If we look at real life games, such as Fencing... and less "combat" like games, like Football or Baseball, we end up with huge rule systems to fairly resolve conflicts.
One can say "I just want to throw a ball and have fun". But there is no _GAME_ here. If you want to play "Basketball", and get good at "Basketball", it becomes very important to define a fowl.
Same thing in the D&D world. You may not necessarily have to define what is or isn't a fowl in your games, but should combat grow intense and adversarial, then it becomes a necessity.
I disagree about your sports analogy. D&D is the worst possible engine to simulate the fast paced flow of a sports game.
Or a fight. It's a mechanistic simulation, way too emphasis on interactions between low level rules. It's like attempting to design a good soccer game by writing lots of rules about the physics of the ball, how each bristle of the grass interacts with the ball, how the materials of the shoe affect the kick -- and all of this must be consulted in several charts every time there is a kick!
A wargame designer I know once put it like this: if your rules take an your of play to simulate something that in real life takes a few minutes, you are doing something wrong!
D&D is not only tedious to me, it's also a "mechanicist" (for lack of a better word) approach to fantasy. It's rules-based rather than fun-based. It doesn't tell a story, it tells how spell X interacts with weapon Y and how to read charts and stats. A fight in movies doesn't happen like that, the flow and thrill is entirely different.
I'm ok rolling dice, it's fun! But give me a result fast and make it narratively meaningful, nothing breaks immersion like arguing whether a level 35 Pastamancer can cast Fireball against a level 5 shield of enchanted wood.