Personally, I would rather watch sports than play sports. Less sweat that way. I can just sit back, and watch great athletic feats.
There are many forms of excellence. Barry Bonds hitting a home run is excellence. Roger Staubach's Cowboys defeating Fran Tarkenton's Vikings, is excellence. Kirk Gibson of the 1988 Los Angeles Dodgers giving me the single most exciting sports moment of my life, is excellence.
Then there is musical excellence. Yes, it is quite moving to see the late great Jewish musical conductor/composer, Leonard Bernstein, conduct Beethoven's ninth symphony. Personally, though, my taste in that sort of music is from an earlier period, especially the Baroque period (Bach, Handel, Purcell, Vivaldi, Telemann, Pachelbel and so on) and Mozart. Although Felix Mendelssohn did come from a later era, in the mid 1800's, I am partial to him because he was Jewish, and besides, he did write some great music.
As for Pablo Picasso...sorry, but I do not even respect him enough to call him great despite all the critical acclaim to his work. He is probably the one most responsible for bringing modern art to the world. Modern art is a joke. Any child can draw modern art. True art is both representational yet elevating, as was the art of Michaelangelo and DaVinci. The art of Monet or Van Gogh may emphasize subjectivity, but the representation is still clearly there. That is art, not Picasso drawing some simple childish figure. By the way, I have seen his very early art, when he was still normal, and it was fantastic. Too bad he apparently got bored with it.