Why People Play Football in spite of the “Suffering”

Individuals try their best to avoid or treat physical and emotional pain, and all forms of suffering. In sport, however, players prefer voluntary suffering, and the motivations that govern this behavior are surprising. The focus of Brady’s (2019) research was to find out why people in sport “voluntarily embrace” emotional experiences that are negative.

Suffering may include a number of negative states including misery, pain, unhappiness, and distress. Physical suffering may be in the form of thirst, hunger, tiredness, and the like. Mental suffering may be in the form of disappointment, shame, fear, and the like. The reason for embracing pain in football and contact sports can be explained by the challenge, adversity, physical contact, difficulty, and reality of pain and suffering that motivate players to continue playing in spite of the suffering. Even in other activities such as mountain climbing, suffering is “wanted” by the participant.

The author states reasons why suffering may be “wanted” to gain psychological and physical strength to enhance enjoyment.

• In sport, it communicates how one possesses certain values that motivates them to participate in difficult activities, and enhances social standing and self-esteem.
• Another motivation may be to consider suffering as a means to provide physical strength by promoting muscle growth through the damage, repair, and strengthening of muscle fibers, just as vaccination may induce temporary weakness for long-term gains. As a result, the pain of physical exercise to build stamina, muscles, and endurance is preferred by athletes.
• Players may believe that “embracing” suffering may give them the ability to overcome physical adversity and has psychological benefits such as developing perseverance, fortitude, and psychological strength to be able “embrace” difficulty.
• Another argument is that people in sports get acquainted with the limits of their bodies when they undergo physical injury and disappointment of defeat.
• Suffering can have value for fans as an experience of suffering (team losing consistently) can enhance the experience that adds value (relief experienced when team finally wins).
• Some supporters believe suffering is part of fandom and endure all types of unpleasant situations such as poor transport, indifference of players, high ticket costs, and adverse weather conditions.

Brady goes on to argue that the “communicative value of suffering” must be weighed, to understand how their self-esteem is enhanced when willingness to endure suffering is part of the experience.

• The author states that “pride” is the positive emotion associated with such situations, which also accounts for the “communicative value” of the sport achievement. The two elements of pride involve perceiving the object or event as valuable, and in some way “related to oneself”. Pride enables an individual to enhance their social status by way of their achievement.
• Children are often taught to feel proud about objects that are valued socially, causing a child to develop a socially-coherent identity.
• Non-verbal expressions of acceptance enhance a person’s social status. These factors motivate individuals to undertake challenging and difficult tasks.
• Social benefits of sports are another interesting factor that motivates players to embrace suffering, as a person with a certain set of virtues i.e. courage, strength, and perseverance can benefit a group of people. People find such players reliable in a number of difficult and challenging circumstances, and may admire and trust them.
• Fans think suffering is a part of being loyal and authentic to the team. A fan supports the team and sacrifices for them.

References

Brady, M. S. (2019). Suffering in sport: why people willingly embrace negative emotional experiences. Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 46(2), 115–128. https://doi.org/10.1080/00948705.2019.1615837