{"id":57142,"date":"2013-09-12T12:00:19","date_gmt":"2013-09-12T17:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=57142"},"modified":"2013-10-31T03:46:33","modified_gmt":"2013-10-31T08:46:33","slug":"ritual-belonging-and-the-elementary-forms-of-the-u-s-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/09\/12\/ritual-belonging-and-the-elementary-forms-of-the-u-s-open\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Attend Sporting Events When the View is Better from the Couch?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some sociologists went to the US Open final and posted about it on Facebook.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what they saw. Notice the size of the court.<\/p>\n

\"1\"<\/a>
(Photo by Jenn Lena)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I saw the match too. When I got home from work, I turned on CBS.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what I saw.<\/p>\n

\"2\"<\/a> \"3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my 40″ flat-screen Samsung, I could see the match as though I were in the box seats, nothing between me and the court. I could see the grimace on a player\u2019s face, the sweat stains on his shirt. I sat on an upholstered chair. And it cost me nothing.<\/p>\n

How much was a plastic seat in the top rows of Arthur Ashe Stadium? I don\u2019t know. My grounds pass on Day 3 was $66. \u00a0Seats for the finals were $95.\u00a0I have sat up there near the top. The players are colorful miniatures moving around on the green rectangles. The distant perspective allows \u2013 forces \u2013 you to see the whole court, so you are aware of placement strategies and patterns of movement you might otherwise not have noticed. But tennis isn\u2019t football; strategy, especially in singles, is fairly obvious and not complicated.<\/p>\n

From way up there, the players are so far away.\u00a0 It’s as though you were looking at your TV through the wrong end of a telescope. You see the game differently, and you hear it differently. A player hits a solid backcourt shot, and for a noticeable half-second or so, you hear silence. Only when the ball is clearing the net do you hear the impact of the stroke.<\/p>\n

Why go out to Flushing Meadow? It\u2019s ridiculous to think about this in the narrow economic framework of money and tennis narrowly defined.\u00a0 My $0 view of the match was far better than that of my FB friends in their expensive seats high above the court.\u00a0 Close that micro-economics book and open Durkheim.\u00a0 Think about the match as ritual. It\u2019s not just about Nadal and Djokovic whacking a fuzzy yellow ball back and forth for a couple of hours. A ritual includes everyone. If you\u2019re there, you are part of that group. You are one with the with the people in the stadium and with the charismatic figures in center court<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why, if something is a ritual, being there is so important. Showing up is more than just\u00a080%<\/a>. It\u2019s everything. If you\u2019re there, you are part of our group. You go to Thanksgiving dinner at Aunt Diane\u2019s house not because the food is good.\u00a0 You might get better food and more enjoyment at home with take-out Chinese and a TV.\u00a0 You go because your presence defines you as a member of the group. Not going is tantamount to saying that you are just not part of this family.<\/p>\n

The Final is not just any match. It is the ritual that anoints our king, hence the trophies and pageantry and ritualistic incantations (speeches) after the match.\u00a0 I would guess that most of the people there yesterday would choose even a so-so final over a close, well-played match on an outside court in Round 3.\u00a0 Because this match is so important, it generates more\u00a0mana<\/i><\/a>. And that energy is created by the crowd.\u00a0\u00a0 Of course, the crowd\u2019s perception is that it is the players who are creating that special feeling, and it helps if the match on the court is close and well-played. But the same match \u2013 every shot exactly the same \u2013 played in an early round in a nearly empty stadium would not create that same feeling for the handful of spectators who showed up.<\/p>\n

What makes the ticket worth all the money then is not the quality of the play. It is the symbolic meaning of the ritual and the strong feeling you get from being part of that ritual. You were there, with Nadal and Djokovic.\u00a0 That ritual exists in sacred time, linked to other great finals matches.\u00a0 So maybe you save your ticket stub or your program as your link to that sacred past.<\/p>\n

I saw the same match, and I had a better view. But I\u2019m not going to save my cable TV bill.<\/p>\n

Cross-posted at Montclair SocioBlog<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Jay Livingston is the chair of the Sociology Department at Montclair State University<\/a>. You can follow him at Montclair SocioBlog<\/a> or on Twitter<\/a>.<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some sociologists went to the US Open final and posted about it on Facebook.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what they saw. Notice the size of the court. I saw the match too. When I got home from work, I turned on CBS.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what I saw. On my 40″ flat-screen Samsung, I could see the match as though […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":258,"featured_media":57146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15,129,37],"class_list":["post-57142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-culture","tag-media","tag-social-psychology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2013\/09\/Screenshot_113.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/258"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57142"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57988,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57142\/revisions\/57988"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}