Читать книгу One Game at a Time. Why Sports Matter онлайн

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Sports Illustrated estimates that 62% of American males and 47% of females regularly play competitive sports. Even more than playing, though, we like to watch: in the U.S., twenty-one of the forty-five most-watched TV shows in history are Super Bowls; in India, the most watched program of all time is the 2011 Cricket World Cup Final; in China, it is the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games which (not coincidentally) remains the most watched global broadcast in history. In Germany, ten of the top eleven most watched broadcasts of all time are soccer games; in Canada, the most watched television broadcast in history is the men’s gold-medal hockey game of 2010 Winter Olympics with 16.6 million viewers watching the entire game, roughly one-half of the country’s population. These kinds of stats are repeated across the globe, whether we’re talking TV or live events, numbers that will surprise approximately no one. Now, I don’t want to equate television audiences with inherent value, but it sure as hell means something.