Sport: Beyond Boundaries

Sport is a Unifying medium. It’s one of the best unifying medium that has ever existed throughout history.

For those fleeting seconds, either in the exaltation of victory or in the exasperating pain of defeat, sport brings people together. It is one of the very few channels in the world that transcends nationality, culture, race, sex, politics, and religion.

Not many channels have the same power that sport often holds…sport and music hence are unique

I have watched so many soccer and cricket games with some of my best mates from all over the world, for those fleeting seconds—when Wayne Rooney hit the back of the net (Man U and England), for those ephemeral moments when Sachin Tendulkar plays his vintage straight-drive off Brett Lee, for those transient droplets of time when Michael Schumacher takes the checkered flag—for all those fleeting moments, we have celebrated together.

Not in any one of our minds, did we ever care where we are from? What do we believe? Who do we pray to (or do we even pray to anyone at all)? McCain or Obama? Or…do we like men or women?

When it is about individual sport, inclinations start with nationality—but they are neither constrained nor limited to nationality. Expecting such a theme only radiates a distinct lack of global cultural understanding, bigotry even, if one needs to use that word.

I’ll justify both those viewpoints below.

To start with—being inclined towards an athlete or team can sometimes (but not all the time) originate from the fact that you are from the same geographic location.  It’s the norm (as mentioned above).

It is fair to expect an Indian to like Tendulkar or the Indian Cricket Team, same with Swiss and Federer, Scots and Murray, Spaniards and Nadal...and Brits and Hamilton. But inclinations only start with nationality, it is not a necessity, but it’s the norm.

We live in a world where it is becoming more and more of a global village. An email sent from Dunedin (NZ), reaches New York in less than a minute, which was quite unfathomable two decades ago.

Try to find out the answer to the following three questions for me: How many non-Swiss fans does Federer have globally? How many non-Spanish fans does Rafa Nadal has globally? The SUPER-Fish Phelps was so popular among the Chinese that they framed their own phrase in Chinese for him.

You know why, a Federer, Hewitt, Tendulkar, Nadal, Phelps or Alonso has so many fans around the world who are not from their individual countries? It is because of the power that sport possess to inspire people.

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