A conservative defense of the Super Bowl
Conn Carroll
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That a liberal academic who writes for the Atlantic and works for the Brookings Institution is annoyed by people who get “excited about a game where people run into each other” isn’t new. Of course, the Left despises something as uniquely American as the National Football League.
That there are some conservatives who object to football is a little more surprising. But as my former colleague Patrick Brown notes, conservative commentator Lyman Stone has argued against the institution of professional sports entirely.
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“We conservatives have imbibed a poisonous cultural norm in our worship of spectacle and games,” Stone writes. “The games are ultimately hostile to Christian culture, and to the civic virtue that makes republican governance possible.”
Stone’s case boils down to this. “Early Christians condemned virtually all the entertainments of the Roman mob,” Stone writes. “They recognized these tribal contests basically served to sow discord, to abuse the human body, and to distract people, especially young men, from things of lasting value.”
“Indeed, American sports-obsession gives numerous young men an illusion that physical prowess will get them somewhere meaningful in life, when in all but a very few cases, it will get them nowhere,” Stone continues. “They would be better off in the long term devoting their time to almost any other activity in their school, church, or family than to sport.”
I think this is a little bit of wishful thinking on Stone’s part. It’s not like if we suddenly got rid of professional sports, men would suddenly flock to church as the only alternative. Especially in today’s modern world, there are many, many other distractions that are far, far worse than professional sports.
But I don’t want to cede that professional sports are, at best, the lesser of evils. I believe professional sports are a net good (although college sports are even better).
Stone himself concedes that nonprofessional sports have value. “Little League can indisputably be a school for many virtues in a child,” Stone writes. “It’s wonderful to enroll your children in a local sports league where they can socialize with different types of kids, practice effective teamwork, learn to lose with dignity, and push hard for a worthy victory.”
But then Stone says that “adults should put away childish things, and, more importantly, childish things should not be made multibillion-dollar focal points of national culture and attention.”
But are the benefits of watching sports confined to childhood?
In his response to Stone, Brown focuses on the communal aspects of sports fandom. “Gathering to take in these gaudy spectacles also provides a sort of community and a kind of identity,” Brown writes. “Shared loves, even loves of commercial goods, can be the basis for or the glue that cements more meaningful friendships or connections.”
It can even bind a nation. “The NFL, in particular, is the last remaining vestige of the monoculture,” Brown notes.
But I believe professional sports, particularly football, have an added benefit, especially for boys and men. As Harvard’s Dr. Joyce Benenson argues in her book, Warriors and Worriers, males are drawn to competitions between groups at the earliest of ages, and then for the rest of their lives.
“Boys’ preference for groups begins in infancy,” Dr. Benenson writes. Baby boys “prefer looking at videos of groups of children playing together more than videos of single individuals.” Baby girls showed no preference. And it turns out those babies with higher levels of testosterone were most interested in group behavior.
Benenson goes on to detail how, cross-culturally, boys are drawn to groups that act cooperatively toward a goal. In these groups, boys learn physical toughness, emotional toughness, self-confidence, how to follow rules, and how to cooperate with others.
“The quintessential all-American group in the civilian world is a sports team,” Benenson writes. Unlike Stone, however, Benenson doesn’t believe these lessons should end with childhood. “Later in adulthood, businesses contain many males who cooperate to make business successful.”
Professional sports are a fantastic venue for boys to learn, and for men to reaffirm, the values of toughness, confidence, and cooperation. As great as Joe Burrow is, he is going to fail if his offensive line doesn’t block for him. Patrick Mahomes is going to lose if his receivers don’t run the routes they are supposed to.
The amount of cooperation necessary for a football team to win also reminds us of the fundamental importance of equality within a competitive framework. Yes, some players are better than others, and there is definitely a hierarchy of control — no team is going to win unless they do exactly what the head coach tells them to.
But each player also isn’t going to fight for that extra yard or claw for that extra inch if they don’t have respect for the guy fighting next to them. Football teams are a band of brothers, or at least the most successful ones are. If everyone is just out there fighting for themselves, a team will fall apart and lose.
This is why football is worth watching. In addition to seeing which coach can outsmart the other strategically or which receiver can blow by a cornerback, we also tune in to see which teams work the best together, which quarterback has the best report with his receivers, which defensive lineman will eat a block so the linebacker can make the tackle.
Our deep interest in group competition is primal. I know I am looking forward to indulging this interest with a beer and some buffalo chicken dip Sunday evening.
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