Another thing that makes it a great medium is the way that people will come together just to support one particular team. Some fans become very passionate about supporting their cities, towns, or regions team. Then out of all of this fanaticism comes the rivalries, which although some can be very intense, it still brings more to the experience. A great example of this is the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. These two teams have had a rivalry that has been going on for years and years. These rivalries then make the game and competition go to a whole new level. It almost makes it as though the fans themselves are battling on the fields along with the players. It really makes the experience that much better when you can get into the game and be as enthusiastic as many fans are.
Sporting events have even come to be an international experience. Events such as the Olympics bring the whole world together. There are very few instances when it is possible to say that people from all over the world are watching the same thing at the same time. However, this is the case with things such as the Olympics and The World Cup for soccer. It brings people together on both a national and international scale. Overall, sporting events are a medium which pretty much everyone watches. It is a way for people to come together, and they can just have fun and support the teams they choose.
This is a very true observation. Sports do have the ability to bring people together and sometimes at an extreme they may influence with whom people make friends with. So I am wondering what other forms of media influence with whom we make friends with?
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you that no other medium brings people together like Sports. I was recently at a Red Sox game and by the end of the game I was joking with and talking to all the other fans in my section. We did not know anything about one another other than the fact that we were all fans of the Red Sox.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Trisha and I love the pictures. It's awesome how people can relate to one another through sports. When on an international level it provides so much nationalism for ones country. During the Olympics everyone is proud to be from their country and is always cheering them on. Sports are such unique and powerful forms of media. On another level, teammates on a sports team can build such a strong bond based on simply playing a game together.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you about sport acting as a medium. It has the power to bring people together and become a common language cross-culturally. Sports games has the power to speak novels, as its intensity brings joy, passion, tears, and rivalry. I really like your example about the Olympics, since it is a spectacle of diversity and brings about individual nationalism.
ReplyDeleteMedia does a fantastic job with dramatizing sporting events and games so that they are more enjoyable to watch. Medium's like sportscenter often set the stage for rivalry matchups to artificially heighten the importance of the game. Of course this is done to attract more viewers but it also makes the game a little bit more special.
ReplyDeleteMonday night football, college gameday, and hockey night in Canada are three examples of media trying to artificially heighten the importance of a game just because it is taking place on that given night or on that given channel.
Sporting events are definitely a great place to bond with people. For example during the world cup 2006 in Germany they had set up public viewing sites which huge screens in every major city, so everyone who did not get a ticket could still watch the game in a stadium-like atmosphere. I went a few times and watched games with up to 50,000 other fans, which was a great experience. In Berlin they actually closed down an entire street for 4 weeks and close to 1,000,000 fans were watching the games on several TVs. These events are definitely example of people being brought together through the medium of sport.
ReplyDeleteI have however also seen and heard of examples for the opposite. For some reason many soccer fans in Europe are still tended to fight before, during, and after games with fans of the opposing teams. One of my friends almost got attacked by several fans of the opposing teams after attending an away game and just barely got away by running to a taxi.
In my opinion, there are like so often two sides, even though luckily from my viewpoint the positive interactions between fans outweigh the negatives by a ton.
I think sports are definitely one of the best mediums for bringing people together. People from all over the state, all over the country and all over the world bound together over certain sports teams and competitions. I think a great example of this would be the world cup this past summer, even looking at the stands at the games, they were packed with people with their entire bodies painted. It gives people something to believe it, but at the end of the day if your particular team does not come out on top it is important to remember that after all it is just a game.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this post. Sports can really bring people together like no other medium - but can also bring out the worst in people. My friend's father was just stabbed this past weekend during a bar argument, and guess what the argument was about - the Yankees and the Red Sox (http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?articleId=36ebe2f1-80e0-482f-995f-14004c1325e6&headline=Red+Sox-Yankees+rivalry+led+to+stabbing+of+Nashua+man). It's crazy that sports can make people act in such crazy ways, both positive and negative.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting selection of object. You did a good job explaining the social functions of spectator sports. But this post will become more exciting if you could ask what ultimately distinguish sports from other forms of sociality (e.g. music events, political events, festivales, etc). Sports' high sense of confrontationality is certainly shown in one of the images you posted (of the little boy). What does that say about the underlying social agression, which is oppressed in civilization? A perfect Freudian point can be made here.
ReplyDeleteMaking connection with our reading of "sporting stereotypes" would be even better.
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