I Want to Watch this! An Evolutionary Perspective on the Popularity of Sports
Autor: | Menelaos Apostolou; Maria Athanasiou |
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Sprache: | Englisch; Kroatisch |
Veröffentlicht: |
2016 |
Quelle: | Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
Online Zugang: |
https://pt.ffri.hr/pt/article/view/266 https://doaj.org/toc/1332-0742 1332-0742 https://doaj.org/article/2dde451cb8f54a3086158f53076ce498 https://doaj.org/article/2dde451cb8f54a3086158f53076ce498 |
Erfassungsnummer: | ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:2dde451cb8f54a3086158f53076ce498 |
Zusammenfassung
There are many different sports, and some are more popular for watching than others. The present paper attempts to address the question why sports vary in popularity. To this end, an evolutionary framework is employed that indicates that sports have evolved to enable the reliable exchange of information of unobserved traits. Six of these traits are nominated, namely, physical strength, stamina, speed, dexterity, aggression and team spirit. On this basis, it is predicted that sports which require higher competence in these traits, and thus are better in transferring information on these dimensions, are more popular than sports which require less competence. Analysis on data based on 34 different sports supports this prediction. The implications of these finding are further discussed.