Is it Really “Just a Game”?

“…And remember that whatever happens, at the end of the day, it’s just a game”, said my university lecturer while teaching us how to handle hostile and emotionally charged situations on the sports field back in 2012. I remember so many of my classmates nodding in agreement as though what she said was gospel. I disagreed though. In my opinion at the time, the main reason why so many of us were studying a degree in professional sport was because it was a passion, a career, and a medium through which we wanted to achieve our most ambitious goals. It was so much more than a game to me, but as I got older and more experienced, I realised that this issue was more complicated than I originally thought.

Professional Sports

The world of professional sport is a complex one into which so many invest their money, time pride, and even self-worth. Like many forms of entertainment, sport serves as an escape for people who wish to distract themselves from their daily struggles. Fans do this by supporting a team or athlete to whom they can relate on a certain level. Some fans devote themselves so fanatically that their teams become idols onto which they project their identity, and out of which they derive their self-worth. By watching their team’s matches regularly, buying tickets to those matches, and purchasing merchandise, they become small stakeholders in a powerful organisation. This fulfils their psychological need for belonging to something bigger than themselves. This explains the intense devotion of individuals to sports teams and why some of them refer to their favourite team or sport as “a religion”. Therefore, so many devoted fans would be offended by the words, “It’s just a game”.

It isn’t just pride and self-worth at stake though. Money is a powerful influencer in professional sports. These days there are sports teams that are worth several billion dollars each and players who earn unthinkable amounts of money. Performances on the pitch ultimately translate into gigantic revenue streams for the players and their respective organisations, so should it come as any surprise that some players would want to win games through any means possible? If you were playing in a high-pressure Champions League Semi-final in which there was so much at stake, wouldn’t you be tempted to take the risk of diving to win a penalty for your team to possibly win? I think you probably would be tempted. I’m in no way condoning cheating in sports, and I think that every measure must be made to prevent it, but money can greatly influence an individual and corrupt his/her character. It’s no more a game to a professional player than business is a game to a high-profile executive. I believe that more should be done in sports to ensure that the laws of the games are upheld, and that players should be constantly encouraged to conduct themselves responsibly and honestly, despite the pressures they face.

It’s not all about money though. Today there are still many professional athletes who are grateful and proud to represent their respective teams and countries, but a tremendous amount of consistent hard work and devotion over many years are still required in order to reach that level. It’s a lifelong, tiresome pursuit of an almost unreachable opportunity- not just a game.

Youth Sports

When I was in primary school, I played rugby for a youth club in Pretoria, South Africa. It was a great experience for me, and I learned a lot from qualified coaches. My whole immediate family was enthusiastically involved. Both my brother and I played for the club, my mom ran the tuckshop, and my dad was a coach and later became club chairman. One day during an away fixture against a rival club in Johannesburg, my dad was overseeing one of the senior age group’s matches. The referee made a decision that went in our favour and one of the home team’s fathers was upset about it, causing him to verbally abuse the referee. My dad went to him to try and calm him down, but instead got a fist to his face for his trouble. This was not a professional game. That parent’s behaviour was completely unjustified. There was no big money, professional contract, or child’s safety at stake. It was just a schoolboy rugby match. It was just a game.

It’s a mistake to view professional sport and youth sport through the same lens. There isn’t nearly as much money at stake nor are young athletes as well equipped to handle the pressures of professional sport. Before we compare professional and youth sport in this regard though, it’s important to establish their respective goals. The goal of professional sport is to achieve the best performance results as possible to entertain fans as well as measure and advance athletic human potential. The goal of youth sport should be to equip young people with experiences that help them to advance physically, emotionally, and mentally. The goal is more development than athletic glory. Successful youth sports programs therefore develop skills but should also be designed to keep young people participating in a healthy manner. This is achieved through keeping the experiences fun and fulfilling for the young athletes. In other words, it should be just a game.

“Lack of fun” is the number one reason why many children stop playing sports. Overly strict and over-invested coaches and parents mostly cause children to end participation in sports. When parents and coaches start to vicariously push children beyond what they can handle physically and emotionally, is it any wonder why these children no longer want to participate? We need to remember that the human brain is only fully developed by the ages of 24-28, so it’s unfair for us to expect them to be able to handle the sort of pressures adults can. These sports experiences should still be structured and challenging, but not to the detriment of their abilities to cope emotionally.

When studying the processes that many top athletes have gone through from childhood to the professional game, it’s interesting to notice that for most of them, the primary motivator for them to achieve in sports was intrinsic. They worked that bit harder and played that much better because they loved the sport, and because they didn’t want to stop playing the game. You can’t force someone to fall in love, and until an athlete makes the personal choice to take it seriously enough in order to go pro, it’s just a game.

Thanks for taking the time to read this article. If you’d like to discuss it with me or suggest content for future articles, please drop me a message or an email. I’d love to meet you.

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Dave Roebuck