&gt;<i>not because sports fans are stupid, but because intelligent people are capable of enjoying more than just sports</i><p>So it&#x27;s not that sports fans are stupid. It&#x27;s just that non-stupid people aren&#x27;t so interested in sports. Got it.<p>There has been and still is something of a shunning of sports among the &quot;intelligentsia&quot;. There have been studies about it, and how people who wish to be perceived as smart tend to avoid the things viewed as common. That still continues but I think it&#x27;s reducing in frequency at least with respect to sports.<p>I work with a lot of really smart people. A big chunk of them are invested in sports and discuss games at work, wear jerseys on Friday, etc.<p>Also, if the average person is really interested in sports, then generally rising IQ wouldn&#x27;t change the number of people interested in sports. The number of average people is still the same when everyone&#x27;s IQ rises.