#1 - Bread, Circuses & Ultimate - Is Sport Inherently Good?

What is the value of sport as an activity? What is the significance of sports in the social order of things?

I hadn’t given these questions much thought prior to taking a Philosophy of Sport course in grad school. Like others whose lives revolve around the televised sporting event du jour, I was hard-wired to view sports as an intrinsically positive part of life. Nothing about abstract philosophy persuaded me to question the value of sport with a critical slant. I loved playing sports. I loved watching sports. SPORTS!

Twenty years of managing sport programs forced an evolution of my perspectives. I’ve experienced how sports activities can build community, promote health and well-being, support personal growth, and contributing to these outcomes is always a rewarding part of the work. But alongside these positives is the toxic masculinity, the over-glorified hyper-competitiveness, the discrimination, the exclusion, the reinforced inequality, and the tribalistic divisions perpetuated in sports culture. Where others have the luxury or the ability to ignore these negatives, as an organizer there is nowhere to hide – addressing the grisly parts of sports is an inescapable part of the job. Through it all I’ve concluded that sports is NOT an inherent good, but simply a reflection of the human condition - the good, the bad, and the ugly.

My philosophy toward sports was crystallized through the events of 2020, where everyone was forced to reckon with a world where sports did not exist*. Suddenly many people became part-time sports philosophers, proselytizing the benefits of sport activities (and the financial justifications for resuming them) in an ethical debate against the potential harm to public health. Amidst all the uncertainties, sport organizers questioned if organizing sport was even the right thing to do, or if we had some superseding responsibility for stewardship over our communities – even at the risk of our own careers. The pandemic exposed to many of us what humans from war-stricken, oppressed, or impoverished places have always known – sport is not some fundamental feature of life. It flourishes only when humans are healthy and safe and free enough to play.

That same year of 2020 also marked the most intense period of civil unrest and social advocacy in decades, and there is no question in my mind that the absence of sports fueled this phenomenon. Some 19 centuries after the Roman poet Juvenal satirized “bread and circuses” as a means of gaining political power**, we witnessed how quickly social movements gain traction when sports entertainment is not available as a distraction. Sure enough, the sporting powers-that-be quickly mobilized to build “bubbles” and reboot broadcasts. Most people left the streets and returned to their screens. And now, as access to sports for some groups is weaponized for political purposes, we are increasingly compelled to balance the undeniable benefits of sporting activity against the reality that sport can also be exploited to hinder social progress. 

So where does the sport of ultimate exist in this spectrum? Over 30 years as a player and organizer, I’ve seen ultimate illuminate the benefits of sport countless times over, in my own life and for many others. But ultimate is nowhere near immune from the toxic elements of sport competition. The strategic decisions we make today will inevitably impact how ultimate reflects the good and the bad and the ugly parts of humanity into the future. As the role and value of sports in society becomes increasingly complex, how can we ensure that ultimate contributes positively to the human condition? Is there anything unique about our sport and our community that highlights the best features of humanity?

These heavy philosophical questions are perhaps better answered with a more simple question = Why do we play ultimate?

Coming Soon = Blog Post #2 -- Why Do We Play Ultimate?

Footnotes & References:

*too often we don’t fully appreciate something until we’ve lost it.
**https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses

(Original date of publish = April 16, 2025)