Watching sports has never been easier than it was in 2025, as long as you could afford to subscribe to cable or satellite TV and all the necessary streaming services you’d need for a blissful experience.
This week alone you needed a Netflix subscription for two NFL games on Christmas afternoon, Amazon Prime for the Christmas night game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Denver Broncos, and Peacock for Saturday night’s Green Bay Packers-Baltimore Ravens game. And though I already pay extra for the Comcast Xfinity’s so-called “ultimate sports” tier to watch local teams, Friday’s Chicago Bulls-Philadelphia 76ers game was on Amazon Prime instead of Chicago Sports Network, which suggests Comcast should change its top tier to “ultimate lite.”
Missing a game is not the end of the world, and fortunately I have enough family members to share passwords so I can basically watch whatever I want. But I feel for the sports fan on a fixed income without siblings for password-sharing. Paying three streamers for a sports fix on a holiday weekend is not advisable.
The alternative, of course, is not watching at all.
It’s not as difficult as you might imagine, and the money you save can be used for other purposes, such as groceries, health care or perhaps even a real vacation from the sports world.
Weaning myself away from a sports-heavy diet was a personal goal in 2025. Engaging with the sports world is a great way to relax, but it also can be stressful if you’re too emotionally involved, as I get when my college team, Mizzou, perennially disappoints.
Sports watching can be a toxic stew these days with nonstop gambling references, preening coaches, managers and players, off-the-field scandals and endless timeouts for replays to determine whether the nose of the football touched the turf for a nanosecond or someone’s fingernail touched a basketball before it went out of bounds.
Add to that the parade of repetitive commercials from corporations, accompanied by a classic rock song from a band you once admired, only adds to the stress level.
A sports diet in 2025 was the only answer, but looking back on the year, I failed miserably.
I still watch and listen to sports way too much, even when the team I’m watching is hopelessly out of contention and the games are meaningless. The proliferation of televised sports has made it harder to cut back. There’s always something else on on another channel, unlike my youth when we had only the three networks and a few independent stations including WGN-Ch. 9 and WSNS-Ch. 44. If you’re thinking this is evolving into a “get off my lawn” column, you’ll be happy to know I’m watching the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl while I write this.
So how did this sports obsession become a problem? I blame it on my upbringing, when my dad watched every White Sox and Bears game from the beginning of the season to the end, like comfort food for the brain. Our Sundays are still noisy rituals of food and family with the volume of whatever game on TV that afternoon kept low enough for everyone to shout over. It’s a lifestyle choice many Chicagoans know and enjoy, especially during this wild Bears season.
While I failed to end my obsessive relationship with sports, I did succeed in cutting down on listening to sports-talk radio, watching sports-talk debate shows, scrolling through sports news on social media and reading about sports I have only a minor interest in.
You can do it, too, though for some that would probably entail reading less of this column, which I completely support if it improves your mental health. Feel free to tune me out, starting … now.
If you’re still here and want to know my secrets to a healthier sports diet in 2026, here are some handy tips.
Keep your car radio tuned to FM stations.
The majority of sports-talk radio is delivered on AM stations, and if you’re like me you listen to sports-talk shows mostly while driving. I can listen for hours and hours if I’m on a long-distance drive.
Contrary to popular belief, you can watch a Bears game and not have to hear what every ex-Bear thinks about it afterward. Try it. You’ll like it.
Leave the TV off on weekday mornings and afternoons.
This means no Stephen A. Smith, Pat McAfee or Barstool personalities shouting about the Dallas Cowboys. Your ears will thank you.
Observe the “.500 rule.”
It’s simple. Don’t watch games if your team is currently under .500 and the season is well underway. That’s difficult in Chicago, especially if Jerry Reinsdorf owns your favorite team.
Ignore sports-related posts.
With a click of the button you can unfollow any or all sports-related X or Instagram accounts. It’s not so much the posts that are time-consuming, but the comments underneath from the ubiquitous trolls, who’ve multiplied exponentially since Elon Musk ruined Twitter.
Avoid pregame and postgame programming.
This was very difficult for me because I enjoy so many TV analysts, from Ozzie Guillen to Charles Barkley. But if you watch enough games you can probably analyze them yourself and don’t really need to watch the commercials afterward.
The mute button is your friend.
You will be amazed how easy it is to watch games without the sound on. Closed-captioning is available if you feel the need to follow along with the announcers. Read a book, listen to music or do anything else while “watching” a game. When something important happens, you can always unmute it.
Give up one sport for one season.
Everyone has a top four or five sports. Whatever is last on your list, stop watching and following for an entire season and see whether you can go without it. If we learned anything from the pandemic year of 2020, it’s that life goes on without sports.
Maybe 2026 can be a liberating experience for you. Of course, Bears fans might want to delay their sports diet until after the Super Bowl, just in case.