How Watching Sports Improves Relationships
Being at a game with a good friend in a crowd makes for a special atmosphere and solidifies relationships over the longer term
Atmosphere creates a feeling that etches out a memory forever.
And that’s why being at a ‘live’ sporting event is such a great feeling.
Because feelings create emotion and emotions create connections between people. And even after the game, those feelings from the experience last, and people need to share them because they feel so alive. So when two or more people get together that’s been at the same sporting event there can be magic throughout the conversation.
Better again, if a room full of people get together that have experienced it the atmosphere is magnified.
That’s what happens when people go to be big sporting finals.
They gather together afterward in public houses and sit or stand to chat. Because they’ve experienced such a big event they need to express what they’ve been a part of. Whether their team has won or lost being together after the event and sharing the same feelings bond people and deepens their relationships with one another.
Because when people have the same purpose in life and communicate it to one another they appreciate that other person more.
Even watching local sport can give people a buzz. Because most sports fans don’t just go to the NBA finals, or the Super Bowl every year without being interested in the local High School or college games as well. And the great thing about those games is that you can socialize on the sideline with people more often.
When you know even one player playing from your locality you tend to want to see them doing well.
There’s pride you feel because they are from where you are from or if you`re friends with them you want them to win. That’s when that special bond between people and place is multiplied. That’s why people love when they get involved in the sporting teams of the area.
Because its people, the passion, and the pride of place that comes from watching a sport that makes the local sport so special.
And if sports fans don’t get the opportunity to go to the big games in the professional or national sport they often take some time off and gather with friends to watch it in a house or bar together. That’s because they want a ‘live’ atmosphere that they know they can get from being at a game. Because they’re aware of when fans are at a game they are together and can share the banter from the information they get from being in the same mind as the others who are also there to watch the same.
The first game I can recall watching was when I was only five years old.
And people can rarely remember back that far in their lives. But the reason they do is that the emotion that was created when the people watched the sport together cultivated such a special memory.
And that memory came from watching ‘live’ sport.
It was the All-Ireland final and my home county of Galway was up against the Midlanders of Offaly. Galway wore the maroon and white colors and the Midlanders wore the Irish colors of green, white, and gold. So you can imagine the confusion that it caused a small Irish child who thought that the national flag was the only one that could have those three colors!
Still, I watched the game in hope that my team could win even though I thought we were up against the whole country in playing the opposition.
To this day nearly forty years later I can recall the room I was in and the people that were there. The game itself and what went on in it is not what sticks with me. Although my team lost I don’t recall seeing the goals or big tackles going in as I was too busy feeling the atmosphere within the room where I was.
I can still see the old impressionist leather black couch that was in our front living room that day.
Although it was moved about in different directions over the years I can recall where I sat on the couch and seeing my oldest sibling and my mother beside me. Being so young I was captivated by their emotions and their reactions to the game and how the rapid changes of the game interacted with their feelings.
Even now I can hear their tones of voices rise up and down and see their facial expressions.
And lots of their emotions were dictated by what they felt would be the mood coming into our house later on that night. Because my dad and my brother were gone to the game that they were watching on television. So in watching the game they were not only reacting to the plays in the game but anticipating how this would make other people feel in their household later on that day and even into the following weeks.
And in doing that they were being empathetic to others’ feelings.
That’s the special thing about watching sport and the richness of the memories it brings.
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