Very little, especially when they make endless stupid mistakes.
Take a look at the fans in this photo. Who wants to be one of them??
Stares of agony. Head slaps. Gasps and groans. "Are we having a good time yet?"
Whatever the team sport...baseball, rugby, football, soccer...you are basically rooting for a pretty uniform color, and the illusion that your home town's pride is at stake. The latter is pretty ridiculous when usually the players don't even live in your home town.
Add that "games" often last THREE FUCKING HOURS, and you really have to be a masochist.
If I'm at all interested, I usually watch the last half hour or hour. If I'm lucky, I won't get a tension headache. Or severe depression. Usually, no such luck.
If you actually are "rooting" for a team that makes mistakes, blows leads, and fails in the clutch, you end up exhausted. It's much more entertaining a) if you don't really give a damn who wins and just enjoy sport, which doesn't really make sense, or b) your team or favorite tennis player or boxer is the odds-on favorite and proves it through most of the match before the final smackdown.
Now moving on to one of the least-favorite players in the world: Pete Rose.
The name won't mean much to anyone outside America, but this guy was one of the game's obnoxious greats. Nicknamed "Charlie Hustle," he'd do anything to win, diving, pushing, stealing a base, whatever. He was like a pit bull, and some admired him for it. He was a stupid-looking guy with a "Moe" haircut, but he was a top player. Too bad that ultimately he was kicked out of baseball for illegal betting.
This will seem amazing to anyone from England, where betting is not only legal, but a lifestyle. Here, it's basically only legal in a few places (Las Vegas, Atlantic City, "Native American" casinos). It's ILLEGAL for a baseball player to bet on baseball, period. Rose used a bookie (already illegal) and though he was betting on his own team to win, he was banned anyway. He argued that he was doing nothing wrong by betting to win...after all, it's only if you bet on your team to lose that you might remotely be able to manipulate the odds.
An irony is that many other sports have no rules against betting. Floyd Mayweather could bet on himself to win a boxing match, and nobody would complain.
Rose has been denied "The Hall of Fame" for his lack of morality. For decades now, he's stayed in the spotlight by signing his name at memorabilia shows, and bitching about how he should be forgiven. He's still a hard-nosed jerk, but for some reason, he was hired as a broadcaster for the World Series. Except he bailed out to...go to a fucking memorabilia show.
It was "in the cards."
That gives you an idea how pathetic and ridiculous this world of "nostalgia" is. This guy can make more money signing crap and posing for photos than he can by doing a legit job as a broadcaster. And he's such a money-grubbing putz he'd rather stand around in front of drooling geeks than be on the air talking baseball with other professionals.
You might say he's a stand-up guy for not canceling the memorabilia show he'd committed to, but really, he can do that shit any time. He's ALWAYS at memorabilia shows. There were probably dozens of other baseball jackasses more famous than him who showed up. It's not like he was the star attraction. But there you are; signing your fucking name for assholes is more important than anything else. The irony is that assholes who go to sell their fucking Pete Rose signed memorabilia face skepticism, since the autograph field is notorious for forgeries. No way can you PROVE that Rose signed anything, even if you have your photo taken while holding his nuts and grinning. (Gee, where's my Peter Rose and Bill Hoobastank photo...)
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