Just like sports. Some group of people scoring more points than another group of people isn't that interesting. But once you add the story of how this happened, how this group even came to be and why they are in this particular match and people love it.
Of course there are individual works of art or athletic performance that are significant enough to stand on their own. But those are few and far between.
The GP was saying that if you're looking over a list of multiple sporting events (e.g. a league), they all kinda look the same: team A vs team B, one of them wins, the other doesn't. If you're not specifically following one of the teams involved (and thus know their story), there's little to draw the casual consumer to one event or another.
If you're looking at stats, it's the same. Just a long list of events and scores which are all basically the same thing.
For a lot of art, if you don't know how or why it was created, it can be hard for many people to develop an attachment or strong emotional response to the artwork. For my part, I definitely have to work for it, and most art doesn't generate much of a flutter, until I read the backstory.
Big old paintings often include some of the story in their content, but not always. Modern art and sculpture much less so.
I can quite easily marvel at the raw technique of a Caravaggio painting. But going on technique alone, why would I spend time with Caravaggio over Dali, over Turner, over Hokkaido etc. It's only when I read the title, or the backstory that I understand, the _reason_ he was driven to paint it. And then I see the lighting, the glances, the composition, the postures, the hand positions and I marvel again, and the story and the technique emerge and recombine for me.
(art's a tricky example to offer here, especially old art. I totally get how some people have strong emotional reactions to some art, without the story. )
Of course there are individual works of art or athletic performance that are significant enough to stand on their own. But those are few and far between.