Games We Play

Great time of year if you’re a sports fan! NBA playoffs, Stanley Cup playoffs, clay court tennis, golf, cricket, rugby, soccer/football, AFL and even Quidditch!

Not that there isn’t a lot of sports during the rest of the year.

Comparing and contrasting sport to the business world isn't a novel idea. Google “learn from sports for business” and you find more results than you know what to do with.

This piece isn’t going to be about that for 2 reasons.

1) It's such an obvious angle

2) Sport is a business

There is SO much money in it.

And with the advent of social media, the ability of an athlete to be their own brand has never been higher.

Compare this to a time when so many aspiring sportsmen and women had to give up their dreams because there was no money in it. Up until the 1980s, the Olympics was only for amateurs. This was relaxed due to common sense (and letting the Dream Team in) as there was no way a person could expect to be a world-class anything and be able to compete and train while juggling a full-time job.

You had to be able to provide for your family. Compare this to today where a professional athlete signs a contract and is inundated with requests from family members h/she didn't even know existed. 

None of this money would exist if it were not for the fans. The fans are the engine driving the machine - attending games, buying merchandise, watching the game on TV, watching the commercials and doing whatever else they can to feed it.

But their investment in sports isn’t solely financial, but also one of time. How many hours is spent reading articles, listening to podcasts, discussing issues of the day on talk back radio, watching shows previewing the game, reviewing the game and then the actual game?

Not to mention fantasy sports where people spend hundreds of hours assembling teams so the players on their imaginary team score more points than the players on the other imaginary teams.

Some people devote an extraordinary amount of money, time and effort in their support for their team. They will travel overseas to away games; they will dress themselves head to toe in team colors - what for? What do they actually gain? Because a group of guys signed by the team they like does better than the group of guys signed by the other club? 

Should a person feel lousy and in a bad mood on a Monday morning just because their team lost the day before?

Put like this, it sounds puerile, but we're competitive. Extremely competitive. We love the sense of winning and get to experience it when the team we support does so. This is why Manchester United has thousands of fan who've never even stepped foot in Manchester.

That winning feeling is what compels people to play Candy Crush.

Competition is such a powerful motivator.

This feeling is why we want the people we root for to do well whether they be Bachelor contestants or trying to sit on the Iron Throne. Why are competitive cooking and baking shows so popular? How does something like the Eurovision Song Contest even exist?

And don’t get me started about board games. More family fights and feuds are caused by board games than any other activity!

But at the end of the day or season, sport should be something fun that we escape to, it shouldn't be the world that we occupy. One shouldn't have to reacquaint oneself with family and friends after the season is over. We should never lose perspective of the fact that it is only a game. 

And in its essence, this is what sport has in common with our professional lives. We shouldn't become so immersed to our jobs that making a living comes at the expense of having a life. We shouldn't emerge on the other side of our careers aged 60+ now having the time to do everything we put off doing, only to find we’re too old to enjoy it or have no interest in doing so. Our attitude in life should never be "there's always next year” - like any competitor we need to take advantage of the moment.

If your child’s school play or cousin's wedding is the same night that your team can clinch its first championship in how many years – should there really be a conflict? Yes you may have the time of your life with one and be bored out of your mind with the other, but at the end of the day, which one is truly more meaningful?

Tom Brady, LeBron James, Mike Trout, and Cristiano Ronaldo may play big roles in our life, but we play none in theirs.

If you enjoyed this article, then you'd LOVE my public speaking. I teach age-old lessons through current day news. Reach out to me if you're looking for speakers to spice up your event.