Sport Serves Bigger Goal Than We Think

Nothing quite unites South Africans like sport does. New research suggests that this shared pastime can effect positive change in people’s behaviour towards each other – long after the game is won or lost.

- Johan Fourie

I miss sport. I miss following my favourite teams, the bloggers who write about them, the news about new recruitments, arriving at a friend’s house on match day, the intensity of a big rivalry, the gloating after a win, and, yes, even the agony of perennial disappointments (and, to be honest, there are many if you’re a Protea, Stormers and Arsenal supporter!).

Sport, I now realise more than before, has a way of bringing people together like no other social event can. On a big match day, I could have the same conversation with people of all walks of life, men and women, black and white, rich and poor, in multiple languages. I miss those interactions with my fellow South Africans. We, more than any other nation, know only too well how sport can unify. Thousands of people gathered for the Springboks’ parade after their World Cup win last year. The 1995 World Cup win was so momentous some of the biggest names in Hollywood even made a film about it.

What that film, Invictus, also demonstrated, was that sport is – and always has been – a powerful political tool. Karl Marx famously said that religion is the opium of the people. But sport, I would argue, is our new faith. Stadiums have replaced temples, cathedrals and mosques as the most prominent buildings in our cities. Many of us spend more money on our favourite teams than on our favourite theology. And we almost certainly dedicate more of our most precious resource – time – to sport than religion.

To what end, you might ask? Has this new faith helped us build a better society? A new paper published in