In today’s society, sports have the expectation of bringing people together by watching your favorite sport or athlete and cheering them on. But what happens when mere spectating gets out of hand, and fans become so aggressive that trash talking behavior is not only normalized, but encouraged? This is where the line needs to be drawn of sports being overhyped.
When sports are overhyped, it is not about sports as athletics, but instead how high a pedestal it is placed in our society and the normalization of putting an aggressive twist on games meant for sportsmanship. An example of how sportsmanship is being pushed aside by the new generation is the common phenomenon of attending any youth sporting game in the country and most likely finding fans screaming at refs or at the other team, which can include players as young as 12 years old.
With refereeing, a lot of refs have complained about not being paid enough to deal with aggressive parents lashing out over a call they made, especially when they have been trained and the parent or fan has not been. Getting yelled at by a parent, player or coach should not be acceptable because many refs working youth sports are minors themselves. Being yelled at by an adult for a sporting game shows people are putting unnecessary aggression into a game meant to help kids learn the importance of sports.
This hostility and lack of sportsmanship are not just seen in youth games, but also in college and high school teams. In high schools there are rivals, but some of these rivalries can lead to things such as talking about the other team’s school, home lives or even them as individuals in general. Considering high schoolers are between the young ages of 14-18, they should not have to feel they might get a better chance at winning if they encourage fans or themselves to scream things that would not be considered PG.
In college, this phenomenon is known for being worse. At every college, there’s students with the desire to show school spirit – but sometimes the line needs to be drawn. A good example can be from UI’s football team. While we are a talented team and we have amazing school spirit, that should not come with the student section screaming at the other team, telling them how much they suck. If you are near the front row of the student sections, you will hear people screaming how much they suck or in some worse cases, people screaming at the players about violent things that will happen to their loved ones or themselves. This behavior can also lead to fights happening on the field, which are unnecessary.
Sports are meant to bring us together. But when you have fans screaming at refs and each other, this antagonism will lead us nowhere. Everyone is allowed to have their opinions on different teams, but the line needs to be drawn when comments or jesting becomes something that can truly hurt others or evokes unnecessary violence. The goal of sports should be to honor the game and not give into the trash-talking that many believe you need to be doing to be seen as a “true” fan.