them, particularly football.

According to recent data, 57% of men watch at least five hours or more of football per week during the season, with 10% watching more than 11 hours per week. This is a significant time commitment every fall, and that’s not even including Fantasy Football, live events like Friday Night Lights, or home games for your favorite college or NFL team. So, is this healthy? Should your husband be playing in three Fantasy Football leagues and watching a Jaguars-Browns game on a Thursday night because he drafted a Jacksonville wide receiver in the ninth round of his Fantasy draft?

Last year, I did a podcast with former NBA player and Dallas Mavericks guard Kyle Collinsworth, where we touched on this topic and he gave an opinion from his perspective that is worth watching...

Here are a few things I’ve gained from watching football:

1. Priceless memories with my dad and brothers.
2. Bonding time with my best friends that we never would have made time for otherwise.
3. Intimate moments where a friend or I opened up, conversations that only happened because we got together for a game.
4. Our Fantasy league has been together for over a decade, and the ongoing jokes and connections from our group thread are one of the things I look forward to the most each fall.

So like most things, watching football isn’t necessarily good or bad. I, for one, will keep watching. But like anything else, it’s important to be intentional about how you watch football. Consider a typical week:

• Thursday night game: 4 hours
• Saturday: 3-4 huge games, each around 4 hours, just watching “your” team: 4 hours
• Sunday: 3 blocks of games, each about 4 hours; Red Zone: 8 hours
• Monday Night Football: 4 hours

It’s easy to see how quickly you can waste 20 hours in a week, especially if there are some big games on. Men, this is no way to spend a life. Even just watching your favorite college and NFL teams adds up to about 8 hours a weekend. What else could you be doing with those 8 hours? Playing with your kids, attending church, reading a book, hiking, working out, or spending quality family time. And by the way, watching the game with your kids while 90% of your attention is on the screen is hardly quality time.

Here are my suggestions for making the most of your time as a man while still getting your football fix:

1. Be very intentional about which games you want to watch each week. Nothing wastes your week like getting caught in a random Miami-Louisville Thursday night game and then waking up on Saturday morning to an Ohio State-Indiana 3 ½ hour time suck.
2. If you’re watching “your team” or a big game, make an event out of it. Call friends or family members and watch the game together. Make a meal, get some favorite snacks and drinks, and create a memory.
3. If you really love watching football and want to watch a lot of games, a rule that has helped me is to watch it in one of the following ways:
   • While working out or walking on a treadmill.
   • In the background while I work.
   • On mute while I read a book.

The truth is, we all love our football time. I won’t be cutting it out, and you shouldn’t either. But if you catch yourself watching it to avoid doing something you know you should be doing, then you have a problem. If your house isn’t in order—both physically and financially—put away the football and get your life dialed in. I honestly don’t remember who won the Super Bowl three years ago, and I’d guess the Chiefs, but the point is, while fun, football really isn’t important long term and should never come before the things that truly matter.

I’ll leave you with this quote from Cicero in 43 BC:

"The evil was not in bread and circuses, per se, but in the willingness of the people to sell their rights as free men for full bellies and the excitement of games which would serve to distract them from the other human hungers which bread and circuses can never appease." — Cicero, 43 BC

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