Enigma Variations

Why sport means so much to us

October 20th, 2007

Following on from my last entry I’ve been thinking about why we invest so much energy and emotion in sports and games. Whether it be as a player or a spectator, for a national team or a local league, we pour vast amounts of money and effort into activities which can often be easily made fun of by those who are less enthusiastic. Try objectively describing golf to a Martian!

While there is clearly some element of tribal, regional, or national fervour involved in some cases, there is also a deeper need being met. That need is fairness.

Humans crave fairness. Our philosophies are built on it, our religions declare it, our political theories profess it, and yet in practice in the real world it doesn’t exist. Whether the cause is natural chance; climate, water supply, famine or flood – or man-made; war, poverty, discrimination or persecution – there are plenty of reasons to declare that life isn’t fair.

Sport gives us that chance of fairness; a closed system with rules that all players must abide by in order to achieve success – that awful cliché, a level playing field. It gives us the feeling that there is a chance that our efforts will be fairly rewarded, that if we put in more effort, demonstrate more skill, that we can win.

That is why we care so much when the rules are broken; when a foul goes unpunished, when a referee makes a mistake and chalks off a goal or a try or an ace. We rail against unfairness in this, our one hope of a fair chance.

In some degree we can even measure a sport’s likely popularity with players and spectators by how intrinsically fair it is. Snooker is perhaps the perfect example of a literally level playing field – it is almost pure skill with only the occasional fluke spicing up the mix. Football scores high because while there are advantages being tall and strong there are also advantages in being small and nimble. Basketball, though wildly popular in some countries has never really taken off in the UK in a big way, and one reason must be that it is a sport exclusively for tall people. One of rugby’s problems now is the emphasis on sheer bulk – it is no longer possible to have a fair game between players of different sizes – more on this in the next blog posting.

Golf has a reputation as one of the most sporting of games and one of the fairest – apart from the chance bounce or gust of wind it is a fair context between 2 players or between a number of players and the course. It should be no surprise that it is popular. Indeed the strength of its fairness is shown by the very rare occasions when there is controversy – such as the unfortunate scenes of running onto the green in the Ryder Cup a few years ago when Olazabal still had a putt to take, or when a championship courses is tricked up by misguided administrators to make it “Tiger-proof” and they only succeed in reducing the number of possible winners.

Next time you go to play or spectate at your favourite game, consider how fair it is and which events raise the wrath of the crowd the most.

Entry Filed under: sport