I think the reasons sports appeal to me more than a lot of fictional works is because human interaction in fiction is ultimately just whatever the writer(s) decided it should be, but often those interactions have a presented perspective intended by them. In sports there's a hell of a lot of human interaction and over time you get to see some of those from mutiple perspectives, not just hearing stories told by those involved but also seeing your own perspective change as you learn more about the circumstance. I'm sure this happens to an extent in fiction but I would assume it's rare to have the kind of "still hearing new stories and details about this thing that happened 30 years ago on a podcast" kind of depth in most fiction. At least, actual new bits of information or historical perspective rather than a more literary analysis re-evaluation of existing information stuff.