Philosophy of Sport

When I heard that there was a class called philosophy of sport, I knew that it was the class for me. I love sports; every aspect of it interests me: the competitive nature, the challenge of building a team that competes, the many arguments that it sparks. I thought that the title “philosophy of sport” would discuss why it is that everyone is so fascinated by sports and become such a major part of our culture. It does seem kind of strange that so many people can be obsessed with their sports teams and go through the highs and the lows along with the team. It’s something that I’ve never been able to figure out. I know that when my teams lose I feel as though I’ve lost. But why? Why is there such an obsession with following your teams movements even when their not playing. The only theory that I was able to come up with was that humans have in their basic nature a need to compete, a need to have an enemy to fight. However, in today’s culture cooperation is seen as the most important quality. To satisfy ones need to compete people find turn the teams into their own and turn the rest of the league into the enemy. The development of television and the internet also played an important role in sports grown because it allowed people to follow their teams even more closely. To me the philosophy of sport is that man needs to compete and sport is an outlet for this aggression.