While there are many mainstream sports enjoying patronage, alongside them there exists numerous sporting activities that are perhaps very off-beat. These unusual sports have a following and apparently a steady one albeit niche. They have created those niche popularity in certain demographics. These sports might not be an outcome of serious pursuit of the activity throughout the year. They might not be stable and perhaps have a following that is fickle. Some do have few serious contenders. Some have professional leagues at least in part. Some have endured for years or even centuries though never gained the critical mass. Yet these sporting activities have a place of their own in the sporting lexicon. These sports, to mention a few would be like wife carrying, shin kicking, lingerie football, beer pong and many others seem very odd but nevertheless do have a place. A question might arise what makes people practice these sports or even further what makes people watch the sports.
There might be a few sports which might have taken a competitive angle in the later years but arose out of activities that were necessary. For instance, in Netherlands, there is a sport going by the name of Fierljeppen, essentially canal jumping. Given the wide network of canals, people used to use poles to hurl themselves and cross the canal. It later morphed into a sporting activity, some kind of a pole vault over a canal. Instead of the Olympic pole vault on a high jump, it is the long jump’s version of pole vault. Yet there are many others which have emerged out of frivolous activity and thought process. Humans are known for imagination and this running wild of imagination is the origin of many a leisure activity that becomes a sport. The human would want to experiment something different, would try something novel, for the sheer difference it is going to create. In terms of economics, it might be the marginal utility that gets derived from pursuit of these activities that lead to their design in the first place. Maybe in Sweden, they would have felt if horses could jump over obstacles, why not try with bunnies. Out of this arose Kaninhop or rabbit show jumping. This was essentially a creation during leisure of an activity that would result in marginal utility.
Humans’ trade-off between work and leisure. Contrary to perception leisure is not about rest or other basic activities but also a time to create something novel. The leisure is used for something constructive though the outcome itself might be an unproductive endeavor. The spending of leisure might happen in passive terms, something spent in watching television or maybe in current times, spending on social networking sites or watching a movie on Netflix or other similar OTT platforms. There might be an application of leisure into thinking something new however wild it might be. There might be an aspiration towards creating something new, a sense of achievement, consistent with the McGregor McClelland theory of needs. Maybe there is something inherent in creating an output might be original or an imitation but which nevertheless fulfils a sense of satisfaction, an application of cognitive surplus. Might be there exists a marginal utility that is derived through a creative spending, though relatively speaking, of the leisure time.
This application might emerge in the form of composition of new songs and consequent singing of the same. There is equally plausible of new dances emerging however informal and unbound they may turn out to be. There is of course a desire to paint to represent some imagination or record an event. The origins of folk culture whether its music or dance or painting or craft or other works or art all trace their origin to the above theories. They are the applications of theories suggested above. Rather it might be the reverse. The theorization of these activities in different fields ranging from psychology to economics are anchored as discussed above. In this context, sports would not be an exception. As humans would sit in leisure, there would naturally arise a spirit of competition. It might be a Darwinian forces that would spur the human race to compete on against another. While there would be cooperation, it would be equally reinforcing if accompanied by competition. The oarsmen would test against each other their skills which would in the future led to the development of rowing or canoeing as sports. Military men would test their combat skills with each other something lead to the development of wrestling or boxing or fencing. The occupations would lead to competitions leading to events like rodeo or unusual events like coal carrying race or wool sack race. The local circumstances might have led to creation of events like banana triathlon in Easter Island, the remotest place on earth. These events might appear unusual or odd to the outsiders but beneath the events lie an economic context, maybe a demonstration of spirit of economic competition with its own spillovers in the relative context or an application to derive the marginal utility in pursuit of leisure.
The sports might look weird or odd but they arose for a desire to have some fun. The fun is something essential part of leisure. The fun is something orthodox but there are times when some seeks to have some entertainment through an unorthodox means. That is where perhaps finger jousting or thumb wrestling or even cardboard tube wrestling would have originated. These were someone’s idea to seek certain novelty and then build that novelty to create something permanent than fleeting. This is an outcome of desire to achieve something, however trivial it might sound. Out of this frivolity, arises certain sense of satisfaction that would increase with some passing time and playing more rounds of the same. The satisfaction gives way to work and seeking an opportunity to monetize. Thus would arise some new sports leagues. Maybe at times these is a sense of expression of freedom and rebelliousness and independence something seen with women’s mud wrestling in US or Canada. In each of those physical events though weird they might sound, a certain sense of masculinity or feminism they might choose to represent thus a certain signal of achievement or power. The evolved forms of numerous off-track sports thus have economic origins rather than a mere oddity.
Thoughts on Theory and Practice 