Spectators VERSUS Participants

In the past hour I have read the multiple similarities and differences between participants and spectators in the world of sports. While reading the text on this topic, a wide array of questions popped into my head; even some I have asked myself before. These questions varied from, "What is the true relation between participants and spectators in sports? Is there even a relationship?" to "Do more people participate in a particular sport rather than watch it? And do people watch a particular sport  more than they participate in it?" By asking myself these questions, I managed to come to an understanding of the topic and even come up with a few answers myself. Therefore, I say for you to go ahead and ask yourself these questions and see what you come up with. Difficult right? I mean, yes, you already grasp the fact that all participants are spectators whereas not all spectators are participants and this is a good thing. But, over the years the line between spectators and participants has blurred dramatically. This has made it harder and harder for myself, and I'm sure for others as well, to completely agree that there is a true difference between the two.  Don't get me wrong, I understand that one plays the sport while the other one watches, but I feel on a deeper level the two coincide where the participant is the spectator looking for a way to better himself as an athlete. Or when the spectator becomes the athlete, whether it be a child whose a crazed baseball fan signing up for pee-wee or a 60 year-old man finally deciding to take up golf lessons because he's tired of sitting on his ass and watching it from his television. It's all universal to me. Spectator, Participant, blah, blah, blah, it all seems the same to me in a way that they both partake in their chosen sport may it be recreationally or professionally, they're both apart of the sport in one way or another.

Sports fanatics, participants, athletes, professionals, spectators, enthusiasts, or whatever you like to call them all share one common factor: undeniable love for their sport. One cannot deny the fact that both spectators and participants engross themselves in their designated sport and nothing else. It is a way of life for them, as if it were the one thing that kept them alive. For instance, when i was a varsity player on the track team, I lived, breathed, and surrounded myself with running. I didn't stop for anyone. Like the article states, I became obsessed with the feeling of winning, encouragement, and positive reinforcement in which I received from the sport. And by me participating in track I started to watch it more and more while taking up a serious interest in watching it. To this day, I continue to watch it for personal entertainment even though I don't run competitively anymore. I guess once you are apart of a team and establish a connection to a certain sport, you turn to other outlets to be apart of that sport again and gain new bounds with teams and players within that same sport. I see it as a way to fill that empty void in the pit of your stomach once you go through the withdrawals from either playing or watching your sport of choice.

Whether you believe of a true seperation between participants and spectators or of an unclear distinction between the two, it is universally understood that these two factors are what drive the popularity of sports as a whole. Without either participants or spectators, sports wouldn't thrive and most likely wouldn't exist at all. Now who would want that?