Sports Are Designed To Be A Cultural Juggernaut

On my way home from a restaurant lunch last week I wasn’t upset, but I was a bit flabbergasted - how did we talk about sports almost the entire time?

It’s not that I’m disinterested in sports. On the contrary, I like sports quite a bit. But if I walk into a room, especially if the majority of the people present are men, I’m almost always the person least interested in sports. 

Which isn’t miserable, but it’s also not fun to be that guy. Being in the company of others, barely having anything to say because everyone else has a seeming encyclopedic knowledge of every game, player, and offensive scheme is legitimately boring.

When I originally envisioned this post, I imagined it as a cultural critique of hyper masculinity and the need for our culture to be more worldly. In my head I imagined, with full-on Yosemite Sam voice, posing this question as the post’s title: why does everyone talk so damn much about sports? Finally, I thought, I could have my emotional release as the sports novice arguing a greater cultural relevance for my preferred domains: like the arts, politics, and religion.

But when I actually thought about that question - why does everyone talk so much about sports - I realized there are tons of reasons why. Sports are designed to be a cultural force. Rather than berating sports (which is what I expected to do in this post), I’ve changed my mind, maybe other aspects of culture should actually be more like sports. 

Here are some examples of how the sports industry is designed to be culturally significant. Imagine if politics, the arts, or religion took on some of these attributes. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect they’d have more cultural relevance than they do:

• In sports, there’s are much data and statistics that are shared transparently about games and players. Anyone who wants to can study those data to develop expertise and fluency about their favorite sports.

• Different “channels” have differentiated experiences that are catered to the audience. Going to the game and watching it on TV can both be terrific for different reasons. People talk about those awesome experiences, and word spreads.

• Announcers guide the audience and explain what’s happening in a supportive, non-pretentious way. That helps novices understand the game and experts engage more deeply.

• Anyone can become a fan of any team - it’s easy to opt in. There’s no test or application to submit. This is incredibly inclusive even if some artifacts like jerseys and hats come at a cost.

• Sports are highly localized, one can become a fan of their local team and watch a live game within driving distance of home. Sports teams are not geographically isolated from their fans, rather they’re highly integrated into their local community. And, fans can play sports in their own neighborhood with their friends and family!

• Though many leagues have ethical issues of many sorts, the integrity of the game is taken seriously. In major sports leagues, fans can trust that the game isn’t fixed, and athletes who gamble on games are harshly punished.

• Similarly, during games rules are tightly enforced, with referees who are highly trained professionals. For all the griping sports fans do about refs, it’s hard to claim they’re corrupt. And conduct that distracts from the game, like fighting or flagrant fouls, get players ejected.

• Players and coaches are highly visible and accessible, relative to other professions. There are press conferences, in-game interviews, and lots of fan events where regular people can interact with their hometown heroes.

• Even commentators on television networks seem like fun, everyday people. They comport themselves with professionalism and seem like a blast to be around. Who wouldn’t want to spend a day hanging out with Shaq or Michael Strahan?

• Athletes and coaches have compelling personal stories and they actually act like themselves on camera. The human storytelling element is a huge part of sports, which gives people a personal, emotional connection to the game. The 30 for 30 documentary series by ESPN is a great example of storytelling in sports.

• Sports have partnerships that cause intersections with huge swaths of culture: journalism, fashion, health and wellness, community service, social justice, politics, and commerce. 

Sports is incredibly accessible and multi-dimensional. It’s an industry designed to be talked about, shared, and culturally pervasive. It’s no surprise that sports has huge cultural influence relative to its size as an industry.

Of course, sports has its problems and dark elements - especially around the labor relationship between players and owners. There are also clear imbalances and issues to work out around the difference in treatment and compensation of male and female athletes. Personally, it’s also incredibly frustrating to me when people I know (usually men, many of which are my buddies) use sports as an instrument to project dominance and act with a pompous air of condescension and exclusivity. I acknowledge and agree that sports culture has serious shortcomings.

But dang, as a cultural force the sports industry really has it figured out. I wish that domains that I personally care about more - like the arts, politics, and religion - took note from sports. 

For example, wouldn’t it be an interesting experiment if the “game day experience” of church was more thoughtful for both in-person services and virtually? Or, what if political parties voluntarily hired independent referees to self-regulate “fighting” and “unsportsmanlike conduct” so that elections were less yucky to the average citizen? What if artists were much more accessible to fans and embraced partnerships outside their mediums as much as athletes and sports franchises do? If the arts, religion, and politics took a page from sports organizations, maybe they’d have more cultural relevance and more enthusiastic participation from their constituents.

Either way, I’ve started to appreciate the sports industry more in the past few months. Even if I still roll my eyes at how much cultural bandwidth sports consumes and how my guy friends don’t shut up about the last weekend’s games, I can’t help but respect how sports is designed to be, and truly is, a cultural juggernaut.