How to Adult: Small Talk About Sports

Chances are, if you’re reading this, you don’t care about sports, which is totally okay, but you’re missing out on one of the greatest ways to make small talk in the world. I’m going to break down sport-by-sport on what to say if someone, whether it be a relative, your significant other, your significant other’s relatives or a complete stranger. Here’s how to pretend to care about sports.

In order to avoid looking stupid, I’ll tell you what days each sport is played on and give you random buzzwords to say to make you sound intelligent and popular players to throw around, along with a few responses if the person you’re talking to keeps trying to talk about it.

BASEBALL
Of all the sports to make small talk with, baseball is probably the easiest because it’s played almost all year. However, it also has the most positions to pay attention to. Old people especially love to talk about baseball because only old people watch baseball.

When baseball is played: April-November
Days baseball are played: literally every day
Players’ names: Kris Bryant, Mike Trout and Clayton Kershaw
Buzzwords: home run, locker room guy, fastball, sabermetrics, ace, offense or hitter’s ballpark

Now it’s time to put everything together and create a dialogue.

YOUR FRIEND’S UNCLE:

What do you think about those [team name here]?

YOU:
Yeah, did you see the game last night? Crazy day for the offense.

This works for 90 percent of sports, so hopefully, your conversation ends here, but if it doesn’t, you gotta be prepared for them to respond.

YOUR FRIEND’S UNCLE:
Hopefully, those bats (make sure he’s talking about baseball bats, and not the flying rodents) will be able to come alive during this road trip

YOU:
We got our ACE pitching soon, so we should be alright.

That should be the end of the conversation. If it doesn’t end after that, I’m sorry fella, you’re on your own.

PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL
Football will probably have the most passionate fans trying to talk to you since it’s on TV the least of the main sports. However, it has the best phrases to use because you can make people mad really quickly, so I guess water always find its level.

Months football are played: August-February
Days football are played: Sunday, Monday, Thursday
Players’ names: Tom Brady, Ezekiel Elliott, Tom Brady, Nick Saban (Applies for college football)  Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady
Buzzwords: touchdown, yards-per-catch, pocket passer, sack, football guy or mobile quarterback

YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER’S DAD:
The [team name here] had a field day last Sunday.

YOU:
Oh man, you’re telling me. Have you noticed how AARON RODGERS has been playing?

YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER’S DAD:
Oh man, he’s been all over the field recently. Do you think NICK SABAN is ever gonna come back to the pros? He’s a real FOOTBALL GUY.

YOU:
It’s not gonna be hard for him to find a good MOBILE QUARTERBACK in the pros.

If you want the one sentence to shut down the most diehard football fan, here it is. Please use this with caution.

YOU:
TOM BRADY is a system quarterback.

SOCCER
That’s a good joke. No one’s gonna talk to you about soccer.

BASKETBALL
If you’re talking to a group of young sports fans, they’ll probably be talking about the NBA. With its colorful characters and exciting games, basketball is fun to talk about. Lucky for you, (almost) everyone in the NBA has slam dunked at least once. Which means all you really gotta know is a few players names, and then, you’re good.

Players’ names: Lebron James, Steph Curry, Dirk Nowitzki, Joel Embiid, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook

YOU:
Did you see [Insert player here] dunk last night? I saw it on Twitter.

CLASSMATE:
Oh yeah man, that was crazy.

And then you’re done.

So that’s how you talk to people about sports when you know nothing about sports. Now it’s your turn to conquer small talk and become a little less awkward.