Why do we watch sports? Why do we care?

This past Sunday, I was pumped for Tim Tebow Mania, for the Cleveland Browns potentially matching up well against the San Francisco 49ers and for something incredible to move me. However, Tebow wound up displaying his ineptitude and inaccuracy, the Browns' primary ball carrier was not in the NFL two weeks ago and that something special never really came. Even Cam Newton's comeback efforts were thwarted by a disappointing, excruciating, botched 31-yard field goal against the Minnesota Vikings.

Unless you count a Rory McIlroy win in China that I couldn't see, the sports day consisted of around seven hours of investment with very minimal return.

Why do we watch sports? Why do we care?

I think the reason is that we're always looking for something transcendent, something that will make us feel good or something that will light a fire within us and motivate us in a way that we simply can't scrounge from any other place. We want to see athletes put up video game numbers (NBA owners, I'm talking to you), we want to see our team succeed and we want to seek satisfaction by vicariously living through individuals who do things we could only dream of physically doing.

The problem? ... And the point? We typically walk away extremely disappointed by sports. Think about it: if your team doesn't win the Super Bowl or the NBA Finals, you go home at least a little bit sour. PGA Golf has essentially four Super Bowls every year, with hundreds of players competing in these huge events. What are the odds that your guy wins?

How about the NCAA basketball tournament? As Dickie V might say: IT'S ONE AND DONE BABY! FORGET ABOUT IT! And baseball? Woof. One hundred and sixty-two excruciating games and you might be out of it with four months to go! Sorry, enough about baseball.

Seriously, watching sports is, in the grand scheme of things, a waste of time. You are entertained for a time, maybe, but you ultimately end up bitter! But I see the argument that you can make here. In the grand scheme of things, anything can be a waste of time, right? Whatever.

The above were my initial thoughts. When I really thought about sports and my far-too-lazy Sunday, I thought I realized where my priorities were. I thought I realized that I am a sucker for shallow entertainment and I thought I knew I would ultimately wind up bummed by sports by the time it's all said and done. I thought I felt guilty at blowing all this time and I feel terrible about my relevant output for the day.

Then I started thinking more. A more terse examination brought me to this justification for my Sunday behavior: the most captivating things in sports, and in the world, are intangibles, things you can't quite identify in a conventional sense. Intangibles are extraordinary and we seek the extraordinary in our lives every day. When we see it, we say "WOW!" Do we learn less from sports during those moments than in other areas of life? Certainly, one could easily argue. But the principle is the same.

Sports give people lots of jobs, plenty to talk about and whatever the day in sports brings, positive or negative, someone who follows closely knows it can always be intriguing. And heck, sports even gave me the inspiration for this column, something I couldn't conjure up from anywhere else in the world no matter how hard I tried. It would be unattainable … literally intangible.

I guess I accomplished something today.