We often think of sports as aspects of a group's culture; "basketball is a part of American culture" or "cricket is a part of Indian culture" but instead, we should see sports, with the various rules and conventions that constitute them, as expressions of cultures themselves. Such a perspective helps us comprehend cultures at large - once we understand what sport demands of us, we understand what we derive from sport.
The NFL exemplifies this best. From the stadiums that host games to the sport itself, every component of the NFL endeavours to express the national American identity. The NFL and the American nation are co-dependent: the NFL would not sell without the "American" label and American culture would suffer if its most obvious display, the NFL, were to disappear.
The American love for militarism is evident; as a settler-colonial state, much of her land was bought with blood - the blood of Americans and her enemies alike. Between the various wars of expansion, the two World Wars, invasions of communist-held territory and the ongoing international War on Terror, America has been at war for over two hundred years of her history in sum. Aside from countless military campaigns, the ubiquitous phrase "thank you for your service", the sheer might of the American military machine and the ocean of resources devoted to funding the American military all serve as evidence of the at-large American attitude towards militarism.
Now consider American football. Two gargantuan units of men wrestle over inches of turf in calculated ventures. Many will be blighted with some unshakeable long-term injury, but for a select few, "cultural hero" status awaits. What other sport imitates war better? Given this, it is no surprise that the nation that loves her armed forces also loves American football. Parallels between American football and war are not novel; in a 2014 opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times, American academic Mark Edmundson proclaimed that:
Football is a warlike game and we are now a warlike nation
American football expresses American ideals, but the NFL, discounting the sport itself, does much to demonstrate American identity. Games begin with the national anthem; players don American flag icons on their helmets; and in American corporate fashion, nearly all stadiums bear the names of for-profit entities.
The NFL's identity relies on American identity and the inverse also reads true. On a Sunday night in February each year, around a hundred million Americans watch an exhibition of competition and commercialism, two values exalted in the American psyche. The NFL has begotten an American custom that speaks to America herself. From September to February, the NFL summarises the American ethos and puts on a show in the process. American football, more specifically the NFL, is an expression of America.
The sport of rugby today indicates much about its founding, again demonstrating how sports express culture. In the early 19th century, England's oldest schools were in a dire state. Schoolboys regularly fought townspeople and establishments such as Eton and Rugby came under the examination of the Clarendon Commission, an investigation into the affairs of nine "public schools." Around the midway point of the century, desperate to inculcate moral fibre into their boys, the headmasters of public schools co-opted and formalised popular mob football games, hopeful that organised sport had an edifying quality.
The most popular of these games was rugby football (though the public school games also had some influence on association football) - English public school culture wove itself into the fabric of rugby long after the game left the school in Warwickshire. The public schools of the 19th century believed that schoolboys who played rugby would become men fit for the Civil Service and until 1995, rugby's administrators still held that barring professionalism helped inculcate a gentlemanly spirit among players. Today, at rugby clubs the world over, the English public school ethos is still eminent. The game's hallmark setpiece, the scrum, prescribes that eight men from each side pull their weight to prevent collapse, and thus the selflessness valued by the Victorians abides. Punishment for petition to the referee breeds deference to authority and the physical, yet open, nature of the game fosters opportunity for variety in play styles. Rugby union, a game now played in all corners of the earth, still pays tribute to its English Victorian inventors.
Although it is much simpler to think of sports as aspects of cultures, discussion of their play and pageantry informs us that sports are the children of the societies that nurtured them. Whether it be Madison Square Garden, Melbourne Cricket Ground or the millions of courts and pitches in between, understand that when we participate in sports, we applaud something much more incredible than any feat of athleticism.
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| England supporters applaud their team at the Sydney Cricket Ground Getty Images |
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