Well, I think it's a bit too simplistic to claim that people who need to follow specific players don't like the sport. Usually my interest is divided between three sports: tennis, cycling, and ice dance.
I think I love all three, but still, my interest will fluctuate from time to time. And usually, it depends on whether there is someone that can feed my interest or not.
I used to be really crazy about cycling, but at the moment, to be honest, I don't really care much, because there's no one that I like enough (apart from Andy Schleck maybe, but it's more like a slight crush, I find him adorable but I don't think he's that great a cyclist so it's not enough).
At the moment, I am really interested in tennis, because Ferrer is someone that I like as a guy but that I also admire a lot, and I love both the personnality he projects and his tennis. Plus, he's doing well at the moment.
As for ice-dance, I'm following it more closely than cycling, but not as closely as I once did. Since all my favourite skaters have retired, and because it also coincided in my opinion with the return of a very classical, unimaginative approach to ice dance, I sometimes cannot bring myself to care much about the competitions anymore. Still, ice dance is not only a sport that I watch, it's a sport that I've practiced for 10 years, so the fact that I'm losing interest from time to time when no skaters can instill much enthusiasm in me, does not mean that I do not truly love the sport.