Sun­day evening. The kids are in bed, the dis­hes are done, the wife has to do the laun­dry, and the hus­band is on the couch sur­fing the chan­nels. Mys­te­ries, enter­tain­ment pro­grams, cele­brity non­sense, a comedy rerun from over four years ago… But then a green ray of hope: arti­fi­cial turf, men in hel­mets and a ball. The Dol­phins at the Lions, it’s all about going to the Super Bowl. You are satis­fied, so you put down the remote and put your feet up on the cof­fee table. You feel good, and that does­n’t stop when your wife enters the room with a cup of tea and gives you a skep­ti­cal look. You don’t feel guilty.

There is not­hing unu­sual about sports on tele­vi­sion. And there is one con­stant: more men than women watch it. But why? Why do men watch sports, whe­ther they are fami­liar with them or not?

The male brain also wants to play

In the early 1990s, rese­ar­chers at the Uni­ver­sity of Parma dis­co­vered a strange brain acti­vity in mon­keys: when a test ani­mal obser­ved an acti­vity in a fel­low pri­mate, such as eating a pea­nut, the same brain cells were acti­va­ted in the test ani­mal as if it were eating a pea­nut its­elf. The rese­ar­chers named these cells mir­ror neu­rons and were later able to iden­tify them in humans. The human brain simu­la­tes acti­vi­ties it obser­ves in other peo­ple — even if they are only seen on a tele­vi­sion screen.

So when you see Lio­nel Messi kicking a free kick or Simone Biles per­forming a per­fect gym­nastics rou­tine on TV, your brain makes you feel like you are scoring a great goal or soaring over the mats. When someone che­ers on TV, your brain che­ers along. The boun­da­ries bet­ween see­ing and actually doing merge. It beco­mes one, crea­ting a kind of addic­tion.

By the way, the same can be obser­ved when wat­ching porn!

It has also been shown that mir­ror neu­rons respond even more stron­gly when the viewer has expe­ri­ence in the sport being wat­ched. In this case, motor nerve cells in the hand, for exam­ple, are mea­sur­a­bly put on alert. As a result, wat­ching Ame­ri­can foot­ball, soc­cer, or ten­nis makes you feel more per­so­nally invol­ved than wat­ching bobs­led­ding or golf.

In addi­tion, from a glo­bal per­spec­tive, signi­fi­cantly more men than women par­ti­ci­pate in orga­ni­zed sports, espe­ci­ally com­pe­ti­tive team sports. And because these are the types of sports that are pri­ma­rily shown on tele­vi­sion, many male brains, more fami­liar with these types of sports, are more sti­mu­la­ted on the couch than female brains. This sti­mu­la­tion is even grea­ter when the repor­ter’s com­men­tary is tur­ned off, because the con­stant ana­ly­sis is dis­trac­ting. The brain then actually feels part of the team and is actively par­ti­ci­pa­ting.

Evo­lu­tion has taught us that men like to stare in the same direc­tion tog­e­ther

Eth­no­lo­gists agree that the ori­g­ins of sport lie in playful but serious pre­pa­ra­tion for hun­ting and fight­ing. Since the dawn of time, our male ances­tors have prac­ti­ced thro­wing, run­ning, and jum­ping to prepare for hun­ting prey and mili­tary con­fron­ta­ti­ons with rival groups. Boys were included in this trai­ning early on to give them the skills neces­sary for sur­vi­val. This was tra­di­tio­nally less important for women.

Play­ing sports tog­e­ther also gave men the oppor­tu­nity to test the strength of poten­tial rivals and allies, or to find relia­ble mates for female family mem­bers — wit­hout resort­ing to direct com­bat with the risk of death. Strong allies (a good team, so to speak) increased the chan­ces of fin­ding food, safety, ter­ri­tory, and sexual repro­duc­tion. This explains why men want to join teams or feel part of an exten­ded team as a fan.

The sport has ano­ther func­tion: the soc­cer field and the sta­dium serve as mating grounds, where males com­pete for the favor of fema­les — a beha­vior also exhi­bi­ted by the North Ame­ri­can prai­rie chi­cken, for exam­ple. For this to hap­pen, it is neces­sary for the fema­les to watch. Males are espe­ci­ally inte­res­ted in lear­ning from the stron­gest and most vic­to­rious ani­mals, or not even con­side­ring fight­ing a supe­rior male. So men also watch sports to place them­sel­ves in a hier­ar­chy.

Just as active par­ti­ci­pa­tion in sports gives young men the space to become men, wat­ching sports helps men to enhance, improve and main­tain their mas­cu­li­nity. This is why men — whe­ther in the sta­dium or wat­ching on TV — are more con­cer­ned with com­pe­ti­tion and results, while women’s inte­rest in sports is dri­ven more by social aspects such as spen­ding time with fri­ends and family. As a result, men are signi­fi­cantly more affec­ted by the vic­tory or defeat of their favo­rite team or ath­lete, and also get more enjoy­ment from wat­ching sports alone.

Women pre­fer to look directly at the per­son they are tal­king to in order to get more infor­ma­tion from them and build a stron­ger social rela­ti­onship. Men, on the other hand, pre­fer to stand or sit facing the same direc­tion. They always see direct eye cont­act as chal­len­ging and con­fron­ta­tio­nal. Sit­ting shoulder to shoulder in front of the TV is a risk-free way for men to build inti­macy and emo­tio­nal clo­sen­ess, which is why men like to watch sports on TV in groups.

TV Sport is made for men

The way sport is con­su­med in the media and the amount of sport con­su­med has a lot to do with the intro­duc­tion of pri­vate tele­vi­sion. In the past, sport played a minor role on public tele­vi­sion. This chan­ged fun­da­men­tally with the intro­duc­tion of pri­vate broad­cas­ters, who used sport stra­te­gi­cally to reach the male tar­get group — the main ear­ners and the­r­e­fore most rele­vant to adver­ti­sers from a mar­ket rese­arch per­spec­tive. Sports were sel­ec­ted with this in mind.

To appeal to men, sports coverage was incre­asingly tail­o­red to them, for exam­ple in motor racing, through ana­ly­sis and sur­veys. The focus was on drama and spec­ta­cle, and it was mea­su­red whe­ther men liked it when the editing fre­quency was increased to make the race on TV even more dra­ma­tic. Women were not even asked about their inte­rest in sports.

Since then, little has chan­ged in terms of the pri­macy of drama — and, by exten­sion, the male gaze on sport. We have very clear pat­terns in our minds of how ten­sion is crea­ted: camera posi­ti­ons, editing sequen­ces, habi­tual effects.

To get more women inte­res­ted in sports tele­vi­sion, the ques­ti­ons that need to be addres­sed are How to make sports inte­res­t­ing for con­ver­sa­ti­ons bey­ond the com­pe­ti­tion? One way would be to include in-depth docu­men­ta­ries that show the rocky road to beco­ming a com­pe­ti­tive ath­lete and pro­vide addi­tio­nal per­spec­ti­ves by let­ting other sides of the ath­lete speak.

It makes men happy and con­nects them with each other

We all know about acti­vi­ties that can increase dopa­mine levels in the body (get­ting a good nigh­t’s sleep, get­ting ple­nty of exer­cise, eating a pro­tein-rich diet, avo­i­ding sugar, get­ting some sun, having sex). But so does sit­ting on the couch and wat­ching sports.

The neu­ro­trans­mit­ter dopa­mine is often refer­red to as the “happy hor­mone”; it lifts our spi­rits, inspi­res us, and moti­va­tes us. Because the brain feels rewarded when its team wins, it is moti­va­ted to repeat the acti­vi­ties that led to the release of dopa­mine. In 2010, rese­ar­chers mea­su­red the tes­to­ste­rone levels of Spa­nish soc­cer fans — both men and women — during the World Cup final bet­ween Spain and the Net­her­lands (which ended 1–0 after extra time). All fans expe­ri­en­ced a tes­to­ste­rone surge during the game. The male fans may have deri­ved a sense of supe­rio­rity and domi­nance. Tes­to­ste­rone does not have a simi­lar effect on women.

This could also explain why vio­lent riots break out among cele­bra­ting fans after major sports vic­to­ries: tes­to­ste­rone also cau­ses aggres­sion, and you don’t even have to be in the sta­dium to see it.

Social vali­da­tion is not just about hor­mo­nes, it is about inter­ac­tion. You can call or text your dad in the mor­ning and ask, “Did you see the game last night?” You can dis­cuss the team’s tac­tics with cowor­kers during your lunch break. This allows men to give free rein to their fee­lings, to touch and hug each other.

The Per­fec­tion of Igno­rance

The Dol­phins at the Lions: Who will make it to the Super Bowl? The prai­rie chi­cken that slum­bers in us humans pro­ba­bly com­pa­res its­elf to the quar­ter­back. The mir­ror neu­rons are firing, the Stone Age ego is scan­ning the screen for a pos­si­ble mate for the daugh­ter.

Just before the end of the game, Miami’s kicker acci­den­tally kicks the foot­ball into the back of the man in front of him. The Lions cheer, but still lose. The last few minu­tes of the game are one big, glo­rious mess. And so it’s not the team you might have expec­ted that wins, true to the motto: Men watch sports because they want to know who’s going to win.