Why Do We Play Sports?

Plenty of people watch sports for entertainment purposes. Alright, that’s a bit of an understatement. Let’s use numbers instead.

In 2024, a survey found that 71% of Americans are sports fans, and about 66% actively watch sports. That doesn’t sound like all that much, until you actually begin number crunching. The US is the third most populous country in the world, with about 340 million people living in it.

If we break that down, it means approximately 238,000,000 Americans are sports fans, and around 224,400,000 watch sports.

And that’s just in America. In China, there are over 300 million people who use online platforms to watch sports. In India, around 655 million people are sports fans. And we’re not even considering every single other country in the world.

The most accurate guess we have is that around 3.5 billion people from around the world watch at least one sport, that sport being soccer. So it’s starting to seem like the main purpose for sports in the first place is for entertainment. But what if that’s not true?

The people we’re seeing play sports on networks or in stadiums are a fraction, a mere pittance of the people who actually play sports. Professional athletes make up only 2% of college athletes, and 0.4% of high school athletes become professionals. In the world, there’s so many people who play sports we don’t have an exact count, but the closest estimates are around one billion, give or take.

So in terms of numbers, we have an almost definitive answer to the question of whether sports are played mainly for entertainment: Absolutely not. Only a fraction of all athletes play for the screens. So what about the rest of the athletes? Why do they play?

Well, there are a lot of reasons people play sports. Keeping yourself fit is one of the top reasons. Consistent physical exercise is necessary for a healthy human body, and sports do exactly that. They keep you active. The National Institute of Health finds that sports could potentially improve sleep patterns, develop motor skills, and even reduce the risks of diseases.

Humans also play sports to keep their minds healthy, too. Playing sports may also reduce levels of anxiety, keep depression at bay, and improve sportsmanship by itself.

So the sports life isn’t all about the cameras. You get better promises and insurance playing a sport than you do in most jobs today. Get out there, then. Go run around. Chase a ball or two. And if you make it big…Well, would you mind handing out a couple of loans?