Why do we watch sports?
Ever since I can remember, sports has had such a huge impact in my life. Whether it as a player or a spectator, I could never get enough sports. Whether it is on the local swim team, a bowling league (yes, there is such thing as that) or the regular contact sports, basketball, baseball and football. I remember growing up there were only a few things that were ever on my TV: "Sports Center" in the morning and whatever big game was on at night. Watching athletes do what they love to do and get paid for it sounded like an amazing opportunity. My father once asked me why I watched sports. At the time, I was in high school and didn’t really know what to say at the time, but it was a good challenge from him to me. If it has such a huge impact on my life shouldn’t you know the answer. So why do we watch sports? I finally have come up with a few answers of my own and now can finally share them.
Well the first answer that I came up with is being able to watch someone have fun at his or her job. When we look around at jobs today, how many of us can we actually say that we are happy at our job? Not too many, unless you are the kind of person that can make good in any situation then you are one of the rare people out there. But think about it when we are watching a sports game how many times are they smiling? (You could probably make that into a drinking game if your old enough to drink; not telling people that you should but it could be a fun game.). How many times when they make a great play they are encouraging each other and high fiving each other all over the place. It is never a dull moment when you are watching someone do what they love. And clearly you can see the passion and the love of the game when they play.
My other reason why we watch sports is that they take us away from our reality and bring us somewhere we can only dream of. Every time we put a game we enter into their world for two in a half hours. Now that the NBA playoffs are about to find out who is going to be in the Finals, let's use them as an example. For hours that is what Twitter and Facebook are talking about. When there is a big time game on TV millions of people are tweeting about a bad call or, “Did you see that play?” We forget that we may have a bill that we have to pay tomorrow, but it doesn’t matter if a game is on. Watching sports reminds us that there are gifted athletes out there to watch and admire their God gifted talents.
The final reason why we watch sports is the moments. Perfect example: watching Villanova win the NCAA Championship game on the buzzer beater by Kris Jenkins just a two months ago. Or how about the Malcom Butler play to seal the Super Bowl for the Patriots two years ago or the Luis Gonzalez blooper in centerfield to give the Diamondbacks their first World Series ever? These moments will forever live on. We watch sports so that one day we can say we were there or hey do you remember when you saw Kris Jenkins hit that game-winning three? Sports moments stick with us and we will always remember where we were when that happened.
