Louise Perry
Source: The Wall Street Journal
I am not a sports fan. I have never watched an entire soccer match, let alone followed a tournament. But indifference is not contempt. Sport displays extraordinary physical achievement, sustains a major industry and brings genuine pleasure to people who play and watch it.
That enthusiasm appears more common among men. Progressives often explain the gap by pointing to a sporting culture that historically offered women fewer opportunities and made them feel less welcome. There is truth in that argument. Since the passage of Title IX in 1972, participation by American girls in school and college sports has risen dramatically, showing that access and resources matter.
Yet the gap persists. Women are more likely to leave sport after completing their education, while men are more likely to follow professional competition and describe themselves as avid fans. Cross-cultural studies report similar differences in very different societies, suggesting that social conditioning is not the entire explanation.
Evolutionary psychologists argue that sport gave men and boys a safe arena in which to practice skills associated with hunting and warfare: running, tackling, throwing, dodging and tactical cooperation. It also allowed communities to assess potential allies and rivals. On this reading, sport is not merely entertainment. It is a controlled simulation of conflict.
The connection between the playing field and the battlefield also helps explain why sport exposes national loyalties. In 1990, British politician Norman Tebbit proposed what became known as the “cricket test”: Which team does an immigrant support when the country of origin plays the adopted homeland? The question was never only about sport. It was about identity—and which side someone might choose if symbolic competition became real conflict.
Divided loyalties can seem amusing when they involve Britain, Australia and New Zealand, countries unlikely to fight one another. They become more sensitive when the country of origin is a political or military adversary of the adopted state. Support for a team can then be interpreted, however unfairly, as a signal of deeper allegiance.
Even in its highly regulated modern form, sport continues to channel primal emotions and reveal powerful loyalties. That is why people who dismiss it as “sportsball” miss something important. You may not enjoy watching it—I certainly do not—but it remains a revealing window into competition, identity and the human need to turn conflict into a ritual governed by rules.
Source: The Wall Street Journal