Often said after a sports loss by commentators: “(so much fuss/violence/devastation over this): It’s just a game.”
But it is not just a game. If a sport is being contested at NCAA/professional/World Cup levels, it is not just a game - it has become an industry in which the careers and livelihoods of many, emotions of an entire city/region/nation and billions of dollars are involved, not to mention untold amounts of gambling.
IMHO, it is a platitude/cliche, but it is wrong - if it has gotten to that level, it by definition has exceeded a mere “game” and is a whole lot more than a game. It could only be called “just a game” if there were nothing substantial at stake.
Your posting history suggests an affinity for superhero movies. Well, gosh, that’s just a bunch of fairy tales. Is it absurd that a huge industry - one much, much bigger than any professional sport - has built up around it?
Unless your position is that ALL entertainment that becomes commercial is absurd, it makes no sense to single out big time sports as absurd. I don’t see what’s so much more absurd around the Dallas Cowboys pulling in $800 million a year when mid-range Marvel movies make that much (not even counting merchandising.)
Do you like music? That’s a big damn business. The Beatles just put out a bunch of pop songs but they made a zigateen grillion dollars. Stephen King books are just genre novels, which have generated the riches of Croesus. Game of Thrones was a TV fairy tale that made more money than a dragon could carry. World of Warcraft is just a video game, but it’s made a ludicrous amount of money. Chris Rock is just a guy who tells jokes, but Netflix paid him $40 million for do two specials.
Look, baseball and hockey and basketball are just games. But why shouldn’t games matter? If you don’t like games that’s fine, but suggesting other people’s enjoyment of it is “Absurd” is every bit as asinine and mean as me saying that people liking rock music, paintings, opera, stage musicals or board games.
There wasn’t anything more substantial at stake in the Super Bowl than there was in the Game of Thrones finale.
They are both entertainment products, at the conclusion of which, fans will recognize one character (or group of characters) as having Won the Game. No matter how much baggage fans attach to that outcome, it remains the crowning of a champion over a wholly artificial conglomeration of ideas. The actual game itself, the exact champion that gets crowned, is incidental compared to the reaction of fans.
The game itself is really a proxy, it’s the watercooler around which we congregate. The important part of that isn’t the watercooler, it’s the people coming together. The watercooler itself has value as the focal point, but we shouldn’t mistake it for the watercooler itself being super important.
Seems like I’ve seen quite a few threads lately where I strongly agreed with the first response.
I cannot understand why so many people put so much of their emptions into the hands of sports organizations, and why our society promotes it so strongly (public schools, media coverage, etc.) Likely goes back to the Romans and before. Distract the masses. Provide an artificial basis for a feeling of unity…
I often think back to a Parker novel, where the protagonist stops in a bar where a few daytime drinkers are watching a game. As Parker put it, “Interested in OTHER PEOPLE’S successes and failures.” (paraphrased from memory)
Replace “sports organizations” with (take your pick) “video games”, “television shows”, “music acts”, “novel series”… Your statement is just as valid. Your complaint about people getting too emotionally invested in any form of entertainment is not without justification. Entertainment should be a distraction from things that cause emotional distress, not a source of it.
There’s nothing about a sporting event that makes it any better or worse than other forms of entertainment. In all cases, successful sources of entertainment end up with people being paid extravagant sums of money for doing something ultimately trivial.
People rag on sports because they don’t like sports and think people that do are dumb. Then they go back to obsessing over their favorite TV show. Hypocrisy is all too common.
As I see it, sports and fiction are two different sides of the coin. The Super Bowl is real, but it doesn’t matter. Game of Thrones is invented, but it does matter (in-universe).
With sports, much of the enjoyment comes from pretending that it does matter who wins. Many people enjoy sports this way, and are fully aware that they’re just pretending; but some people take it too far and don’t know when to stop pretending.
With fiction (in whatever form—books, movies, TV), much of the enjoyment comes from willing suspension of disbelief: pretending that what is being depicted actually happens to someone we care about, rather than being made-up people engaged in made-up events.
Agreed.
Because emotions are fun, and they make us feel alive, and a feeling of unity feels good, so we take these things wherever we can get them.
Except that people seem to genuinely like entertainment that causes emotional distress (e.g. tragedies, horror). Catharsis is one theory why.
Fair points all. But ISTM that the breadth and depth of sports media coverage and fan identity far exceeds the other entertainments. Perhaps there are a few TV shows or movies that will generate wide coverage and interest, but I’d suggest those are far more exceptional than a run-of-the-mill college or pro football game.
I guess. Personally, I prefer not to put myself in a situation where my emotions are significantly affected by the success or failure of someone I don’t know in an activity I don’t care about.
But that’s kind of circular, though. If “a game” has gotten to the point where there is a huge industry, and billions of dollars at stake, and many careers at stake, and even the economic performance or stock market of a region or nation can be affected by a sports outcome, then it by definition is no longer “just a game” and it has become something a lot more substantial than that.
Disclosure: I’m a lifelong Green Bay Packers fan; I have season tickets, and I’m a shareholder.
Maybe 15 years ago or so, I found myself getting very stressed out and upset when I’d watch Packer games. I’d scream at the television, I’d punch pillows. Yes, positive emotions are fun, but negative emotions – not so much.
I decided that, even though it was OK to like sports, and follow my favorite teams, that becoming so invested in a game that it was affecting my mental health just wasn’t a good thing. I try to take a less emotionally-invested approach to watching now, and if I realize that I’m getting too worked up, I’ll turn the channel or walk away.
I had the same sort of epiphany in college. My alma mater takes football VERY seriously, and a lot of people really get wound up about it- like seriously angry or dismayed if we don’t play well, and react as if it’s life or death.
I realized that was completely stupid; win or lose, I was still going to go out after the game, still going to wake up on Sunday morning, still going to study, go to class, etc… and the only thing that the outcome of the game changed would be the topic of conversation, and what was printed in the campus newspaper. (it was pre-WWW when I had this epiphany).
So now I just watch for enjoyment- I like seeing my team win, but I don’t really care much if they lose, or if they win a national/conference/division championship.
I am the same. I’m a Seahawks fan and sometimes if a game is too stressful I just walk away. I often do the dishes so that I can somewhat hear what’s going on but I’m doing something productive rather than stressing out that the QB just got sacked and they have to punt yet AGAIN. And if it gets really bad I turn it off completely and do something else.
Maybe I’m a bad sports fan? I’m sure that both of us got stressed watching the NFC Championship game a few years back, when the Seahawks were getting blown out by the Packers in CenturyLink (Russell threw 5 interceptions if I remember right) then suddenly came back to win. It sucked for me watching the game the first half and probably sucked for you watching the second half. Even though winning that game was a miracle it’s not an experience I’d repeat.
Meanwhile, SB 48 when the Hawks demolished Denver 43-8 should have been a boring game. It was totally one-sided. But it was the best game I ever watched. There was no stress because the game was decided pretty early on and I just got to watch the favored team get stomped on.
Again, maybe I’m a bad fan. But I hate getting too stressed watching a game. And I agree, it really is just a game and has no true meaning in my life so it’s not worth getting too worked up. At least that’s how I feel about it.
I don’t think I was ever a “rabid” fan. Well, I guess I used to be sufficiently into the Bulls that I listened to their pre-game shows on the radio. And yeah, I was disappointed when they couldn’t get past Boston or Detroit, and then satisfied when the won again and again - until it almost got boring.
For me, the less I paid attention, the less interesting sports became. At one point I got pre-season publications, participated in pools, etc. But if I didn’t keep up on the teams’ rosters and records, I was less interested in watching just any game.
Sports is weird, tho, in that it can drag you into just about any meaningless contest. You can be somewhere and an event you couldn’t care less about comes on the TV. If you don’t make an effort to avoid it, you may find your eye drawn back to the TV. And even if you’ve never heard of a single player on either side, you might find yourself rooting for one or the other, and feeling your emotions getting involved.
I don’t like that kind of sensation. As someone who used to overuse various substances, it reminds me of addiction and manipulation. As a general rule, I’d rather be doing something myself, than watch other people do things.
Yeah; even though that game was years after I decided I was going to keep myself from getting so very invested in Packer games, the final quarter of that one was pretty excruciating. It was like watching a slow-motion crash.
As a Cowboys fan I feel the same way about Super Bowl XXVII, the one where they beat the Bills 52-17. That was the best football game I’ve ever watched.
As far as sports being “just” a game, as others have mentioned if it was just a game, by definition it wouldn’t have the huge billion dollar industries and media coverage surrounding it.
That’s the trick, it’s the surrounding stuff that is important, not the game itself.
Imagine something that is inherently important, like crop yields, sewage treatment, or unemployment. They stay vitally important whether or not they get reported on, whether or not there’s public interest in the topic. You can’t really say it’s “just” our nation’s food supply*.
But a MLB game that nobody is interested in watching may as well be a 50+ seniors softball league for all the importance it has. It’s just a bunch of guys throwing a ball around and swinging a stick.
Oh well, we’ll get 'em next year.**
** By that I mean meals, we’ll get meals next year.