Football is my favourite sport and the one which I follow most. In recent years, I have come to enjoy and follow American sports too. Basketball was a familiar one that I picked up again in recent years. I have also started following the NFL and baseball. These were mostly influenced by watching YouTube clips of highlights and discussions on them on YouTube and podcasts like TheRinger.
Basketball
In the 90s, there was a huge hype about Michael Jordan all over the world. I think that because of him, the sport became popular everywhere around the world. I remember we used to play basketball in my school days also. It was still not a sport I followed much then, partly because it was not easily accessible to watch the games. I still don’t watch much of the actual game; the timing is the main reason now. I follow it by listening to podcasts and going to ESPN and other sites regularly to get updates. Mostly though, I watch Youtube, there are many people who talk about the sport in interesting and entertaining ways. My Basketball team is the LA Lakers because I am a fan of Luka Doncic, and the Denver Nuggets because of Nikola Jokic.
NFL
This is the strange one that I got interested in the more I started to understand it. I have watched a few matches live, and it was entertaining. There are still many rules I do not understand, but the main ones I know. My favourite team is the San Francisco 49ers, I like their Running Back Christian McCaffrey. The NFL is such a physical and brutal force; it’s great to see a Running Back just ramming his way through people to get as far as possible.
Baseball
When I went to Canada, my brother and I went to see the Toronto Blue Jays play the Houston Astros. It was a fun experience. Since I started to follow the Dodgers because of Shohei Ohtani, I recently watched the World Series. They were great games. Especially the final game 7. It was one of the best finals in any sport I watched. There were so many dramatic moments throughout the game. I have not watched a game/match so intensely for a long time now, unless it’s an Arsenal match. Shohei Ohtani is probably my favourite sports star now across all sports.