Sports Don’t/Do Matter

I’ve always found sports fascinating.

On one side of the coin they’re just part of the larger circus of distraction and amusement; pacifying and utterly meaningless. Even the “legends” of today will be mere footnotes in the annals of history a thousand years from now, if even cited at all.

On top of that, there are significant epochal and consequential issues of existential importance that are far more worthy of our attention. From nuclear war and the ethical development of AI to the burgeoning mass surveillance state and unbridled corruption eroding our governing institutions - we have some alarmingly difficult challenges to confront that are central to the social and evolutionary direction of our species.

So yeah, if you’re looking at sports from this side of the coin then they are unquestionably trivial and irrelevant.

BUT, there’s more sides to that “sports” coin.

From a production standpoint, sports are an obvious economic driver and a boon for employment and job creation. Accountants, food and beverage workers, delivery drivers, merchandise reps, lawyers, agents, security guards, ushers, publicists, strength and conditioning trainers, physiotherapists, photographers, marketing and advertising departments, the entire media & broadcasting ecosystem (graphics and FX departments, camera operators, writers, radio hosts, announcers, podcasters, production co-ordinators)…“Sports” are a multi-TRILLION dollar industry annually…and this money then gets spent and circulated throughout the rest of the economy; a real, tangible and meaningful contribution to the functioning of society.

Beyond that however, is something even deeper - the stories, the energy, the moments, the tribalistic sense of belonging - all incredibly emotional and powerful.

Watch the George Springer homerun clip above and you can see the energy of the crowd - as if 45,000 people all won the lottery at the exact same time. That fervent passion is electric. You can feel it, experience it.

The homerun itself - the physical act of a guy swinging a wooden club and hitting a tightly-bound ball of yarn 390 feet - really IS meaningless in a mundane sense…but that energy, in that moment, is genuine emotional catharsis, and a reason why I’ll probably always watch sports even though I also see the bigger picture.

GO JAYS!!! 🐦