One of the biggest global entertainment industries is televised sport. Everyone watches sport. Kids in Peru watch sport. Grandmothers in Iceland watch sport (I assume). What’s more, most people watch multiple types of sport. There is the camaraderie of team competition (football, basketball), and the heroics of individual athletics (swimming, acrobatics on ice) There are even niche sports you haven’t heard of like ‘korfball’ and ‘luge’. What I’m trying to say is that there’s something for everybody.
The trouble with watching sport is that it’s unpredictable.
This might seem counterintuitive. Don’t people watch sport precisely for the suspense? For the unfolding story being written on the field, court, or pool? Nope. This is what people who don’t watch sport say. If you have watched even a tiny amount of it in your lifetime, you know that you watch sport to support your favorite team or player. And you watch to see them win.
When we watch sport, we gravitate to a certain side or individual. That’s biological. The same thing happens when we watch movies. We relate to people and characters. We relate to them so much that the line between us and them is blurred. That’s why when our team wins, we don’t say “they won.” We raise our fists and exult in no uncertain terms, “We did it! We won!” Even though the extent of our participation was shouting at the television screen.
When our team wins, we win, and we feel good. When our team loses, we lose, and life becomes sad and meaningless.
I am suffering a sports-induced depression. I follow Australian Rules Football. If you don’t know what this is, think of a mix between basketball and gridiron. Only that there are no pads and it is played by crazy, fearless, Australians. The national competition features 18 teams from across the country, and they play weekly matches that culminate in a finals series and the lifting of a very shiny cup.
My team, the West Coast Eagles, has lost two games in a row.
I watched both of these games from my living room couch, enduring two hours of suspense and agony. A nail-biter against the Richmond Tigers, then a mauling from the Hawthorn Hawks. Afterwords I spent another four hours laying down with a bottle of red wine, trying to drink away my disappointment.
Two games doesn’t seem like a lot. Right? Wrong. If you watch sport you know that two games can mean the difference between failure and glory. When you invest so much of yourself, particularly into a competition that happens only once a year, not winning the championship feels like the rejection of all your hard work.
There is a trophy-sized hole developing inside my heart.
Why put myself through this then? Surely life would be much simpler if I turned off the television.
Because for all the downs, there are ups.
Two years ago my life was a mess. I had just gone through a tough breakup, I was failing college math, and to make things worse, my Starbucks card had expired. All those years of accrued points down the drain before I could order my free cappuccino. Tragic right?
While this was happening, the Australian Open was being fiercely battled by the world’s best tennis players. After two weeks of competition, the men’s final was to be competed by Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Ultimate rivals and the undisputed top two players ever.
I won’t explain why I am a huge Roger Federer fan. Doing so would require a NYTimes article, or a best-selling book. The important thing to know is that his career at the time was experiencing a lull that felt similar to my own. He had suffered bad losses the year before. Then he got injured while giving his kids a bath. His ranking dropped to the lowest it had been in over a decade. Nobody expected him to make the final. And nobody was expecting him to win.
I was in New York at the time. and the match, which was held across the world in Melbourne, Australia, would start at 3AM for me. It was a Sunday and I was at college which meant there would be classes the next day. There were readings I needed to catch up on. Readings which I needed to begin. “Screw it” I said. “I’ll stay up all night and watch this instead.” I had already reached rock bottom. This would be a good distraction.
I turned on the TV in the floor lounge, and ordered a bucket of atomic chicken wings. With extra ranch. Always the extra ranch.
With everything in place, I watched the match begin. The two champions went at it. Exchanging deadly blows with tennis ball and racket. A fight between battle-worn warriors. Two sets down, one set each.
Meanwhile I’d gotten through half my wings and spilt ranch down my shirt. But that didn’t matter because all of my energy and concentration was on the game.
I felt Nadal’s heavy topspin balls curl and twist into me like I was there on the court. When Roger Federer whipped his famous forehand it felt like the ball was sizzling off my own arm. Back and forth, game after game. My heart rate went up. I started sweating bullets.
Then during the final set, something amazing happened. Federer, coming from a break down, found something deep within himself and began to play like a god. He stunned Nadal with a series of lighting backhands that darted off the court beyond the Spaniard’s reach. Federer surged ahead. Championship point. An electric serve out wide and then a forehand that just caught the line. He had done it. Game, set, and match.
I raised my arms in triumph. I yelled in a way I hadn’t yelled in a long time. Nothing mattered. Roger Federer had won the 2017 Australian Open which meant I had won the 2017 Australian Open. We showed everyone who doubted us. We did it! We won!
I look back on that happy moment now and am reminded why we watch sport. We watch it to experience highs that spur on life-defining moments. We watch it to encounter exhilaration that encourages us on your own adventures. The losses and disappointments are just part of the rollercoaster ride on the way there.
Now if only my neighbors would stop filing noise complaints against me. I’m sure I could convert them with that korfball.
