It was Sunday morning. I stopped at the local grocery to pick up a few things for dinner preparation. No sooner had I stepped from the car than a young man gathering carts called over to me. “You ready for the game?” I laughed and responded, “I’ll be closer to being ready after I pick up a few things!” “Who you for?” he called back. When I told him, he ran over to give me a high five.
Yes, it was Super Bowl Sunday morning. I was part of an annual communal ritual of the major sporting event in the United States.
As I pushed my cart through the grocery store aisles, I noticed that there were significantly more men in the store than usual. I also noticed that most grocery carts carried bags of frozen chicken wings, potato chips, and a variety of beverages. Unlike most days in the grocery, people talked and showed excitement. There was a rare camaraderie and sense of connection. The sporting event drew people out of themselves to form a sense of community.
Over most of my life, I wasn’t much interested in sport. Perhaps that’s because I’ve never been particularly athletic. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve appreciated watching a number of sports. American football, soccer (the British Premier League), and basketball are sports I follow. I’ve gone to sports bars to watch games not televised in my area and participated in a variety of parties around sporting events. Aside from my gambling hobby at https://www.666casino.com/sv/games/blackjack, I have even started to bet on sports games. Beyond anything else, what strikes me most about sport is the way it creates community among people like no other activity in Western societies.
Before going down this path too far, I want to be clear that I am aware of the serious issues of justice to consider regarding professional sports. Professional sport is a business venture. Young talent is often exploited for the sake of the business and many athletes are unprepared for the levels of harm that come their way, physically, socially, and psychologically. Cities are held as economic hostages to the whim of major sporting franchises. Indeed, there are many problems with professional sports.
At the same time, I’m struck by the way fans set aside many differences of class, religion, and politics and join together with others, focused on team support and a kind of fellowship based on ideals of loyalty to a group and connection with others.
When living in another city, I’d frequent a sports bar for Sunday afternoon football games. There I met a young lesbian couple, the bishop of an African-American congregation, an older woman who brought her husband in wheelchair (and was offered lots of assistance by other patrons), a Mexican family with three children, a Chinese student from the university, a doctor, a couple business people, and construction workers and their spouses. When wearing the colors and jerseys of our team, we shared a bond that included respect for each other. And, indeed, in day to day life, we would not have been likely to share this bond or show the same level of respect to these same people.
Out of this experience, I wonder why the only place I find a ready community of people that welcomes others and puts aside differences is related to sport? I don’t experience this same sense of community in the neighborhood where I reside, in most religious institutions, or in other settings in society. I’ve seen glimpses of it in some small towns. There have also been some ethnic and cultural gatherings where I’ve experienced community in this way. But where it is most present and dynamic is in sport.
Now that the Super Bowl has passed, a trip to the grocery store is missing the spirit of Sunday. Generally, people are polite enough, but they don’t look at each other, greet and chat with strangers as they did this past Sunday morning. What is it that we can learn from communities that gather around sport? Are there ways to build greater connection among people? Can the experience of setting aside the things that divide us when at sporting events be an example of how to live together in greater harmony and respect?