The Real Opiate of the Masses

I recall that most every fall weekend from my childhood was characterized by an overwrought anticipation of Sunday's Oakland Raider's game. Some of my earliest memories are comprised of watching a Raider's game from under a table where my father busied his hands constructing a model ship. Later I remember the anxious hours assessing the likelihood of a win or a loss, the occasional begrudged Sunday when game time would coincide with mass time and I would spend the uninformed hour praying or bargaining with God for a good outcome for my team. My zealousness was cemented during the year my father bought us season tickets to the Raiders games and they either won or came close to winning the Superbowl. I recall that through my early high school years the outcome of a Raiders game could have a strong impact on the outlook of a week in the fall.

Then in 1982 the Raiders moved away. I was a bit lost for awhile, not knowing what to do with those fall Sundays. It wasn't the same team once they moved, and, although I could switch my allegiance across the bay to the '49ers, that wasn't quite the same either. For me the spell was broken. All that energy and focus were mine again to use for other pursuits. My fall weekends were free again and I survived, I never looked back at football, except for the Superbowl once a year for fun. Now I find it difficult to recall any of the intense emotion I had for the sport so long ago.

I don't in any way want to deny the true value of sports of all kinds. There is great value in the lessons of teamwork and competition, doing your best to work towards a goal, the importance of physical fitness, and in appreciating the joy of winning and the sting of losing. What I do worry about is the overinflated valuation of sports. Not long ago professional players maybe earned enough to get by, and now many earn millions. Colleges spend untold millions on stadiums and travel and dinners and baubles to woo players to their teams, where the coaches are payed millions, often at schools where certain programs struggle to provide the basics for their students. This is all just a reflection of our media hyped valuation of sports. I see it first-hand living in a college town in the south where you're looked at like a one eyed monster if you dare ask "is there a game this weekend?" Every weekend I witness the traffic jams, the all day pregame parties and game, the endless conversation reflecting on the last game or speculating on the next, and think of it multiplied across the country in all the college and professional and even high school games, and I have to wonder, what if we could free up some of the brainpower, the time, the energy, and the finances and put it towards something that really matters, like solving climate change or other environmental crises.

I'm sure that the popularity and almost universal addictiveness of sports viewership comes from something deeply embedded in our tribal history. Perhaps some would argue that community representative sports diverts aggression that might otherwise be used for warfare or other aggressive acts, although post game rioting in soccer and rugby matches around the world makes me question this. One thing I know is that if we are to tackle real and imminent environmental crises we must be able to move beyond a lot of baggage from our ancestry, tribal and otherwise, and free up our time, energy, and brain power to work on the critical issues.


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