By Reflections from Psychology, Communication, and Philosophy on Why Sporting Heroes and Legends Capture Our Hearts and Minds.
By Sandro Angulo Rincón
- “Why do you like sports?” asks someone unfamiliar with competitive activity.
- “I enjoy watching athletes perform extraordinary physical actions,” replies a frequent viewer of sports activities broadcasted by the media.
- “But what do you see in a game with repetitive movements? And why does hitting a baseball out of the park or getting the ball into a soccer goal give you such euphoria?” they persist.
- “Because there’s always the chance my team will win, and that will make me happy, at least for a moment,” is the conclusive response.
This fictional conversation between a sports fan and someone who is not a regular spectator serves as input to answer why, in postmodernity, so many people are attracted to sporting events. This question is currently addressed by academics, researchers, and intellectuals who refer to theories from psychology, communication, and philosophy.
One of these theories is the Affective Disposition Theory by Dolf Zillman, a Polish psychology professor at the University of Alabama. This theory explains why we enjoy stories disseminated by the media, such as movies, TV series, and soap operas, and especially why viewers develop feelings based on the morality and actions of characters in these entertainment-oriented narratives. Thus, some viewers may lean towards characters who are good and ethical rather than those who are wrong and immoral.
In the realm of sports, these affections arise from loyalty, rivalry towards teams, identification with players for their ethics, skills, discipline, and life stories, the desire for justice, the unpredictability of outcomes, and the expectation that the underdogs will defeat the strong, as in the biblical legend of David and Goliath. In more recent times, the feat of the Colón de Santa Fe team in Argentina, which plays its matches at the “Brigadier General Estanislao López” stadium, better known as “The Elephant Cemetery,” is remembered. This peculiar name originated when Colón, then a small team, defeated the mighty Santos of King Pelé 2-1 on May 10, 1964.
From another perspective, American professors Arthur Raney and Andrew Billings, prominent figures in communication and sports, identify eight motivations for people to become fans of athletic and competitive activities, the origins of which can be traced to the Uses and Gratifications Theory. This theory, proposed by Israeli sociologist Elihu Katz, British communication scholar Jay G. Blumler, and American communication scholar Michael Gurevitch, suggests that people consume media content to satisfy specific needs related to the pursuit of pleasure, utility, and entertainment, among others. The motivations outlined by Raney and Billings are:
Team Loyalty: humans need to develop virtues and share supreme values, and one way of doing this is by being loyal to a team from their city, region, or country. A notable case of loyalty is that of the fans of the Chicago Cubs of the major league baseball in the United States, who, before their World Series victory in 2016, had not won such a title since 1908. Despite more than a century-long drought of titles, the fans always supported their team at the historic “Wrigley Field” stadium.
Entertainment: With more leisure time, sports become a playful activity that generates pleasure.
Mood Control: Watching sports maximizes enjoyment when victories are achieved, but it also teaches how to overcome adversity when the results of favorite athletes or teams are negative.
As a Stimulus for Positive Stress or Eustress: Witnessing a sporting event can be an incentive to overcome everyday life’s challenges or channel enthusiasm and aggressiveness.
Incentives in Life: There are people whose lives and jobs are routine and monotonous. The factory workers in Chaplin’s ‘Modern Times’ or those who feel that their lives have not been particularly successful or exciting fantasize about the triumphs of their teams and athletes as if they were their own.
Escapism: When one wishes to avoid contact with personal, family, or work-related problems. Many viewers prefer sports to escape news about their nations involving violence, corruption, or social inequality.
Sense of Community: Many fans need to belong to a collective. For them, more important than a favorable result for their team is the opportunity to organize a fan club or group, have a few drinks in a bar, or compose songs for their favorite team.
Economic Incentives: To take advantage of opportunities for extra income, such as those provided by betting.
From a philosophical perspective, German philologist Ulrich Gumbrecht introduces the theory of ‘fascination’ in his book ‘In Praise of Athletic Beauty’ to describe why watching sports exerts an irresistible attraction on viewers. The author associates this fascination with the impact produced by certain sports, classified into six categories.
Sculpting Bodies: As in Ancient Greece, young people sculpted their bodies to identify with the Hellenic ideal of beauty and to prepare for athletic competitions. In modern gyms, the enhancement of physical fitness and the sense of an aesthetic and graceful body are preserved. Therefore, one way to reaffirm this is by seeing oneself in mirrors installed throughout the premises. The paradigm of the athletic body, shaped by weight training routines, is Arnold Schwarzenegger, an Austrian and American actor, politician, and bodybuilder who made muscle growth a lifestyle.
Confronting Death: In some disciplines, such as boxing, wrestling, and mixed martial arts, the athlete can be pushed to the limits of their capabilities or endure pain to the point of nearing death. In the iconic documentary ‘Thriller in Manila,’ which narrates the third boxing match between Americans Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in the Philippines in 1975, Ali, before Frazier withdrew from the fight before the fifteenth round due to eye problems, told his corner that the intensity of the battle was ‘the closest thing to death.’
Displaying Grace: The elegance in movements, resulting from good technique in the execution of exercises, is fascinating to the eyes of the viewer. Nadia Comaneci, the Romanian gymnast who, at 14 years old, dazzled the world with a perfect routine (10 points) on the uneven bars at the 1976 Montreal Olympics in Canada, is an example of how pleasing the display of a set of skills before judges and the public.
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Enhancing Body Potential Complexity: A winning potential emerges when a harmonious fusion between the machine and the human body exists. Some exuberant actions in motorsports meet this premise: serving as a precursor to transhumanism. A notable example is Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya overtaking the talented and successful German Michael Schumacher in the 2001 Formula 1 Brazilian Grand Prix.
Embodying Certain Forms: A sublime expression of sport occurs when the human body synchronizes with music, skill, and the environment to create splendid routines with a high degree of difficulty. Artistic swimming allows the body to outline precise shapes in and out of the pool in rhythm with music. An example is the Russian swimmers’ gold medal performance at the 2012 London Olympics.
Generating Epiphanies of Form: The parabolas, straight lines, and triangles in team sports like football manifest the shapes players create with their movements on the field. A miscellany of plays of this nature is showcased in this video.
The sum of these theories, contextualizing the introductory fictional dialogue, translates into millions of spectators fervently following sporting events and their protagonists. This is no exaggeration. For example, consider these data points:
- In the United States, out of the top 100 most-watched television broadcasts in 2022, 95 were sports events. Of these, 82 were NFL (National Football League) games (Karp, 2023).
- In Spain, the football classic between Real Madrid and Barcelona Football Club in the 2020-2021 season captivated an audience of 650 million viewers in 185 countries (Montaño, 2021).
- The Hong Kong Olympics had a global audience of 3 billion people (Europa Press, 2021).
- The FIFA World Cup final in Qatar between Argentina and France was watched by 1.5 billion viewers (Miranda, 2023).
- The 2023 Super Bowl was followed by 115 million people (Ramos, 2023).
- The 2022 Tour de France had an audience of 150 million people in Europe alone (Mitjans, 2022).
Sports captivate for the reasons we’ve seen. Still, it must also be said that, in the last 30 years, there have been factors influencing the massification of audiences. One of these is globalization, as today it’s easier to follow teams and athletes worldwide on television or social media, fostering transnational identities. This means that fans develop feelings (dispositions, gratifications, fascinations) towards foreign athletes who do not share a geographical or cultural connection with their city, region, or country. All of this is amplified by digitization and information and communication technologies that broadcast sports events live, both inside and outside stadiums, as well as by marketing, which, capitalizing on the affections displayed by fans, generates wealth and capital through sports content and associated paraphernalia such as jerseys, scarves, and various souvenirs.
This concludes our set of explanations on why we enjoy sports as spectators. Agon and Areté would like to know which answers or fascinations you most identify with when watching your favorite team or athlete. Send a link of that unforgettable sports event that moves you to tears.
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