A few years ago I was at a hockey game with a friend and out of the blue he said, "You know what? We just paid good money to watch grown men skate around and whack a piece of rubber with a stick." That made me laugh at the time, but today while watching the olympics I remembered him saying that and I started to look at each sport from that perspective, at the utter silliness of some sports.
I can understand the military origins of some of the older sports like the javelin and the various fighting sports, but most of them really are pretty silly. We're all here because we like to watch men hit a ball with a stick and run in circles. People around the world like to watch men run up and down a field and try to kick a ball into a net at the end and get quite fanatical about it. I enjoy hitting a little white ball only to have to walk after it and hit it again until I eventually, often with too many hits, manage to hit it into a hole in the ground. Have you ever looked at some of the sports you enjoy watching or playing and remarked to yourself or someone else how completely silly they are when you really think about it?