I was about to say, that's close to my experience but then I looked it up on the internets.
https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2010/04/07/political_leani/
There's a pretty cool graphic that shows the political leanings of tv sports watchers. Mostly what you would expect except the WWE and monster trucks?
WWE is essentially a musical dance soap opera where the main villain is legitimately a real life villain making it surprisingly meta.
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The debates over the limits of the term 'sports', which probably deserves it's own thread, is a good illustration of how some people really hate ambiguity and are uncomfortable with such a strongly ambiguous term being so prevalent in everyday life without much actual problem. 'If we can't strictly define sports, something I love, and it works fine, what about other things I want to police, sometimes literally, based on strict definitions?'
I'm usually a descriptivist unless there is a strong utility argument to be made for a change or strict use. As such I'm fine with the expansive definition of 'sports' being essentially a competition of skill with elements to 'sportify' it such as points, ease of spectation, clearly delineated victors, and a rule set designed to facilitate the competition aspect for it's own sake.
As some examples, I wrestled in high school. That has it's origins in martial arts training but quickly was sportified in antiquity. High school wrestling is designed to be watched, to be judged, and to have winners and losers who contribute to teams even though the matches are individual. It's a sport. Clearly. I also competed in grappling competitions. They were scored and judged, but the goal was to test and train martial techniques. The same groups also did sportified competitions. I trained other martial arts at the time, karate specifically, that had 'test yourself, test technique' athletic competitions that were not sports, but also 'Olympic' karate competitions that were.
I currently practice martial arts, specifically weapon arts both from Asian and European traditions, where the competitions are generally designed to test and improve techniques and their viability, testing your art and the art's utility. There is a constant discussion about how much to embrace and avoid 'sportification'. When I practice small sword, it isn't like Olympic fencing even though they both originate from the same thing (and there are a TON of cross applicable skills). I'm fine with it being both sport and not sport. Duality doesn't change the skill.
The point is they are all athletic competitions, but not all are sports even with the expansive definitions. There is some utility in that difference, but there is also no real harm in outsiders thinking of them as 'sport' either.
