Sports as Escapism
As the summer comes to an end and the days get shorter, we’re entering the beginning of the season for many of the most popular North American sports. The NFL is in preseason, college football is already underway, and the NBA won’t be far behind. Of the major sports, by far my favourite is hockey: I grew up as a big fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and really enjoyed spending my Saturday nights watching Hockey Night in Canada. Now that I’m here in the Valley, I’ve begun to follow the local team. Tickets are a lot more affordable, and the team is better than the anemic Leafs of late, so there’s a lot to like about the Sharks.
Sports is an obsession in this country. ESPN charges cable and satellite distributors an average monthly fee of over $4 per subscriber, more than four times the average fee of its closest rival. Every NFL regular-season and playoff game is carried on network television. This past Saturday afternoon, no fewer than six different channels were airing college football games, and even high school games are televised with some regularly. Put simply, Americans really like watching sports.
As sports fever has grown, Americans themselves have become less fit. Obesity has steadily increased in recent decades. Fast-food restaurants offer huge portions of food high in fat, salt, and sugar, even as exercise levels are decreasing. The average American, though devoting a huge amount of time to watching athletic events, is less athletic than ever.
What’s going on here? I view it as escapism, pure and simple. Rather that going out and accomplishing things, we instead revel in the accomplishments of others. Athletes are put on a pedestal and treated like heroes, as superpeople who do things that us ordinary folk aren’t capable of. True, not everyone can be a star quarterback or a leading scorer. But I strongly believe that, if we apply ourselves to a challenge, we can accomplish more than we ever thought possible. That goes for athletic endeavors, but it also goes for the rest of life too.
I’ve mentioned before that I’m in the process of training for a marathon. Last week was a rough week: the mileage stepped up considerably, and by the end of Thursday’s run, the third in three days, I was exhausted. I felt like I’d bitten off more than I could chew. But I took Friday off, as per plan, ran my planned slow run on Saturday, and then ran my longest distance yet on Sunday at a great pace. That exhausting training from earlier in the week paid off, and I’m confident that I’m on track to meet my goal time in December. I still have a long way to go, but I’ve still made a tremendous amount of progress, more than I thought possible.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m continuing to cheer for my favourite hockey teams. But instead of viewing the players as superhuman, I view them as excellent athletes who have worked extraordinarily hard to get to where they are today. I view them as role models, as people to emulate, rather than as idols. I’m not going to make the NHL, but I can still set goals and do my best to achieve them. It’s likely that less sports would be watched on TV if more people spent time playing sports. That would probably be an improvement for everyone involved.
