Your thinking that 'the effort needs to ring the bell or it doesn't count' is a little short sighted in my opinion. It'd be easy to make the scores higher if that was the big need of football. They could just make the goals larger. Sport is a fun mix of probabilities. The fact that goals are hard to score means that each goal is therefore valued higher, and celebrated a lot more. Do you experience the same thrill watching a goal in football vs a normal 2-pointer in basketball? Definitely not. In addition, goals being a rare event means that the underdogs have a higher chance of victory. If the scores were easy to make, the better team would much more frequently score and therefore win. Since goals are rare, with a combination of one lucky moment and some heroics from your keeper/ the better opponent having a bad day, underdogs frequently win the game- which makes it exciting for all kinds of fans. As for leaving games on in the background - it's a lot more to do with personal preference than the absolute value of the sport. I watch all 90 mins of soccer but frequently leave american football on in the background as it has so many breaks.