“Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt.”

– Juvenal, Satire X

Sports are awesome. Sports are a great way to get exercise and to physically make sure that one is healthy. I give huge props to anyone who is on a team or is in any way active with a sport. Sports have also generally been a positive influence in my life. I recently have had the privilege to play soccer again regularly, something that had been a staple of my life since I was in kindergarten. There are many sports that I have never even tried, like baseball, football, ice hockey, and the list goes on and on. I have a lot of respect for those who can hone their bodies to become masters at these complex games. Exercising the brain is one thing, but to physically train one’s body for the sake of a sport, marathon, or even just for aesthetics reasons deserves a lot of respect.

In the past month I have had a few experiences with the sports fandom and these I would like to share with the dear reader. I recently went to a public viewing of the second most important club match for the German Bundesliga, called the DFB-Pokal. A public viewing was held in the epicenter of Stuttgart, right between the main shopping street and an old castle that holds many of the state’s bureaucrats and offices. The highlights include an incredible atmosphere, VfB Stuttgart (the local team) winning, and being able to enjoy the day with friends.

A few weeks before the public viewing I had the chance to watch a live VfB Stuttgart soccer match at their home stadium. They unfortunately ended up losing, but seeing the professionals play their hearts out in a giant stadium with around sixty thousand of my closest friends was quite the treat. The chanting and songs from the fans of both teams was surprisingly coordinated and in and of itself a sight to behold. The food was surprisingly decent and it was great having comradery with the people around me. For the usually shy and reserved Germans, in this environment it was relatively easy to chat with strangers, a welcomed surprise. Whereas the public viewing was just a couple of giant screens in a plaza, the soccer match was the real deal, with all the expected pomp and circumstance that comes along with it.

However, I clearly cannot just wax poetic about sports without being nuanced, otherwise I might lose my claim to fame. As of now I have only shared the positives of these events, and I think it is only fair that I now get into the negatives. For both events, the most prudent decision was to show up a fair amount early. For the soccer match technically one could only show up right before it starts, but it would likely take ages to get through security and to find one’s seat. This is assuming that the lines for refreshments are being skipped, which if not would involve a great deal of queuing. For the public viewing, we had to be there around five hours early to even have a shot at getting into the walled off venue. Meaning that after standing in line for over two hours, we then had the privilege of still having hours of time to kill before the kick off, standing a very close distance to people all around us.

Like any sporting event, food and alcoholic beverages abound. Not to make a dreaded country comparison, but Germany has much more reasonable prices in this department. Meaning that a beer (or ten) and some food will not break the bank, unlike in America. However, the downside is that smoking is not only allowed, but incredibly common at such events. This means that the likelihood of getting secondhand smoke puffed in your face a couple times a minute for the entire duration of the event is very high. The smell of sweat, alcohol, and tobacco once one reaches home afterwards is a noxious sensation for sure, not to mention the joy of knowing your life has been shortened by some amount of time.

And then there’s the super fans, or the hooligans, if the dear reader will excuse the briticism. The hooligans can be quite intense. Whether it’s the Bundesliga or the NFL, the really devout hooligan can be seen wearing all of the relevant paraphernalia. Hats, scarfs, jerseys, and so on. They often like to get drunk and shout at the referees, then the fans of the other teams, then the game in general, and then at the people around them. They can often be quite the nuisance and cause the game to be incredibly unenjoyable for families, or just anyone who is not drunk themselves. The most extreme get kicked out, but usually the hooligan just gets dirty looks and talked about on the ride home, still kicking to cause a ruckus at the next game. At the most extreme, fights between groups of opposing hooligans can and does sometimes happen. Security nowadays is strict and will help to keep the most extreme separated, but there have been unfortunate instances of people dying. Riots are also known to happen, sometimes no matter if the home team wins or loses.

What sparked me to write about these sporting experiences is this last experience. I visited the Allianz Arena in Munich, home of the top rated Bundesliga team, FC Bayern München. The stadium has a capacity of around seventy thousand and was built just after the turn of the millennium. As a feat of architecture, it is an impressive structure, but as I was touring it with twenty or so other people, I began to notice some interesting behavior of the others on the tour. As we got to see that locker room, where the FC Bayern München team gets ready before and after the game, it was as if we were in the Holy of Holies. People were sitting on the spots of their favorite players, touching every surface, and smiling with some of the biggest smiles I have ever seen. We also had a moment where we could all walk out together onto the pitch with dramatic music playing as we were going through the iconic tunnel where all of the players emerge before a match. In this moment, I decided to channel my inner psychologist and began to watch the others during this triumphal entry. Nearly everyone was filming it and many were reacting emotionally. Nobody was balling their eyes out, but many were taking it in and drinking up the experience. It was surprising, and as someone who does not follow any sport with particular consistency, I had forgotten about how intense the sports fandom can be.

Though I hate to say it, my thoughts on all of my recent experiences can be summed up into one word: pathetic.

I said it at the beginning and I will say it once again, I think sports are a great way to connect with people, develop a community, and to grow in discipline. I will never shame anyone for hiking, swimming, playing volleyball, or any other sport. It is not inherently bad to enjoy watching sports or to be a fan. That being said, let’s just be honest about this for a moment, is the whole industry and ecosystem around sports healthy? A lot of it comes off as quite childish. On the one hand, seeing a little boy in a jersey for his favorite team is kind of sweet, but on the other hand seeing this same child grow up into someone obsessed with sports and into someone who is willing to fight against his fellow countryman for a team which he has likely never met, is quite sad. Is this really what we want to promote as a society?

As a society, we are spending millions, if not tens of millions of dollars on people who are playing a game. At the end of the day, that is all it is. In the case of soccer, this means eleven players versus another eleven players playing two forty five minute halves. If I did not know any better, I would almost say the whole cult around sports mirrors a religion, at a minimum the scenes which I described above were incredibly religious. These devout fans were able to see the holy places where the magic happens. The chamber where the saints prepare for the holy battle against the enemies. They got to see the mystical chamber that the saints walk through before reaching the field of battle and have the chance to vanquish their foes.

There have been a number of theories that modern sports take the place of tribal fighting and tribal affiliation in the modern world. Instead of going to war with the next village over, we are now able to pour this energy into professional sports teams and into the team of our choice. In some sense this shows that human beings are tribal by nature. If we cannot get tribal with our village, church, people, or nation, then we will settle for at least being tribal about our favorite team. While not a bad outlet per say, I worry that given the state of the modern world, I am not sure this relationship is a healthy one.

It is no secret to anyone that the world is changing. The peace and stability that the West has gotten accustomed to since World War II ended seems to be slowly coming to an end. The church continues to lose members and has lost most of its cultural influence, mass migration is dramatically changing the character of the West, climate change is threatening our children’s future, and politics have gotten more polarized than ever before. It is all fun and games to support [insert sports team] here and to make it one’s whole personality, but I am not sure we can afford to do that anymore. This is not a call for everyone to be political, I just want people to be aware of how they are spending their time and energy. I especially think it would be good for Christians if we check our hearts in this area. Are we thinking about the game more than the pastor’s sermon? I also think that on Sundays, as we worship our one and true living triune God during the holy service, it is probably inappropriate to wear a jersey, but that is mostly just a gut feeling.

It is not my intention to come off as puritanical or to shame anyone. And to be fair, I think my critiques could be offered to nearly any hobby. However, whereas social media, video games, television, and similar hobbies are hopefully treated with caution as they are known to be enjoyed in access. In my experience, the sports fandom is not treated with even a fraction of the caution we give to any other hobby. It just seems to be that the current way in which we obsess over sports, is not healthy. If one is getting drunk multiple times a month at sporting events, refuses to go out if it means missing the game, and can hardly manage to talk about anything else in social settings, then I think we have a problem. Like in most things, moderation is the answer, though I wonder how simple that would actually be for sports.

As we come to an end, I would like to take this time to invite discussion. I am really curious to hear about what the reader thinks and I would love to delve into this topic more. If the reader thinks that I am being a pretentious prude or a precocious prophet, please do let me know and feel free to leave a comment.

“For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” – 1 Timothy 4:8 (KJV)

“Every prudent man dealeth with knowledge: but a fool layeth open his folly.”- Proverbs 13:16 (KJV)

P.S. Please don’t assume that I watched the game last night. I promise, I probably didn’t.