Why the hell do so many of us bother watching men kick a ball around or carry a funny shaped ball to another side of a large patch of grass? I mean it makes no rational sense at face value. It really sounds and looks quite childish. None-the-less, I for some reason am continually drawn to sports and will continue to take part in the spectacle for the rest of my life.
A while back a professor had mentioned sports in a conversation about capitalism. He pointed out that a reason billions of people flock to the television to catch a sporting event is in part because it is arguably the one thing that can not be sold and packaged in the midst of the current capitalist society. I mean sure God knows we try with all the sports team paraphernalia, and some may argue that it indeed allows for sports to be packaged and sold like everything else, but that isn't the main reason we're captivated by sports. That's just a peripheral of the spectacle.
My prof argued that the captivating moment in sports, like a tennis match or football game, is the fact that it has no predetermined outcome. It cannot be 'consumed' before or after the actual event. For example, people don't rush to the nearest blockbuster to pick up a copy of a football game that just happened in the same way many may rush to grab a copy of a new released movie and watch it over and over. In sports, once the game happens it looses its value. What draws us to sports is the fact that it immerses its audience and participants in the moment of 'now.' The LIVE aspect of sports is something that eludes capitalism.
These ideas lead me to believe that the reason sports captivates the world is because it allows our true human nature to surface. It sheds light on our primordial and ancestral act of surviving. An act which is rooted in the 'now' moment.
We are watching something that has not yet been determined. It shares a relationship with life, as sports too allows us to hope, fight, and cheer.
It allows us to step away temporarily from the capitalist system, a system the believes every aspect of life can be packaged and sold.
If you are one of the 10 in the world that don't like sports, and thinks its stupid or childish... well at least appreciate it for what it is, a cultural phenomenon that can not be packaged or sold like a movie, video game, or mobile phone.
