If I had to register a guess, OP was probably (or hopefully) basing their comment on how sports like Football and Baseball have traditionally been viewed in the U.S., and possibly Futbol (Soccer) pretty much everywhere else. Whatever he based it off of, I can say there is just a bit too much funding and weight that goes into sports in Highschool and many Colleges. While dumb comment be dumb, it is certainly true that many people do place obscene amounts of importance on sports in general. For schools it's often to the fundamental detriment of educational curriculums.

I'm not really trying to defend OP. Just pointing out that from what little I have grasped, one is almost seen as a cultural outcast in some professions if they don't "talk sports", for example, and the stories I've heard of people found wearing the wrong team colors, wild. It's all a bit silly, tbh.