The importance of sport in our modern day society
What role does sport play in our modern day society?
- why you do something or why something exists
- determination or a feeling of having a reason for what you do
- a need
With a successful Olympic games in Tokyo behind us and the Covid-19 cloud slowly disappearing, most people are returning to some sort of competitive sport after a 12-18 months of absence.
What did we actually miss with no sport in the past year or so?
Does sport play a role on our lives?
Now seems to be a good time to take a look at what is the purpose and importance of sport in our modern day society?
We all agree that we miss and or missed sport in some sort of form or another.
Be that as a competitor or as a supporter.
Sport is an arena of patterned behaviours and social structures that holds unique opportunities (Frey & Eitzen, 1991). Sport also provides us with an escape, a brief respite from the crazy world we currently live in. It serves as an escape valve, a refuge that makes us forget about the turmoil of our daily existence (Segrave, 2000).
No other activity combines the serious with the frivolous, playfulness with intensity and the ideological with the structural like sport does.
Jeffrey O. Segrave in his paper for the Journal of Sport & Social issues, ‘Sport as an Escape’, mention six factors that sport gives us an escape from (Segrave, 2000).
SPACE
Sport is so much different than real life. Sport is played in a designated area set aside for that specific sport. There is a specific space made for a specific purpose, to play the game that is supposed to be played in that space, and nothing else.
This space is our escape from reality where there are no clear lines and anything can happen at any time.
TIME
“In this sense, sport offers us control over that which of course can never be controlled – time.”
In sport we have the ability to stop the clock, call a time out, we have an exact knowledge of how long the game will be.
This control over time is an opportunity to step away from the everyday concerns and anxiety in the rat race that we live in.
COMMUNITY
Sport in nature requires a participant and an audience. Sport is social in nature and through that builds communities.
For the participant it gives a sense of belonging, especially in team sports. It is the one place where you will never be alone. The team will always be there.
For spectators it gives an opportunity to belong to the bigger community. A community generally formed around the supporters’ base of a specific team etc.
“Few spectators or athletes at the Olympics do in fact not find themselves touched by a profound sense of commonality, of belonging, of relatedness; and many talk in terms of feeling the beating pulse of common humanity.”
ORDER
The order and predictability of sport is another of its most appealing features. In sport the game is governed by rules. From the number of participants in a team to the equipment that can be used to play the game are governed.
This provides security for participants for the time they participate in the game.
Sport also offers an effective setting for the earning of acceptable values and beliefs and for acquiring desirable character traits (Frey & Eitzen, 1991)
PURPOSE
“The rules of sport not only bring order and justice into the world, they also bring a sense of purpose and meaning.” The objectives of the game are clear and there is no doubt about how the game should be played.
This is in stark contrast to most of our day-to-day lives we live in.
SELF
“At its most profound and hence potential most perilous and debilitating level, the world of sports also offers us the chance to escape ourselves. Where else can otherwise reserved and modest folk paint their faces or dress up like animals? Where else can grown men pat each other on the butt? Where else can mortals act like immortals?”
The world of sport offers us the opportunity to enter an alternate universe, a space where we can be who ever we want to be without the fear of being judged by society.
Sport also offers us the opportunity to be either task or ego orientated. This is more so in youth sport participants.
In the case of task orientated individuals sport offers the opportunity to lead to positive and adaptive achievement behaviours. In the case of ego orientated individuals sport offers the opportunity for them to answer questions about their adequacy of their own ability. Sport among our youth promote self-esteem and promote the value of increase person mastery and exerted effort (White, Duda, & Keller, 1998).
Sport not only gives us an escape from the daily reality we live in, but also has a positive impact on society. Laura Depta highlights a few of these impacts on www.bleacherreport.com (Depta, 2015).
I would only like to mention three of these that became apparent in the Covid-19 ‘no sport’ time the last few months.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
Sport in modern society is a billion dollar business that has a massive impact on local economies.
It also supplies millions of jobs across the world, from athletes, coaches, and referees to vendors, company employees and front office personnel.
ROLE MODELS
Sport offers athletes the opportunity to be good role models for the youth of today and through that can help kids life a more active life style.
EMOTION
The most positive thing about sport is the pure, unadulterated joy that can result for everyone involved. As mentioned earlier sport transports us away to another world and can incite great passion and joy, or not. Only sport has the ability to do that, and that is a good thing.
I think we can all agree that sport plays a major role in our lives, be it as a participant at the top level, a rookie, a recreational athlete or even a die-hard supporter. If Covid-19 has taught us anything it is that sport has a major role to play in our lives and modern day society.
Sport has the ability to unite nations that are divided
Sport has the ability to teach lessons without life or death consequences
Sport has the ability to heal wounds that cannot be seen
Sport has the ability to create smiles in sad times
References
- Cambridge University Press 2021. (n.d.). PURPOSE | meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary. Retrieved August 4, 2021, from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/purpose
- Depta, L. (2015). 12 Ways Sports Make a Positive Impact. Retrieved August 4, 2021, from https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2347988-12-ways-sports-make-a-positiveimpact
- Frey, J. H., & Eitzen, S. D. (1991). Sport and society. Annual Review of Sociology, 17, 503–522. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.27.1.187
- Segrave, J. O. (2000). Sport as escape.pdf. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 24(1), 61–77.
- White, S., Duda, J., & Keller, M. (1998). The Relationship between Goal Orientation and Perceived Purposes of Sport among Youth Sport Participants. Journal of Sport Behavior, 21(4), 474.
The Final Pass
