I was watching the 10am news the other morning when the sports segment rolled in — bodies colliding, crowds roaring, commentators speaking like the fate of the universe hinged on a ball crossing a line. I sat there thinking I don’t get it. I don’t get the worship, the noise, the ritual of watching strangers injure themselves for entertainment. For a country like Australia so obsessed with sport, no one seems particularly interested in actually playing it. Sure, there are high‑school teams, social teams, and all the usual affiliations. But from my observation, people want the spectacle. The belonging. The noise. And maybe that’s the part I’ve never been wired for.
Australia treats sport like a civic identity. It’s not just a pastime; it’s a cultural script. You’re meant to know the teams, the rivalries, the legends. You’re meant to feel something when a stadium erupts. You’re meant to care. But I don’t. Not out of rebellion — out of genuine bewilderment. The whole thing feels like a ritual I somehow missed the induction ceremony for, a mass performance of tribal belonging that never resonated with me. A collective roar that feels more like static than meaning.
What makes it stranger is that sport’s origins aren’t wholesome or character‑building at all. They’re ancient, and they’re violent. Long before anyone invented a league or a jersey, crowds gathered to watch people fight for their lives. The Roman Colosseum wasn’t a gym; it was a theatre of blood. Gladiators weren’t athletes — they were human offerings to a public hungry for spectacle. Combat wasn’t a metaphor. It was literal. Death was entertainment. The crowd’s roar mattered more than the individual’s life. We like to pretend modern sport is something different, but the psychology hasn’t evolved as much as we’d like to believe. We’ve sanitised the violence, wrapped it in rules and sponsorships, but the instinct is the same: gather, watch, cheer, consume.
The other thing I find polarising is the behaviour of some sporting identities — the affairs, the drug scandals, the addictions, the complete disregard for rules that, in normal society, would have consequences. On the field, it’s acceptable to assault an opponent and walk away with a red card and a fine. In public, you’d be arrested and given a court date. Misogyny and homophobia are still prehistoric in the way many clubs and codes operate. It’s 2026 for crying out loud.
I thought to myself: people don’t watch sport because they love athleticism. They watch because it gives them vicarious achievement — the illusion of winning without doing anything. It gives them distraction, a socially acceptable way to avoid thinking about their own lives. It gives them identity, routine, a place to put their emotions that doesn’t require introspection. It’s not about the game; it’s about the emotional architecture built around it. And if you don’t get your sense of meaning from crowds, noise, or competition, the whole thing looks absurd.
What I find interesting is that while sport’s origins are rooted in violence, the arts emerged from the opposite impulse. Painting, writing, music, theatre — these were the things that helped humans understand themselves. They recorded history, shaped identity, questioned power, created culture. They built civilisations rather than distracting them. The arts require reflection, interpretation, emotional intelligence, contribution. Sport asks you to watch. Art asks you to think. Sport fills time. Art expands it. Sport is noise. Art is signal. And yet, in modern culture, sport is treated as essential while the arts are treated as optional — a luxury, a hobby, a side dish. It’s backwards. The thing that builds meaning is sidelined, while the thing that distracts from meaning is worshipped.
When I watch sport, I don’t see passion or unity. I see grown adults crashing into each other while thousands of people scream like it’s a spiritual event. I see injuries treated as entertainment. I see a country that pours endless time, money, and emotional energy into something that, to me, feels hollow. It’s not that I dislike sport. I dislike spectacle. I prefer depth over noise, calm over chaos, one‑on‑one connection over mass ritual, authenticity over performance. And sport culture — especially in Australia — is performance at scale.
What no one likes to admit is that spectators aren’t contributing. They’re consuming. Watching sport doesn’t build anything. It doesn’t create anything. It doesn’t contribute to culture, community, or progress. It’s passive consumption dressed up as passion. People talk about “supporting their team” as if yelling at a TV is civic engagement. They talk about “being part of something” when they’re actually just sitting in a seat while other people do the work — or the damage. It’s participation without participation. Belonging without contribution. Identity without effort.
But this isn’t really about sport. It’s about cultural conditioning and what happens when you don’t align with it. Everyone has something the world insists is normal that they simply don’t feel. For some people it’s religion. For others it’s marriage. For me, it’s sport. And that’s fine. Not fitting into a cultural ritual isn’t a flaw — it’s a form of clarity. It’s knowing who you are, what energises you, and what doesn’t. It’s choosing depth over noise, even when the noise is the national anthem.
