Sports fanaticism

[Jebus]

I love playing sports and I love watching sports after I have bet money on a match. However, I know lots of people who look forward to watching a match when the outcome has no real effect on their lives. These people are often elated if their team/player does well and depressed when they are not happy with the outcome. I find this irrationality is somewhat analogous to religion and it seems to me that sports fanaticism is more common in religious countries. Are you, or do you know any, atheist sports fanatics?

[Soycrates]

I don't think I know a lot of atheist men other than my boyfriend and one of my best friends (none of my other male friends ever bring up religion, it's likely they're at least agnostic). Neither of these two men like sports, but I feel like that has to do with the fact that I attract non-sports people rather than there being a strong correlation between non-sports fanaticism and atheism.

Edit: That's not to say women can't like sports, of course - but I don't personally know any women, religious or otherwise, who would consider themselves fans of spectator sports (I know women who play sports - the closest thing I play to sports is... video games. League of Legends is an e-sport, right?)

[Jebus]

Soycrates. Your post brought up another interesting question: Why is there such a hugely significant gender difference is sports fanaticism?

[Volenta]

I love playing sports and I love watching sports after I have bet money on a match. However, I know lots of people who look forward to watching a match when the outcome has no real effect on their lives. These people are often elated if their team/player does well and depressed when they are not happy with the outcome. I find this irrationality is somewhat analogous to religion and it seems to me that sports fanaticism is more common in religious countries.

There is a certain sense of community, collectivism and involvement in both domains, so the parallel you're making isn't a strange one. Humans are emotional and social beings, so rationality doesn't have to apply everywhere. In the case of sports it doesn't have to (religion is another matter).

Are you, or do you know any, atheist sports fanatics?

I myself am not a big sports fan, but I do know atheist sport fanatics. But those people are implicit atheists and don't talk about atheism (very often). I'm not aware of any 'militant' or even explicit atheist that is also a sport fanatic. My general feeling with the more extreme sports fanaticism—and I don't mean to make a generalization here—that many of them aren't the most intelligent people. Especially the aggressive types don't seem to have a very well developed prefrontal cortex. Some of the more explicit atheists seem (again generally speaking) to philosophize a bit more than most people, so that could have to do with it. That doesn't mean you can't be an explicit atheist as well as an sport fanatic, but I think these worlds don't collide very often. And please, don't take it as an insult to your intelligence if you actually are a sport fanatic; there are always outliers in statistics and I could be wrong about my feelings (couldn't find any scientific paper to back it up).

P.S. When talking about sports, I generally am talking about sports like soccer. Something like chess has a completely different type of people participating and fan base.

[brimstoneSalad]

Sports fanaticism is very similar to religion. Hits most of the same areas, psychologically. People will riot over sports pretty easily, although not many wars are fought over them, sports are an interesting war proxy.

That said: Why are you betting on sporting matches?

[Soycrates]

Soycrates. Your post brought up another interesting question: Why is there such a hugely significant gender difference is sports fanaticism?

I'd say it's mainly because for the longest time, women were not legally allowed to play in professional sports leagues in the modern world. When women were granted that ability, they are still segregated to women's only teams, and much of women's professional sports is deemed "lesser" despite showing quite early on in history that - for many sports that rely on a combination of skills rather than just 100% base strength - women could compete with and even out-compete men. I think women just know where they're not welcome - we haven't created a society where the world of sports is particularly women-friendly. It doesn't even feel women-neutral sometimes, just downright women-hostile. Male interests and masculinity dominate the discussions of professional sports and sport spectatorship.

Edit: Although I said I don't personally know any women religious or otherwise who are spectators, the lead sports columnist/reporter for my university is a woman, I believe.