Spectator sport has always been a little bit of a mystery to me. I’ve enjoyed playing the sports I watch, namely swimming and soccer (football). However, I could never grasp why I liked watching them. It’s not just me either. Billions of people around the world tune in to their television sets or they purchase tickets to a live game or event, all to watch other people play a sport.
I think my problem lies with the term “spectator”. Sport is clearly defined, at least clearly enough so that it has no impact on the discussion why people watch sport. Sport is fun to play, different sports are more or less fun for different people to play and also to watch. This will be an assumption I hold throughout anyway; that you like to watch sport if you like to play sport and so these are the people I’m talking to. Sure, this may be to differing degrees, but the measure of degree is not important, just that you watch sport instead of doing something else occasionally.
The problem lies with “spectator” because, even though I’ve said “watch” a few times now already, it is much more than watching. For this reason, as I’ll now explore, I considered calling this post “Psychology of Spectator Sport”. It seems we have a predisposition to spectating. If you really think about, there’s no primary reason we should enjoy watching sport; that is, it’s not fun in and of itself. There is something going on beneath the surface that let’s us enjoy passivity as we spectate those that run around and score goals. Much more is happening than just watching when we spectate.
Most obviously, it’s more entertaining to watch a game or race if you’ve chosen a side. Why? It’s what I was getting at with the “psychology” instead of “philosophy” idea. There’s been a bit of research into why we obsess over sport the way we do. As most exciting activities go, dopamine is to blame. The neurons that fire when our team or athlete wins are equivalent to those that fire in the winners themselves. It’s an evolutionary mechanism that allows us to empathise and form bonds with tribe members. Even a loss works to construct stronger ties with a team because being more similar to fellow spectators (though the similarity is emotionally constructed and ephemeral) makes you like those people more i.e. similarity bias.
However, no one likes losing. If dopamine increases are to dictate our consistent actions, why do people continue to follow and spectate teams that consistently lose more than they win? The utilitarian’s knee jerk reaction is to say this is irrational. However, people do follow these teams. They follow these teams for the same reason gambling companies make money. The intermittent distribution of rewards can cause a dopamine increase by anticipation alone. When the win comes after a losing streak, the dopamine rush is even greater than if you had a record of winning. The reason people follow teams has nothing to do with the probability of objective outcomes, otherwise there really would be no point following a losing team; it has to do with their subjective experience. Why do you think lotto companies show someone on a white sandy beach drinking champagne with a helicopter in the background, instead of showing you a pile of cash, or just the amount of winnings? It’s because the objectivity, i.e. watching the game itself (money amount), is not where the enjoyment comes from, but from the subjective and intersubjective (when experienced with a tribe; perceived or real) experience (what you can do with the money).
The combination of the previous two points are exactly why gambling is popular. Placing a bet on a team you force yourself to become partial to it, and therefore enjoy the sport more. A self-fulfilling bias, the rollercoaster of emotional states translates positively in your memory and that positivity is associated with placing bets. 1 – gambling companies, 0 – you. That’s not including the aforementioned effect of intermittent rewards.
As it stands, most of what I’ve said can be explained within the bounds of evolutionary psychology; perhaps I should change the title of the post. But, I shall try to justify the current title. If watching sports is pleasurable, defined as causing the secretion of dopamine, is it irrational to follow them with subjectivity? Or, is the rational way to view someone running fast to view them as an artist? One whose best art is produced after tugging on the evolutionary predisposition to competition, one whose form and technique is something of beauty, something to be admired regardless of the result of the competition?
I guess I’m asking how utility ought to be calculated when it comes to spectating sport. One way to analyse this is to consider a soccer game. Suppose you go for Team A and they play Team B in the final game of a soccer tournament. There are two possible outcomes: The first score is: A 3 – 4 B; A plays the best game they’ve ever played but B also did, resulting in the greatest game ever for neutral fans. The second score is: A 1-0 B. A wins but play terribly overall and play a very boring style. They kick the ball long every time in the hope that the striker will eventually get lucky and score a goal, which A scores during the 32nd minute.
I’ve always been inclined to say that I’d prefer to see the former than the latter. To my surprise, most would rather see the latter. Opinions are likely to change given the conditions for such a game. The example specifies the game as the cup final. Winning the cup is a prestigious thing, to be associated with that prestige as a club supporter is potentially a reason to support outcome #2. This could then be extended to include any game throughout the season. A win is always associated positively, and by supporting a winning team, you are then associated with success. The degree of associativity between you and the team you barrack for is a strong determinant of your likelihood to prefer outcome #2. The more your identity is tied to your team, the more you value a win than a good performance.
Is this even true though? If your team plays well but lose, wouldn’t you be viewed more favourably by neutral fans? Even opposition fans? If you get lucky and score a goal, and it’s obviously lucky, you’re unlikely to gain respect, especially if you arrived at the final that way, and win the final that way. A good performance may be seen just as positively as good result. Who’s to say which is better? Obviously both, but between the two, good performance is always possible. Winning isn’t. It is a rewording of the artist argument.. The athletes set an example of what is possible with our bodies when time and effort is poured into an activity. No one wants to go to a gallery to see paintings drawn by five year-old kids; they want to see paintings by those who have spent a lifetime honing their craft.
I conclude that it doesn’t matter that you follow sport, not even that you’re partial to a team, but that you ought to examine how your partiality or non-partiality affects your subjective experience. Next time you’re watching sport, ask yourself what pulls you to it. More people should do so, especially when so many spend so much time spectating their sport/s of choice.
