What Exactly Makes Your Favorite Sport Your ‘Favorite’?

It's Opening Day for Detroit Tigers baseball, a very big day for almost everyone in Michigan!

Many people say that baseball is their favorite sport, and this topic got me thinking; almost everyone has their favorite sport, but what exactly is it about various different games that attracts people to them? This is something I've spent the past few days thinking about, as when I was growing up I thought I wasn't all that interested in sports.

Obviously, I paid some attention to the Tigers, as you can't really avoid it in Michigan. Baseball is more than a sport after all, it's a pastime. I enjoy watching the Tigers, but it's not something I pay attention to for the sport itself. In that respect, I wouldn't call baseball my "favorite sport".

And over the years, football and basketball were never all that interesting to me. I didn't hate them, they just didn't do it for me.

A few years ago, I discovered ice hockey and the Red Wings, and I've enjoyed that since then, but even that didn't hold my rapt attention. However, in the past year I've found two sports that have certainly hooked me.

The first is Japanese sumo wrestling, certainly an odd sport but one that I enjoy quite a bit. And just last week, I found out about Australian Rules Football, or "footy", an fast-paced and brutal sport that plays like a combination of American football, soccer, and rugby.

To me, what these sports have in common and why I think they appeal to me is two main things: physicality and simplicity.

Both sumo and Aussie football have very basic and easy to follow rules, great features of any spectator sport. They both also involve athletes pushed to their limits, fighting body-to-body for supremacy.

So whether it be American football, baseball, basketball, or something out there like sumo, what is it about your favorite sport that really makes it your favorite?