Do you like watching sports? Do you like staring at bodies in motion? Athletics is the celebration of human physical prowess, of the human body doing exceptional and sometimes startling things. It’s the exultation of physical skill. It’s also addictive to watch. As legions of devoted fans tune into their favorite sport and shell out hard-earned dollars to see their favourite teams in the flesh, The Varsity asks: who watches sports and why? Like athletics itself, which is divided along stringent lines of male and female, do viewers turn out en masse based on biology, or is it only for the love of the game? Matt Somers, Amara Gossin, and Rebecca Addelman answer.
MATT:
It’s an interesting topic this one. And I have to say there is no clear answer. It is obvious that there will always be some girls who will watch football to see the guys in tight pants and there will always be some guys going to that same football game to see the cheerleaders. The issue is damn near a stalemate.
Then again, do guys really go for the cheerleaders? It doesn’t deter the male crowd to have a cute blonde in a skimpy little outfit shaking her “pompoms” on the sidelines, but I believe men would go to the game regardless of the opportunity to ogle. Take hockey, for example. There are no cheerleaders for this sport, and yet the stands are always full of males of all ages. With this in mind, maybe the main motivation for a guy to watch a game is to actually watch the game, and not to stare at the “distractions” that may be present.
Maybe the same can be said for the women in the stands. Not that I’m counting, but I don’t think you’ll find a large flock of lovesick women hungry for tight buns and rippling muscles at the average football or hockey game. Sure, there may be a couple scattered here and there who are aching to catch a glimpse of their secret crush in tight pants and a jock strap, but the vast majority of the crowd is there to see the action. While some may assume otherwise, the females in the crowd are quite possibly (and probably) genuine fans of the game-so what matter does it make if they also think no. 22 looks really great in those shorts?
Now, on to women’s sports. It is clear that men do not attend these confrontations en masse like one might expect. Men do not even flock to see women’s tennis, especially now that Anna Kournikova and Martina Hingis are virtually retired. Women may go to cheer on their own, but for whatever reason, women’s sports are far more sparsely attended than men’s sports. If male spectators are guiltier than their female counterparts for ogling the “talent,” then one would expect the stands at a female basketball game to be overflowing with excited gentlemen oohing and awwwing at every jump shot. This, however, does not happen.
To my mind, the only sport where the majority of spectators are around to see the bodies and not the ball is beach volleyball-and most people watch that from the comfort of their own living room, where their sub-par flabby bodies won’t be on display, and where they won’t have to make their love for the summer sun sport public. Beach volleyball provides ample eye candy for anyone, giving men and women equal opportunity to gawk. So how can I label one group worse than the other? I just can’t do it.
This sports reporter is not ready to blame either sex for being more controlled by their hormones than the other. Males and females alike generally leave the ogling for time spent at home, alone.
AMARA:
The following arguments are based solely on my own observations and opinions. Also, these are generalizations. For that reason, I am mostly talking about men who are attracted to women and vice versa.
It seems to me that the key point is this: men’s sports, at all levels, are watched far more than women’s. I think that most people care more about men’s sports. And I think that, for better or worse, attraction has at least some small part to play in that. For whatever reason (and I do have my theories), a man who is good at sports is a hot man because he is good, a woman who is good at sports may or may not be “hot” but this categorization usually has little to do with her success in her sport. I think that there are countless examples of this. In high school (and this is the image the media portrays), the male jocks are hot. They just are. If you can be the girlfriend cheering on your athletic boyfriend you can feel proud. Not so for women. Sure, some of the girls who were “hot” were relatively athletic, but their success in sport wasn’t, for the most part, something worth talking about.
I think we can see this reality borne out in our sports idols. Firstly, there are far more male sports heroes than female. But beyond that, it seems to me that male athletes to whom women seem attractive are almost always extremely successful. I mean, sure, David Beckham might be attractive to some, but he’s certainly not otherwordly. No, I would say that Beckham is the hero that he is, the male god that many women seem to admire, because he is one of the best soccer athletes around. Probably there are more objectively attractive male soccer players-but none of them is as good as Beckham.
On the other side of the sex divide, we have the woman who seems to achive the same sort of attractive god status as Beckham: Anna Kournikova. The woman has not won a tournament, it seems, since 1996! Okay, she’s a decent enough tennis player, sure, but she’s definitely not one of the greatest in the world. No, her attractiveness lies not in her athletic ability but in her appearance. And that, I think, is a difference well worth noting.
So it seems to me that women don’t watch men’s sports in order to see men showing off their bodies-in fact that has very little to do with it. But I do believe that more women watch men’s sports because sporty men are hot just by doing their thing. It’s not their bodies or the faces or anything about their appearance at all-it’s their success. And, frankly, I just don’t think that the majority of people care nearly as much about a woman’s success in sport as a man’s. That’s just the way things are.
THE THIRD SIDE:
In an attempt to convince me of how good the Montreal Alouettes are, my brother blurted out “the cheerleaders never stop dancing-for the entire game!” For him, this is a major selling point to an otherwise dull CFL season. My reaction to this crude confession, was to scoff and roll my eyes. My brother is a heterosexual male, and I found this comment crass and shockingly stereotypical.
Later that same month, I found myself in the stands at the SkyDome watching an Argos game. I remember paying attention for all four quarters, but who won the game and the final score of the match-up currently elude me. All I remember from that summer afternoon were the thigh-high silver boot clad cheerleaders. They were so mesmerizing it’s wiped everything else in my memory clean away. For the record, I consider myself a heterosexual female.
The moral of the story is, that while most people attend sporting events for the sports, and others for a day away from the ass groove in their couch, as humans, it can be hard to resist the lure of spandex and bare skin that proliferate at athletic competition. Whether it’s a field hockey player whose skirt flits above her knee, or a weight-lifter who’s deep squat accentuates the muscles in his calf, the body is regularly on display in athletics. It is not sexualized, or at least not intentionally so, but regardless the body is the focus of our spectator gaze. For many, this is what makes sports appealing-even if they don’t know it yet. It also means that we’re all gazing, all the time, at both men and women-no matter who we are.
