Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Confessions of a Sports Illiterate
I am writing this in curiosity, not in mockery or condescension of sports fans. I think was born sports-impaired, and by that I mean that not only have I never been any good at any sports — save swimming — but I have never really been able to derive much enjoyment from watching others play, no matter how well. This proved rather awkward for me in school and at home, as my father is quite the devotee of football. I tried stoking an interest in baseball for a few years, but lost interest in the great 1990s walkout.
I am asking this in all earnestness and curiosity: why do you watch sporting events? How is it enjoyable for you when the entire experience is essentially vicarious? You are watching someone else perform, so why invest so much of your emotions into the outcome? Some points I can understand, such as having a knowledge of the game from prior personal experience, or having a friend or relative competing. The rest, however, is rather alien to me.
Secondly, why do you favor one team over another, aside from mere geographical favoritism? This one especially puzzles me, as most players on any given team come from all over the US — indeed all over the world — regardless of the sport. I can readily understand hating a team, given how some teams or their owners can be insufferable, or just win so often that you tire of them (the Atlanta Braves of the 1990s come to mind, with Ted Turner as their owner). I just do not understand why you might pick one team over another for loyalty, especially given the pecuniary costs of acquiring merchandise.
I kept silent with these questions prior to Sunday’s match as I know fans of that sport can be a bit worked up. Another poster here took some heat for saying that he was not planning to watch the game, and I was not keen to partake of the same. I’m just asking out of curiosity.
Published in General
I was never smart enough to get out of the way.
Skip – Let me tackle your points the best I can.
If you live anywhere near a MLB stadium you should attend a game when they host local college teams. The stadiums are dead and devoid of energy. Without the crowd the game is not the same.
Bleacher Bums in Chicago, the Terrible Towels of Pittsburgh, the Dawg Pound – all of them – the fans of a city participating in the creation of the communal experience of sport.
Try being in a city when the home team wins a championship.
Slow motion replay in sports reveals its own “other world.” To watch the Reds’ Brandon Phillips turn a double-play is to watch ballet.
You may imagine a character’s voice being different than someone else may imagine it. Or you might cast a story with famous actors. But it’s not exactly “interactive” because nothing you do will change the way the story ends on the last page. But when you’re at the ball game, if you cheer loud enough and at the right time…
And then there is the amazing comraderie and selflessness that is often palpable.
Like http://boston.cbslocal.com/2015/02/03/patriots-tom-brady-gives-super-bowl-mvp-truck-to-malcolm-butler/
I’d never go to another sports game if I could avoid it. But watching a college football game on TV with a dozen family and friends cheering, cursing, eating, and carrying on separate conversations? That’s a blast.
My biggest complaints about going to actual games are rather minor:
1. The concessions are a rip off, and really amp up the already high costs of the games.
2. I hate traffic.
Otherwise they can be fun. Should have seen the Pirates hosting the Giants – the crowds did their level best to boo Bonds as loudly as possible every time he came up to bat. Could not replicate that feeling of hatred and betrayal at home.
And the Penguins games I saw in the 90s were good too – Mario Lemeuix still at his peak.
It’s unique to the person, I suppose, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Some sports I like to watch but hate to play (ice hockey … I never learned to skate well enough to compete). Some I love to play but hate to watch (racquetball).
Some sports, I just don’t get, although others love them. For instance, I can’t watch NASCAR, especially after commuting two hours a day during the week. The Baltimore Beltway has forever soured me on driving, period, never mind watching other people do it.
Not even hockey? Really? With all those impressive skating and shooting skills plus the unusual hand-eye coordination? And the maniacal fans and excessive beer drinking?
Now I’m really confused. :)
I fell in love with hockey as a wee lad in the late 70s and early 80s. I must admit I was most fascinated with the fighting. Sometimes I even turned back around and watched ones on the ice.
The games are fun to watch, but I don’t get especially involved. As for the fans, sometimes they are fun to watch too, but I never enjoy being around excessive drinking (seen the nasty effects of that too many times with family), and will leave rather than endure it.
Fighting in hockey actually does have a purpose within the game. The Freakonomics podcast did a whole segment on it once several years ago. It is not just tempers spilling over, it is a real way to deal with ethical infractions (things that are not covered by the official rules) during a game.
As one of my nephews (a little league hockey player himself) so earnestly explained to me once, “Aunt Liz, we just all like a good fight.” :)
I am not sure going to a baseball games is all about getting into it. A large part of it is about spending 4 or 5 hours with people you enjoy spending time with. Baseball is a leisurely game. It allows you to relax and enjoy the experience. Going to a football games is like having a wide open adrenaline drip.
I can watch motor sports pretty well, but like Jim above on tennis, I HATE the camera work, you just miss so much. NASCAR is a lot more than just the “going round in ovals” that it gets parodied for – those cars are finely balanced death traps that take phenomenal skill to master.
Saw a great interview with an F1 driver who also raced NASCAR, and he said that F1 racing had become so hidebound by rules, regulations, restrictions, and team politics that there just wasn’t much suspense from race to race – your team’s chosen driver was the only one allowed to win, and even then your win could be overturned by other teams’ lawyers on bizarre technicalities. But NASCAR was totally unpredictable and really required cunning, poker-like bluffing, tremendous luck, and skill to win.
Don’t underestimate gambling’s draw for watching games.
Beyond that, it’s parts of all of the below…
It’s reality TV without a script. It’s David vs Goliath. It’s good vs evil (Roll Tide Roll Nicky Satan:) It’s like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates. It’s a soap opera. A thriller, a suspense novel, a story of redemption, a greek tragedy. Etc, Etc.
My favorite Red Wing (Gordie Howe) would let the little stuff slip through the cracks, but if an opposing player pushed the limits, he didn’t hesitate to wield the stick and impose “vigilante” justice.
I think the purpose of fan fighting is to lessen traffic after the game.
I miss those days.
Great questions Skipsul, I ponder them constantly. Growing up, baseball was my dads game and so he’d take me to Giants games — I just caught the end of the Mays and McCovey era. My dad and I never connected much, but we did with baseball and motorcycles.
I got into football as a way to hide from him.
As I’ve gotten older I’ve wondered why I let a 49ers loss affect me so much — interestingly the Giants have won the series 3 times and I’m not nearly as affected in the positive direction. Given player movement, you really are rooting for laundry and maybe some shared history.
More and more, I tend to root for players rather than teams. I really admire someone like Jason Whitten even though I don’t much care for his team. I’m a sucker for good guys especially given how many jerks seem to be engaged at the higher levels of sport.
I was a devoted fan of Nolan Ryan, though never a Rangers fan. He just always struck me as a class act, as well as a phenomenal pitcher.
I agree wholeheartedly.
What really mystifies me about attending live contests in America is why fans put up with the constant barrage of piped-in music and commercials. Baseball and hockey games should have an organ at most, and maybe some fan in the stands with a bugle sounding charge. It’s sad going to a college football game where the marching band gets drowned out by top 40 garbage from the speaker system.
As much as it pains me to admit it, I am jealous of soccer fans who get to sing their hometown songs and chant their homemade chants rather than get blasted with pop music.
I was a BIG fan of Nolan. Can’t think of him anymore without also thinking of Robin Ventura. (Which come to think of it, is another thing I like about sports, the memories)
http://www.theonion.com/articles/you-will-suffer-humiliation-when-the-sports-team-f,10804/
…or if you catch a foul ball inches above the glove of the waiting outfielder, and then your team goes 58 more years without playing in the World Series…
I’m with you. I enjoy playing sports. Watching others play, doesn’t interest me at all.
I am apparently missing the same “sports gene” that you’re missing. I share your indifference to sports.
However, I want to take a stab at why so many want to watch sporting events: because people enjoy seeing exhibitions of excellence. The competition doesn’t necessarily involve humans as the main contestant, dog racing, dog fighting, chicken fighting and autonomous battling robots are examples of this variation. (Arguably, the outcomes of contests between non-humans are a proxy for the excellence of the human team hosting a given contestant.)
Yes, sports events are broadcast as entertainment, but that doesn’t nullify my point because the next question becomes “why is it entertaining?” I believe that people have a compelling curiosity in seeing whether and how one team is superior–that is, more excellent–than the other.
Yes, fans in a given sports event’s audience have a tribal-ish sense of shared fate with their favored team but why do they feel the need to watch their team struggle against uncertain odds? I think it is because they need to see their team’s purported superior excellence validated in a contest.
This principle also explains why people watch reality TV shows and game shows.
Sports is also high drama, and unlike most drama, it is real and played out in real time.
The athlete is not a machine. He suffers emotional and physical pain. He has ephemeral triumphs and failures during the match that his fans can experience vicariously. In this age of Hi-Def TV we an see the emotions on the athlete’s face. If the fan has some experience at playing the sport he can have some reasonable appreciation of what the athlete is experiencing.