Yes. Yes you do. How many clothing lines exist solely because of some celebrity? Examples here: http://fashion.about.com/cs/celebritystyle/a/celebritylines.....
The difference is that the vapid celebrity culture is even more imitated than sports stars, but for even less apparent reasons. At least sports starts have accomplished something, even if it is ultimately not terribly meaningful.
If you think that watching SportsCenter everyday and debating sports with your friends is any different than us reading hacker news and enjoying debating about it, then you are just suffering a delusion of superiority. It has nothing to do taking credit for this or that, the debate is what interest people and the statistics are just the weapons.
Even a weekend warrior gains from watching watching their sport.
However, I don't see people walking around with hats and jerseys with their favorite actors name on it the way you do for sports.
I do enjoy many mainstream forms of entertainment (TV, music, movies, etc) I just don't obsess over the smallest details of the entertainers, awards they have won, etc.
From my perspective, I would rather take credit for something I have personally done (alone or as part of a team).