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Behind the Bleachers by David Dayen and Alex Jacquez
f the top 20 most-watched television broadcasts in American history, 19 of them are Super Bowls. Last year’s record-setting edition peaked at 135.7 million viewers, only 20 million less than the total number of votes in the 2024 presidential election. Even outside the big game, Americans watch 300 million hours of live sports or shows about sports per day; there are more national sports networks on cable than news networks. To many, sports are more than a pastime, they’re a religion: 21 percent of U.S. adults attend church once a week, but 56 percent watch a sporting event that regularly.
Sports may be the last thing we do together as Americans. It’s the one subject you can bring up at any bar in the country to spur engaged conversation, instead of blank stares or seething anger. We argue about sports without being argumentative; we hate each other’s teams without being hateful; we disagree about players and coaches while being able to point to scoreboards and statistics and common facts.
Sports connects across generations, geography, and cultures. In a society without much to call civic life, sports is what we have left. Why does it generate this kind of pull? Maybe because it encapsulates the ideals we all like to think America stands for.
There’s the spirit of competition, the idea that everyone has a shot when the game starts. We appreciate upsets and underdogs who triumph over long odds. We thrill to see hard work beat out talent that takes itself for granted. And there’s fairness. Player drafts and salary caps are structured to give bad teams and smaller markets a chance to improve and win. Rulebooks are teeming with procedures and regulations. Referees and umpires watch over the games, and instant replay double-checks their work. Missed calls are remembered for years, and cheaters are branded and defamed; the 1919 Chicago Black Sox are synonymous with game-fixing more than a century later.
Sports may be the last thing we do together as Americans. It’s the one subject you can bring up at any bar in the country to spur engaged conversation, instead of blank stares or seething anger. We argue about sports without being argumentative; we hate each other’s teams without being hateful; we disagree about players and coaches while being able to point to scoreboards and statistics and common facts.
Sports connects across generations, geography, and cultures. In a society without much to call civic life, sports is what we have left. Why does it generate this kind of pull? Maybe because it encapsulates the ideals we all like to think America stands for.
There’s the spirit of competition, the idea that everyone has a shot when the game starts. We appreciate upsets and underdogs who triumph over long odds. We thrill to see hard work beat out talent that takes itself for granted. And there’s fairness. Player drafts and salary caps are structured to give bad teams and smaller markets a chance to improve and win. Rulebooks are teeming with procedures and regulations. Referees and umpires watch over the games, and instant replay double-checks their work. Missed calls are remembered for years, and cheaters are branded and defamed; the 1919 Chicago Black Sox are synonymous with game-fixing more than a century later.
https://prospect.org/2026/02/02/feb-2026-magazine-sports-behind-the-bleachers/