Sports: A Collective Experience
Sports have a way of tapping into our instincts, bringing out our tribal spirit. Playing sports growing up is how kids learn teamwork and the importance of collaboration. At a certain age, even the best athletes must hang up their cleats. We all know this isn’t the end of sports playing a major role in our lives. Watching sports is one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the world. Not only are they exciting, but sports have a way of uniting people from different backgrounds. Regardless of income level, race, political views, or religion, if two people are cheering for the same team they instantly have something to connect over.
Ask yourself the question, what does watching sports look like? Does your picture include one person sitting alone or a bunch of people watching together? Watching sports is a collective experience, if you see someone watching a football game alone it is very likely they are at least interacting with other people on their phone or laptop. Fantasy sports has given us another way to enjoy games with other people and provide more opportunities for smack talk and to prove our advanced knowledge of sports.
When you’re watching at home on TV, you can only directly interact with the few other people who might be there. This is an advantage of sports bars, where more people can be seen cheering and sharing their predictions with other fans. The ultimate level of collective experience is to actually be at the stadium, with thousands of other screaming fans. No one likes to go to a game when the stadium’s empty, this is one of the few times when we prefer to be in a big crowd.
When fans refer to their favorite team using “us” they not only refer to themselves and the team, but to all of the other supporters across the world. Sports bring people together. Not only for the sake of the game, but to share passion with other people.
Have any great experiences at a game with friends? Want to learn more about the Homefield mobile app? Send me a message on Linkedin or email me, [email protected].
This blog was originally posted on the Homefield website at https://www.homefield.me/blog/post/1?.