Oral Tracey | Life without sports is miserable

CALL ME selfish and insensitive, but also call me the honest, quintessential modern-day sports fan.

The COVID-19 pandemic which caused the postponement or cancellation of almost all sporting activities, locally and internationally, has put me in complete misery.

There is, indeed, a reason why the global sports industry has an estimated value of well over US$500 billion, while the global entertainment industry was valued in excess of US$2 trillion between 2011 and 2019. It is because there are millions of people like me with that gaping vacuum in their souls that can only be filled by sports, entertainment, or both.

With the entire world still in the clutches of COVID-19, it is a major struggle just to get by. Back when life was normal, heading out on a Sunday evening to watch a Red Stripe Premier League game, or any other football game, was taken for granted. It became a part of the routine of many to flock to the various developmental track and field meets across the island as a precursor to the perennially spectacular ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls’ Athletics Championships.

Tuning in and being engrossed by the top football leagues in Europe, especially the super popular English Premier League, was a given in our daily lives. Our attention was affixed on the build up to the quadrennial showpiece event in sports, the Summer Olympics, all interspersed with what was happening in regional and international cricket, including the Indian Premier League and the Caribbean Premier League. The NBA postseason was high on our must-watch list; there was boxing, tennis, horse racing, golf, and more, on the global sports menu, fed to us and gobbled up without even thinking consciously about it. We just assumed the games of the world would always be there for the sports junkies.

We are going through hell at the moment. Our divine right to seeing, feeling, and hearing sports has been ripped away. In the same way that as sports addicts we had selfishly insulated ourselves from the harsh realities of whatever else was happening in the world, so consumed were we by which player had scored the better goal, or which batsman was greater than the other, or if Serena Williams would ever win that elusive 24th Grand Slam title. Now the tables have turned.

CONSTANT BOREDOM

This clear and present threat to health and welfare of the human race has forcibly displaced sport from the global spectrum. Our lives are now dominated by frustration, bewilderment, and boredom. The practice of social distancing has emerged as the tag line for the approach to the coronavirus crisis. Avoiding contact with each other is the simple and logical course of action under the circumstances.

I have yielded to the call of distancing myself socially. This requires going through a sustained period without doing what came so naturally up to two weeks ago, watching or listening to sports. It has been torturous. I have been paying attention to the local and international news cycles for days, while routinely and instinctively scouring the sports channels hoping for miracles. They are dominated by programme reruns and documentaries. At one point, I found myself watching cartoons, while twisting and turning in emotional agony. I feel like a man trapped and imprisoned, like a sick patient who cannot get my required dosage of sports.