Sports will always fill a niche in that it's the one type of entertainment that's truly live and not predictable.
Drama is predictable in a way that sports aren't. Seeing it live doesn't change that. Live theater has benefits and may be enjoyable, but it doesn't address predictability. Even if the viewer doesn't know the outcome, the outcome is fixed. And it falls within a predictable range of acceptable usually-happy endings. (Not strictly, but very commonly.)
Drama is great, of course, I love it. But sports does offer something different to complement it.
Sports has some outcomes that are narrow (win vs. lose) and others that are open-ended (the arc of a player's career, a unique play that's never been seen, off-the-field drama.) They couldn't be predictable or else betting on sports wouldn't be sustainable.
You have to get yourself to care about an outcome in order for its unpredictability to be interesting, and I can see how it seems contrived that anyone would care, but the point isn't to take it seriously.
(I guess you could call improv also live and not predictable, or find other more obscure examples.)
Drama is predictable in a way that sports aren't. Seeing it live doesn't change that. Live theater has benefits and may be enjoyable, but it doesn't address predictability. Even if the viewer doesn't know the outcome, the outcome is fixed. And it falls within a predictable range of acceptable usually-happy endings. (Not strictly, but very commonly.)
Drama is great, of course, I love it. But sports does offer something different to complement it.
Sports has some outcomes that are narrow (win vs. lose) and others that are open-ended (the arc of a player's career, a unique play that's never been seen, off-the-field drama.) They couldn't be predictable or else betting on sports wouldn't be sustainable.
You have to get yourself to care about an outcome in order for its unpredictability to be interesting, and I can see how it seems contrived that anyone would care, but the point isn't to take it seriously.
(I guess you could call improv also live and not predictable, or find other more obscure examples.)