Rules of the Game
Sports is like the hallmark of entertainment for many guys. It’s become such a big deal that guys get called princesses for having no interest in them. For sports like football, basketball, and the like, I can understand. What I can’t quite wrap my head around is how people can find any sort of enjoyment watching dangerous sports like boxing and slap-fighting championships. I guess you could say “dangerous” is subjective when it comes to people’s sports interests, because even football, which is considered safe, comes with its own set of worries.
The fun is in the rules of the game
What exactly do people find interesting about sports? I think this is a question worth asking if we’re going to get to the bottom of understanding how people can find such extreme forms of it interesting.
If you ask me, I’d say the rules of the game.
All sports games are governed by rules, and I believe that the rules governing each of them are what their fans find fascinating. For football, we’re talking about not deliberately using your hands to control the ball. Football fans are wowed by how Ronaldo can keep a ball with his feet and evade several people all aiming to get a round ball out of his possession. And how well-built players like Zlatan can use their body size and strength to their advantage on the pitch.
I’m not very familiar with the rules of boxing, but I would imagine the rules are “the last man standing wins.” That must be what boxing fans love about it: the brute force and tactics boxers deploy to be the last men standing. We all know boxing is dangerous. Boxing lovers know this, and so do the players. But do you think that by changing the game to make it safer, their fans will still enjoy it? They’re there for the violence. You take that away, and they’ll simply stop coming.
Two days ago or so, I read @ justfavour’s post where he referenced what happened to Prichard Colon while discussing the dangers of contact sports. I was telling him how sad what happened to him was, and how he was simply a casualty in the statistics of disabled people that sports of that nature produce.
Just today, as I was scrolling through Beyonce’s internet, I came across another video of this guy who is into all of these kicking and hitting sports, Uriah Hall. The video I’m talking about shows him emerging victorious in one of his fights, only to later look like he’d rather have lost the battle. The caption of the video was “He won, but at what cost?” See, his victory was at the expense of his opponent, because like Prichard Colon, this guy looked like he was about to become a vegetable. In that moment, I thought, “This guy (Uriah) is clearly not someone okay with hurting another person, so why does he do it still?” The simple answer I arrived at after some time was “the rules of the game.”
So even tough basket baller is safer, it just doesn't do it for some people. What gives them the kick is people's capacity to be violent, which is what brutal sports like the ones I described offer. I 100% agree that the rules of some of these games should be changed, however, I wonder what will become of those games if the rules change, since the rules, ruthless as they are, in my opinion, are why people like them.
All images are mine
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