Many moons ago, after graduation from college, I made one of the most important choices of my life; I decided to go live with the future Mrs. SSR.  It was a pretty big risk, because I was very much the overgrown child that many boys are at that age.  A combination of too many video games and not enough cleanliness always seemed likely to scuttle the whole deal, but I tried my best to become a better man, and things were going swimmingly for the first few months.  Then, basketball season hit.  Soon, we were having the following weekly conversation

Future Mrs. SSR: Hey, my friends invited us out to dinner on Sunday night, you want to go?
Me: Oh, there's a big Lakers game Sunday, can we do it some other time?
Future Mrs. SSR: No big deal. You want to watch something together?
Me: Er, there's a Lakers game on tonight, too.
Future Mrs. SSR: Oh right. What about tomorrow night, let's go out and get a nice dinner.
Me: ...
Future Mrs. SSR: Oh ... OK

That, my friends, is not the foundation of a loving and successful relationship.  I want to be crystal clear, both in the interests of fairness, and because my wife sometimes peruses this webspace, that when it comes to putting up with my fandom, my wife is a saint.  She never complained about my having 3-4 nights a week committed to the Lakers.  She never demanded that I miss so much as a single game.  But she wasn't happy either, and looking back, I can't blame her in the slightest for it.  Maybe it would be easier if I didn't love so many different sports and teams, but between the Lakers, Chargers and college football, most of my nights and weekends were booked.  Plus there was one of those pesky jobs to be had the rest of the time.  Matters were not assisted by the fact that we had only one television.  Even worse than the fact that I was always watching sports, she also had to always watch sports, or else find some other form of entertainment.  We couldn't watch any television shows, because it's impossible to see every episode of a show and every game of a season at the same time.  Eventually, they will intersect, and the smart sports fan knows to just not bother.

The next year, we moved to a new apartment, and I took the opportunity as a chance to get on board with what is the single most useful piece of technology to any modern family: the DVR.

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You may or may not know this (by now you probably should), but I am a huge soccer fan.  My love for the Lakers will always keep basketball at the top of my sports pyramid, but if I had to choose one sport to watch two of the best teams play each other where I had no rooting interest, soccer is my choice hands down (Well, curling is my first choice, but there's an availability issue there).  A full time job (not to mention a part time hobby-job, hello World Cup thread) did not prevent me from watching about 85% of the World Cup this past summer.

My love of soccer is pretty unusual, even for an American.  Most Americans don't particularly care for the game, as is their right, and the soccer-lovers have usually been brought to the game through a combination of factors.  Some played the game quite a bit as a child, some are immigrants (or else their parents are) who brought their love of the world's game with them, and some were brought in by a friend.  Me?  I played soccer for one year (I was seven), my family tree has been in this country since the 1800s on both sides, and it took me 5 years to find a decent group of friends who love soccer (ironically, they were already my friends, and we all co-existed without knowing that we all enjoyed the game). 

So how did one lone American fall in love with a distinctly non-American game?  Because technology allowed me to.

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In case the little logo at the top didn't clue you in, this is a sponsored post.  Samsung wants to get the word out about different ways that tech can enhance the experience of watching sports, and they are willing to dish out a little scratch to achieve it.  The topic is open ended, open to interpretation, and does not need to actually be driven by a Samsung product in any way, so there are lots of ways to take this.

Wait a minute, a tech company wants to pay me to write a few words about how tech enhances the sports experience?  I'm pretty sure that right there qualifies as tech enhancing my sports experience.  Done and done.  Man, am I good at this or what?

Seriously though, there are so many possibilities to bring up here.  Tech and sports are both a major part of just about everybody's lives, and the two have integrated seamlessly.  Whether it's never being out of touch with scores, messing with your fantasy team from anywhere in the world, or having greater access to athletes than ever before, the number of ways that tech makes you a better fan, and makes being a fan better, are limitless.  So I figured I'd start at the foundation of the sports experience.  You know ... sports.  Because there is no doubt that tech makes sports, actual sports, better.

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