Why do we watch sports?
Is it healthy? Or is it a waste of time?
To me, watching professional sports is one of the biggest wastes of my time. Compared to other forms of “screen” entertainment and hobbies, it is worthless. If you’re playing video games, at least you’re interacting with other people or at least exercising your brain in some way. If you’re watching movies, you can often learn a valuable lesson from the movie. But watching sports, I usually neither take home a valuable lesson nor do I exercise my brain — I just passively sit in front of a screen and watch other people achieve great things. Perhaps if I had some connection to the sport — perhaps I play it, or have family members who play it, or I know a player on the team — it would make more sense for me to watch it, but all these are far from true. So, with all the things I need and want to do, why do I watch something that has absolutely no stake or impact on my life?
My History with Sports
Before I delve into analyzing why I watch sports, I’m going to talk a bit about my relationship with it. Besides the past couple of years, the last time I remember watching any sort of sports was the Cardinals playing in the World Series in 2011. In the next 8 or so years, I barely even glanced at any sports. Baseball became lame to me, basketball never really entered my sphere, and football I knew absolutely nothing about. I think the only football player I knew was Tom Brady, and even then, I barely knew of his accomplishments, just that a lot of people hated him. So it’s ironic then that over the past few months it has become almost an obsession.
How did I start watching football? I started watching my freshman year of college, mostly watching game highlights on YouTube. It was entertaining, and I started rooting for the Chiefs because 1) they were hot 2) they were in my home state and 3) a lot of my peers and friends were Chiefs fans. The Chiefs would go on to win the Superbowl that year, and that only added to the hype. The second year I watched more games live, read up on sports news and predictions, and followed player injuries. The Chiefs lost the Superbowl that year in a very disappointing game, and I swore to never follow the Chiefs again. But, unsurprisingly, when the season started I came right back to them, a more hardcore fan than ever before. This season, I have watched nearly every game live. I spend considerable time throughout the week catching up on news, reading player injury reports, watching analysts and predictions, scrolling through football twitter, etc.
Why did I keep watching?
When I moved to St. Louis in 2011, the Cardinals won the World Series. I was ecstatic, and liked to think that my coming there would start a baseball dynasty. But…they haven’t won since, and after they didn’t win the second year I quit following them. Comparatively, in my first year of actually following some football, the Chiefs won the Superbowl. They lost the year after, but I continued to follow them. So why did I keep rooting for the Chiefs and following football, but not the Cardinals?
My external environment
Being at college, I was surrounded by Chiefs fans. Every weekend, I would see Chiefs jerseys on, and the game would be playing on the screen in the dining halls. I had a few friends who were Chiefs fans. Simply put, football buzz was all around me, and being a college student, watching a game was a lot more accessible to me compared to being a 6th grader (where a lot of my screen activity was limited).
Football is simply more entertaining to me
To me, football is the most “athletic” sport — it contains speed, strength, agility, aggression — all the things that I think of when I think of “athlete”. It requires a toughness and physicality that sports like soccer, baseball, and basketball do not. To me, football players are the pinnacle of all athletes, and that is why I like to watch them play, because I like to watch the best play.
The Strategy of the Game
When I watch football as an outside observer, I have noticed there is so much strategy, both in and outside the game. I have watched breakdowns, and I love rewinding them and looking at what each player is doing — the receivers, OL, DL, etc. I have a lot of respect for defenses and how they have to read the play. And of course I have a lot of respect for quarterbacks, having to analyze the field, be wary of open receivers but also of the defensive players positions, all while under pressure to get the perfect pass out. Needless to say, there seems to be a lot of intelligence that players must have, more than football players get credit for. And that is just within the game. Outside of the field, coaches and personnel design plays, game plans, must manage the clock. Other sports contain strategy too, of course, but football seems to contain more — it is, after all, a game based on “plays”. And being a person who loves strategy and analysis, I love it.
Emotional Investment
I think on a higher level, each fan loves watching sports because they feel that a part of their identity is invested in the team. They feel a sense of pride when they see their team logo, or wear a players’ jersey. They feel a sense of belonging within the community and the rest of their fans. It’s a pretty great way to be apart of a fiercely competitive yet harmless community. It gives life to people, but in a friendly way (for the most part). I feel a bit of that, but more importantly, I am emotionally invested in the players themselves. I like to follow what they’re doing, what they’re tweeting, what they’re like off the field and what else they do, and all of that adds up into wanting to watch the game live, because it feels like I’ve somehow gotten to know them personally, and watching them on the big screen is no different than going to your siblings’ little league game. And I think this emotional investment is huge — it’s probably the main reason why I kept on watching football.
Why do I watch sports today?
At a root level, I think I enjoy watching football for two main reasons:
- My emotional investment in the team, the players, and the coaches.
- The sport itself is entertaining, offering peak strategy and athleticism unlike any other sport.
This seems like a healthy fan, doesn’t it? I think this broadly sums up the reason why most people watch sports in general. But recently, football has become almost an addiction in my life — I don’t think there is a day that goes by without me searching up “NFL” and seeing the latest news, stats, and standings. I think I’ve reached the point where it’s reached an unhealthy level, spending maybe an hour a day watching videos, or reading news. How did I get here? I offer some theories:
- With not much motivation, discipline, or hunger for my own pursuits, simply put, a general apathy towards most things in life, I’ve become a lazy blob. With most of my other emotion flatlining, I’ve come to seek something more than just mere entertainment — something that’s emotionally riveting and charging — and I have a sure fire reliable way of doing that — watching a hyped up football game. So, I am looking for some emotional excitement.
- With life being boring, I am also looking for another thing — achievement. Since I am too lazy to work and achieve my own goals, I seek to feed off the achievement of others. Seeing players win games and championships gives a false sense of achievement for myself — that I’ve been there with them the entire time and I have achieved something great too. Seeing the achievement of others circles back around to seeking emotional excitement, because achieving is exciting.
- I have not really done much physical activity recently. Perhaps watching sports gives me the false illusion of participating in some physical activity, since it is like I am feeding off others physical exercise.
To sum up, I think all these reasons have a core underlying pattern — that the reason I’ve invested so much time into football is because my own life has become banal, and to fill that gap I have tried to reach for something cheap, something to fill my life with excitement that I can afford cheaply. So I have become so obsessed with football because I want excitement, and moreso, I want cheap, immediate excitement.
Watching football is yet another form of cheap dopamine. The reason is I get high and excited leading up to the game, and while watching the game, but after the game is over, rarely do I feel refreshed and energized. If the Chiefs lose, I feel disgusted and spiteful at the team for losing, and perhaps a big vengeful towards the opponents. Mostly, I feel pathetic, that I just wasted 3 hours of my life watching other people play a sport, and the people I wanted to win didn’t even win. But even if the Chiefs win, I feel drained. Usually it’s because the game was close, and all the pent-up stress built during the game is suddenly released when they win it, and I don’t have much energy. Either way, if the Chiefs win, I’m obviously happy…but I sort of just move on with my life. I don’t go out a celebrate because, well, it feels weird to me to go crazy and celebrate something that I had absolutely no hand in. On the other hand, if the Chiefs lose, I spend a lot more time moping around about it and playing the “they should have…” game.
So…is it a waste of time?
For me, I think that on the whole, it 100% is. The only true benefit I can think of is that it allows me to become a part of a community and can connect me to other friends and people. But there are many ways to connect with people, and watching football comes at a huge cost for me because of two main reasons:
- I have zero stake in any professional sports team. Whether they win or lose, it has zero impact on me, monetary or otherwise. Life simply goes on. Even if they win, I think I experience a net loss due to the stresses of the game and only a weak high at the end.
- I have no connection to the sport. I’ve never played it in my life.
I always feel fraudulent when I say “my team” or “my players” when in reality I have zero stake in the team, and the players, coaches, and personnel don’t even know I exist. And I feel fraudulent for explaining what positions do, or saying what a player should have done, or analyzing strategy — because I’ve literally played one game of tag football.
But for others, watching sports may not be a waste of time at all. It depends on many factors. But if one really does feel like watching sports is wasting their time, they should sit down and consider why they are watching — it might reveal some thing else about their lives.
Lessons Learned & Moving Forward
To conclude, I’d like to talk about some lessons I’ve learned while watching football, and how I plan to move forward.
- Never let your foot off the gas pedal. The Chiefs have lost quite a few games where they had huge leads, but then ended up choking and losing the game. When you’re up high, never lose sight of the vision and take what you have for granted — always keep your eyes ahead and keep working towards the end goal. This applies to life in general.
- Tom Brady is the GOAT. The stats say it all. But what’s even more impressive is that he came from being a no-name college quarterback and a late draft pick, to winning 7 championships. This man’s work ethic is incredible, and everyone should take note. Play the long game, and when you get defeated, never give up.
- Hard work and determination go a long way. The football players in the NFL are undoubtedly talented people, and they are in the top 1% of all football players. But even in that 1%, there is a normal distribution. What separates the great from the phenomenal? Maybe it’s raw talent, but take someone like Tom Brady, and we see hard work and determination factor into the equation as well.
- Football is as much, if not more, of a business than a sport. It’s all about marketing, finance, and more. There are some interesting questions I’ve had, like the business and ownership models of teams, how owners make profit off their teams, and if it’s possible for the public to make profit in an alternative ownership model, like shared ownership (something like the Packers?), or buying team stocks — or, going extreme, if DAOs could own a sports team.
These are just some interesting things I’ve learned while watching football. Moving forward, I want to spend less time watching sports. The season is now over for the Chiefs, but as the next season comes up, I want to try to achieve the (lofty) goal of spending no time on football, only watching a few post season games. Anyways…let me check if the Rams beat the 49ers.