Why We Watch
May 7, 2017
It’s because we don’t know the outcome that we watch competitive sports.
If we know in advance who will win, we are much less inclined to watch.
This explains why television viewer ratings for live sports events are many times greater than for tape-delayed broadcasts and reruns of the same event.
It helps explain why onsite attendance for the Quarterfinals of the MHSAA Team Wrestling Tournament declined after seeding began. Pairing the No. 1 seed against the No. 8 seed, and No. 2 vs. No. 7, had predictable results and didn’t draw as much interest as in previous years, before seeding.
It is not automatic that seeding MHSAA tournaments will increase tournament attendance. Random pairings is a fair system, and random results an exciting experience.
Loss of random results is what worries U.S. professional sports leagues and united them against legalized sports betting. It is why sports organizations have tried to restrain the use of performance enhancing drugs – we don’t want PEDs to predict results.
The lure of participation for adolescents is that competitive school sports is difficult fun. The attraction for spectators is that the results aren’t known in advance. It’s what puts us on the edge of our seats, holding our breath, biting our nails.
Impaired Judgment
September 5, 2017
Twenty-five years ago, we were helping to address the problem of steroids in sports, as well as other performance or appearance enhancing substances. We segued to concern for creatine use and then to caffeine over-use. Today the emerging epidemic is opioids.
As we moved over the years from one drug-related concern to another, we were reminded, and did some reminding, that none of these concerns posed as great a health threat to students as either tobacco or alcohol.
Laws and public opinion have reduced tobacco use across much of daily life in America. It’s universally accepted that both smoking and smokeless tobacco are unhealthy, and smoking is explicitly prohibited in most public and private places where people gather. Smoking is no longer cool; smokers are sent out into the cold.
However, the same cannot be said about alcohol consumption. Public drinking has been accepted in an increasing number of unlikely places, including college sports venues. Never mind that alcohol is a frequent factor in college academic failures, campus damage and even student deaths; alcohol sales are showing up at college stadiums nationwide.
Booze and college football have been closely linked for years – the staple of the tailgating culture. But, college sports’ addiction to more and more money is now bringing booze inside some of the stadiums. About 50 universities are selling beer at games this season.
Some college administrators say their motivation is not money but an effort to match the spectator experience found at professional sporting events. But isn’t that really about money too?
I stopped taking my family to Major League Baseball games after my young son was bathed in a spectator’s beer; and I left a National Football League game early – never to return to another NFL game – after being exposed to too much “spectator experience” over-energized by alcohol.
I prefer the high school setting.