My father-in-law, Bill, and I watch sports differently. Picture Clint Eastwood sitting in front of the TV with Jesse Eisenberg. When a college football game is on, Bill becomes serious, and my surface-level commentary'things like 'Not looking good,' when Arizona State is trailing'is usually met with silence. I wasn't raised a college-football fan; casually saying terms like 'Big Ten' or 'Ole Miss' still seems unnatural to me. But as I've tried to get closer to Bill over the years by trying to understand the sport, I've learned important lessons about my own relationship to fandom. For me, the most essential broadcast on live television has always been the Oscars. As a kid, the ritualized, fanfare-laden process for announcing the year's best movie evoked a grown-up world I was excited to inhabit one day. But over time, Oscar angst has overshadowed my pure enjoyment of my 'sport.' Like many movie fans, I experienced a blow to my sense of reality when I grew up and realized that...
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