Watching old sports games is the best diversion from this cruel world

Most people hop on the merry-go-round of daytime sports television, twirl around once, and then hop off. The programming isn’t designed to be watched, from start to finish, all day long. If you stay on the ride too long, you start to get dizzy.

This is because most sports take place at night, unless we’re dealing with the Olympics, a Grand Slam, or some other event outside the U.S. Channels like ESPN and FS1 must therefore fill days of programming with talking heads, some of whom are fire-breathing sports dragons designed in the Lab of Bad Opinions specifically to enrage, engage, and drive ratings and web traffic. Others are very smart, measured people who have nuanced opinions and are capable of in-depth analysis.

But there are only so many debates about Lonzo Ball or Mitchell Trubisky that your brain can handle before you want to put your foot through the television, no matter what the tenor of the discussion might be. If you keep sports TV on all day, the way many of the sports newsrooms I’ve worked in do, the takes start blending together until everything blurs into a never-ending washing machine of content.

Recently, one of my coworkers snapped. Late spring and summer — the sports doldrums — are particularly bad. I think it was NFL Network’s segment on the Rams’ 20 best plays from 2016 (sandwiched between two other TVs where people were debating whether LeBron was overrated or not) that led him to grab the remote and change the channel to ESPN Classic. The random USC football game from 15 years ago was a soothing ice pack for our scorched, over-stimulated brains.

We’ve rolled with it and now keep the channel on during the workday. Last week I found myself enthralled by Super Bowl XXXI. I cursed when Drew Bledsoe threw an interception to Mike Prior. Even though I knew the Packers ultimately beat the Pats, I still watched it as eagerly as I did when I was a third-grader in Massachusetts. Maybe, just maybe, this time the game wouldn’t end in a loss.

It did, of course, which is exactly what’s so deeply comforting about watching old games. There are no stakes. It’s all the action with none of the anxiety or noise that accompanies the current sports moment. Just like when TBS plays the fourth Harry Potter movie again, or Live Free or Die Hard for the millionth time, you can zone out and watch 30 minutes without feeling the need to stay for the ending. Drop in anytime. Leave whenever you want.

Let’s take a look at the ESPN Classic lineup for today: Right now Michael Jordan and the ‘98 Bulls are playing the Jazz in Game 6 of the Finals. Later, the Spurs will play. Even later, Allen Iverson will play Game 1 of the 2001 Finals as he tries to will the Sixers to greatness. I know that he won’t have a shot, and that Shaq and the Lakers will destroy Philly, 4-1, and none of it will matter. It’s all just quietly pleasant.

It’s also memory roulette. You look up and proclaim “Pop looks so young!” or “Oh shit, this game.” The New Mexico Bowl from 2013 was on the other day. Do you remember that? When Washington State lost to Colorado State in the final minutes? Our managing editor Brian Floyd, a Washington State fan, certainly does. The fact that they randomly replayed this game on his birthday was therefore depressing or funny, depending on whether you were Floyd (the former) or his coworkers (the latter). Old sports may provide some comfort, but, to quote Noah Syndergaard, they can still rip your heart out.

While it can hurt even when you know what’s going to happen (I don’t think any Falcons fans are clamoring to watch the last Super Bowl again anytime soon), it’s certainly less shocking. Which is what makes old sports the mood lighting or soft jazz in a dimly lit restaurant of programming: a background of predictability. Old sports are the lowest key way to engage with action: You can appreciate the beauty of a pass, the pain of an injury, or the unlikelihood of a comeback without the heart palpitations that can accompany any of those occurrences in a live game you care about.

The heart palpitations are, of course, what make sports thrilling. I’d hate to live in a world in which I’m not screaming my head off as the Warriors blow a 3-1 lead. I enjoy gasping when Bryce Harper charges the mound and throws his helmet halfway to Pluto. Sports are all about tension and release, an unpredictable, manufactured, ultimately inconsequential roller coaster of experiences that let us feel something unrelated to the day-to-day of our own lives or the real world.

But disengaging can be a release of tension in and of itself. Caring is exhausting. Having opinions takes a lot out of you. Being a person in general is fraught with anxiety landmines. Keeping old sports on in the background won’t fix anything, or change any of this, or make any of it stop, but it is calming. So give it a try and let the meaninglessness wash over you. It feels fantastic.