Is our sports culture hurting men?
I’m not interested in sports at all, not football, baseball, hockey or basketball. Every day someone asks if I’ve seen this game or that, and no matter how many times I shrug in ignorance, people keep asking. I work to avoid sports news, but it continues to creep into my peripheral vision, especially lately. There was something about the baseball hall of fame, and then I heard some more nonsense about Lance Armstrong. In my own city, there’s been a yearlong fight about public funding for a stadium. Even as I’m barraged with incessant sports infotainment, I’m more convinced than ever that spectator sports harm men.
Playing sports in amateur leagues is a great way to stay active and fit. I also understand the appeal of the Olympic Games, a finite event that combines the spectacle of nations with the striving of mostly unknown athletes. Everything else to do with sports seems like a waste at best and a serious harm (especially to men) at worse.
Often even the good part of sports, the playing, does more harm than good. For instance, why does the average high school football player risk his health for the game? Average players will never see a dime for their efforts, but they’ll often limp through life like professionals, with bad joints and chronic injuries.
My biggest irritation with sports is the fandom. Sports teams separate people by geography, while at the same creating artificial tribalism in a world that could use much less of it. Why do we insist on splitting America into smaller and smaller villages? I’m especially troubled by the common use of the pronoun “we” in statements like: “We won the big game!” It sounds silly and exclusive to me.
How many hours are sacrificed on the altar of spectator sports? I have a bunch of kids, two of whom are very young. I have a hard time checking out for an hour, let alone an entire Sunday to watch some game or other. Two football games can take eight or even ten hours on an average Sunday. As much as I believe parents should set aside moments for themselves, time loses all meaning when it comes to sports fanaticism.
I also can’t understand why we find it so interesting to watch professional athletes beat the hell out of each other in the first place. Concussions in football are serious, but they aren’t the only danger by far. Professional athletes are often loaded up with steroids and painkillers, and many die premature and painful deaths. I don’t know how a civilized society can condone such a thing as entertainment.
The financial issues are also hard to comprehend. In the worse economic conditions in decades, the city leadership of my hometown, Reno, voted to give a billionaire “investor” millions of tax dollars to help fund the Reno Aces ballpark. The vote was overturned after the latest election, but I don’t understand how it passed in the first place. Studies show that public expenditures in arenas never recoup the tax money used, and this fiscal profanity is small compared to the perverse financial incentives in college sports.
I also can’t stand the version of masculinity that’s promoted by the sporting culture—that of the stereotypical grunting, heaving, addle-brained muscle man. Certainly there are other versions of manhood to which young men can aspire. And why do so many young men riot when a favored team loses, and likewise, why does the same group of men riot when their team wins? I know this sounds snobby or even effeminate, but to men I say read a poem or something, anything other than a contest pitting one unnaturally beefy, muscled brute against another.
I can’t even go out for a hamburger without having twenty-five big screen televisions blaring games in every restaurant in town. I’d boycott the places if I could, but I’d be left eating at a hot dog stand at the bus station. The art of quiet conversation over dinner is being slowly murdered with sports pollution.
In many ways I’m just lucky that I’ve never been interested in sports. I have to thank my own father, the biggest non-fan ever, for giving me freedom from fandom plus all my Sundays free. I know that many men will view my distaste for sports as an attack on America, but someone has to say it. I don’t want to seem superior or mean, but professional athletes are a bunch of millionaires who bash each other’s brains in for our amusement. Certainly there’s a better way to understand ourselves as Americans and as men.
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Sports are straight up stupid and homoerotic. Never like sports, never will.
Good article! I’m a lifelong football fan who recently let it all go! It’s a corporate empire wherein politically-correct multi-millionaires entertain the masses, and thus, distract men from their wives, their children and perhaps their truest calling: to have their own adventure, instead of living vicariously through the artificial adventures of others.
All pro sports are in the “bread and circuses” category, which has been a way to render the population into a state of idiotic satisfaction such that they will not revolt against those in power.
I feel your pain buddy :), i live in europe, everyone here is brainwashed with soccer, football or whatever the fuck you call this thing.
I really only enjoy motorsports. I’ll watch races here and there, but not religiously. I’m just attracted to the speed, the engineering, and the ability of humans to conquer something so unnatural.
As an aircraft mechanic and pilot, the amount of engineering in those cars still puts me in a total state of shock and awe.
I totally agree with the author of this article. Being a sports fan is a bad form of entertainment any way you slice it. At worst, it is destructive. I will once or twice a year take my son to go see a game at the local college (my alma matter), but even that has become absurd seeing the amount of taxpayer subsidies used to further meaningless athletics over meaningful education. Look, PLAYING sports is great. WATCHING sports really isn’t. Chances are you will never even meet the players or anyone associated with “your team.” Why do you care so… Read more »
I have no interest in team sports as promoted on television but I do like watching “strongman” championships on television. I guess I like it because it is organic not manufactured like the sports on television. I can watch it for an hour and then not again for a long time.
I agree with the author’s points on just about everything here. However, I do like the combative and contact sports to watch on occasion. But spending hours on it, I can’t get behind. I watch a few hours of football per year. Most of that is the playoffs and Super Bowl. (this year I watched the final quarter and a half) I played football through high school and wrestled through high school and college. But now, I couldn’t tell you the names of more than a couple of players in the whole league in each major sport. I tuned out… Read more »
I don’t watch sports either. I grew up playing sports and watching sport, hunting, fishing, fighting, man I did it all. Then one day I became bored of it all. Really bored of it all. I don’t know why but to this day I am bored to tears by all sports. I workout to stay in shape but playing or watching sports is like reading some tabloid newspaper, I just can’t do it. Every once in awhile I take my kid fishing but that’s for his enjoyment, not mine. I don’t know what happened. I have moved on to things… Read more »
Hi I am a Nana now with 3 grown sons 4 granddaughters. I never was forced into sports as a child and I am glad. Never understood why idiots ran around chasing a Ball and taking risks hurting they’re body. My youngest son takes after. Me. We are more interested in culture life. Have been condemned for it… My son was belittled. He is now a successful man. I don’t even like going to my granddaughter soccer. I get anxiety attacks. If that’s what they want bless them
No one cares about your opinions on sports. Be a non-fan if you want. Sports will roll on without you, and I will still watch and cheer when MY Steelers bash some other team’s brains in. And I’m a chick!! lol
Lol your sooooo funny!!! OMG! YOur a chick and you like sports!!! OMG!!’! Your write that nobody cares if this guy does’nt care about sports, even if everyone is intitled to they’re opinion. Irregardless, you sound so smart for a chick becuz you love sports. Yay sports!!!!’!.
Actually some people do care. You’re exactly what he doesn’t like.
You are not the team owner. The Steelers are not YOUR team.
I can understand the turn off of watching sports. Some fat slob picking 3 day old cheetos out of his belly button yelling. “WE WON”… No, correction, you didn’t win anything but belly button lint in your teeth bud. Truth is, you did nothing. Funny how that guys socially exceptable, but if you don’t like sports, you may as well be a flaming go go dancer? .. Yeah, we got things backwards in this country.
thank you Edwin.?I wish there were more guys like you out there. 🙂
sorry that question mark is not supposed to be stuck in there. 🙂
I think what kills it for me is the staunch opposition to benefiting mankind in any way. Imagine the leaps and bounds we’d be making in performance enhancing pharmacology if the drugs EVERY SINGLE PRO ATHLETE is taking were simply admitted to and made part of the culture. Nope, stupid old rich men are used to something, so it must never change. Burn billions on absolutely nothing material to humanity in any way shape or form, but don’t you DARE corrupt the “purity” of games designed by lower primates for lower primates. A purely transparent system of performance modulation would… Read more »
Edwin, as soon as I saw the title of your OP, I expected you would be personally attacked. So, although this particular controversy simply involves words on a computer screen, I still say it took some courage on your part. Critical evaluations of social institutions are necessary for the health of any society. But a critical evaluation of school sports, no matter how benign or well-intentioned, usually is not tolerated very well.
I don’t trust criticism from someone who doesn’t love the subject. It’s too easy to armchair quarterback.
A funny joke I heard on the weekend to lighten the mood
“How do you get a person wtih a gender studies degree off your front porch”
“Pay for the pizza”
Anyone who uses “REAL MEN” is employing a shaming tactic, iow, you aren’t a “REAL MAN” unless you do what I do or agree with what I say.
Such a common tactic nowadays to get men to ‘tow the party line’
Saying “real men” do or don’t do whatever isn’t new. It’s always been around, always (until recently, perhaps?) at the expense of nonathletes.
While the author makes some substansive points and I’m not much of a sports fan myself (though I partake in watching WWE wrestling. Yeah, I know, it’s choreographed and base and not sports at all so sue me!), you lose me with the “Real Men” argument. Aren’t we supposed to be avoiding “Real Men” generalisations and stereotypes? Because you’re no different from people who say “Real men are tough, real men should fight, they don’t cry, etc”. Except you’re masking it in progressiveness. Nobody has the right to tell people, even men, what they should and shouldn’t do. That includes… Read more »
Guys, do be so kind as to take my comment out of moderation please. This is the umpteenth time I’ve had to tell you.
@Eagle .. maybe we should have a site where the eddited comments are publishedI realize that there are times that comments don’t abide by the rules but it would be interesting to see what was being siad.
Hey Eagle? So far as I know there aren’t a lot of mods, things wind up in there for automated reasons, and it can take awhile to get them out. It is most likely isn’t personal and having a little patience will help those who are volunteering.
im not a moddd. i asked last yr, turned it down, then later in the summer decided to offer my services when an appeal went out. at the time i suggested
1. creating a large pool of junior mo,ds with limited powers, with the old mo.ds becoming senior supervising ones with full authority
2. instead of comments going to an individuals moddds email. the comments go to a central bank instead, where loggedin moddds review – would speed up the moddding process
correction: i was asked last yr, turned it down
He is reacting against what has been the negative stereotyping of nonathletic guys (boys and men) for generations. When I was a teenager, I had the misfortune of being required (against my will) by a psychologist to take judo lessons from a martial arts instructor who was a former college football player. All I will say about the years I spent in his dojo is that I always felt like an outsider. Years later when I looked him up out of curiosity, he informed me that he had saved me from homosexuality (laughs galore!) and that only athletes and men… Read more »
Exactly right, Bill. Spot on.
I fully agree with you Edwin . I will never condone some sports and all the “competition” and physical and mental pain that goes along with them. I love rhythmic gymnastics and things of that nature but I can’t stand football or any of that other nonsense and I’m not sure why anyone else likes it either. We barely pay the people who babysit and teach children i.e. the future generation and yet we over pay top “athletes” whose job it is to injure other people so that they can put a ball in a certain place. How many men… Read more »
@harry:
You askt he following questions
“How many men have gotten literally crippled and are in wheel chairs because of football”
I don’t know the exact number but I can guarantee you one thing, it is ALOT less than from construction, mining, fishing, logging , fireman, police etc.
I’ve thought all the thoughts that Edwin has expressed, and more: youth sports are rife with jerks who think they are experts at character building; the big revenue-generating collegiate sports rip off the players who comprise a vast and willing pool of unpaid labor; the “amateur” internationalist spectacle of the Olympics is basically a First World racket with a few outlier nations like Kenya that excel in their specialist areas, but will never actually host a Games. I enjoy football but I’m secretly relieved that my sons don’t care for the sport. And yet, I love sports and I find… Read more »
An intresting aside, a couple of years ago I was watching a football game with a fellow from England (it was his first time ‘ in the colonies’) His impressions, well, he said the game appeared to him as “sort of an organized riot” but what I really found hilarious, from the commericials he assumed Americen men “All drove pickup trucks, drank a lot of beer, and needed help getting an erection!”
You make some points I agree with, including taxpayer-financed stadiums/arenas being a boondoggle, and a tendency toward stupid tribalism in fandom. I definitely don’t think any man who isn’t into sports should bear any social stigma for that fact. You seem to take it further, though, arguing that it should be the opposite, with a passion for sports making someone less of a man. That would just flip a stupid stigma on it’s still-stupid head. Just because you find little about sports to appeal to you doesn’t mean there’s nothing redeeming about them, whether as a participant or a fan.… Read more »
lol yeah sex is pretty tiresome annoying and useless unless you want to get pregnant….or you’re getting paid….yeah I said it lol. Lol sadly we humans love the things that are the most harmful to us like alcohol for example and oh yeah cigarettes. We know they’re bad but oh baby are we in love with them.
You realize that wasn’t my attitude toward sex, but an example of how even something most people find appealing and desirable can be made to look lame or unhealthy by playing up the negative aspects and ignoring the positive ones, right? The intended point wasn’t about liking stuff that’s bad for us, but about how pretty much anything can be described in such a way as to make it sound bad and unappealing. The dancing thing was another example, intentionally chosen as a physical activity that skews female, not me stating a belief that “real women don’t like dance”. I… Read more »
I feel sorry for dancers and models. I model but I refuse to lose weight to do it. But seriously high heels are a torture device and yet women are in love with them how crazy is that. But yeah I don’t support ballet or high fashion modelling that encourages racism and eating disorders. This is a great topic that Edwin has brought up. Alot of athletes have seriously inflated egos. I think most people can agree that that is a problem along with all the other obvious things. There are some crazy things out there.
I too do not watch sports, (I used to watch kickboxing, boxing, & MMA), but for more than 3 years I have not. Now, I’m reading books, writing books, painting pictures, and having spiritual & fun conversations with my soulmate. Sports are used to affect the animal side of our brain, pertaining to competition and survival. There are many more important things happening in this world while people are being distracted with sports. Follow me on FB or Twitter to see what I mean. Thank you very much for taking the time to write this. My soulmate and I always… Read more »
Real Men Don’t Watch Sports! Real Men Watch Sports! I’m getting pretty tired of others telling me what ‘Real Men’ do! Sometimes you’ll find me in front of the TV watching a game (if the weather’s crappy and I have a temporary repreive from the ‘Honey-do’ list) When my kids were young I’d more than likely be at one of their games since I’d really rather watch and cheer them on (or coach them) than watch some guys who I really don’t know and who don’t know me. But, to tell you the truth, there are many reasons guys watch… Read more »
Edwin- Very interesting perspective that has coerced me to reflect on society’s very preocupation of the sports culture. I agree with your points to some extent, but cannot bypass the fact that you are writing from a very privileged position. It is my guess from your bio and from your comments about being exposed to many things as youngster that you have had the ability to make very informed choices throughout your life. Many of those individuals who play professional football or basketball hail from inner cities and may not have a father to expose them to different things as… Read more »