How sports bring people together

The Texas Rangers celebrate after beating the Arizona Diamondbacks to win the World Series in Phoenix, Arizona on November 01, 2023. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

In January 2006 at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, the company’s then-CEO Bill Gates took questions from an audience of Microsoft’s top female executives. The first person to take the mic asked how Gates, a father of three, was able to balance his personal life with work. “Well, I don’t watch television,” he replied. “And I don’t follow sports. So, I can’t participate in those conversations, but it saves a lot of time.”

Gates delivered the line matter-of-factly, and his implication was clear: that time spent watching, reading, and talking with friends about sports would be better spent catching up on work emails, which he admitted he often did after his kids went to bed. On that morning, Bill Gates may have been the wealthiest man in the world – but as I sat there in the front row, I felt sorry for him.

And that’s because, while overseeing technological breakthroughs and financial victories must be exhilarating, Gates’ answer showed that he was missing out on what sports give us: shared experiences with a community of fellow believers. For those who make an emotional investment in a team or an athlete, following sports can be a source of hope, inspiration, joy, and, yes, heartbreak, and pain, too.

I often make this case – that sports have a unique ability to bring people together – and my assertion is sometimes met with the suggestion that live music also inspires and uplifts in the same way. Last May, for example, I went to a fantastic Foo Fighters concert in Dallas with my friend Tony Fay. Following a spirit-lifting singalong moment early in the show, front man Dave Grohl declared to the crowd, “Nothing else does that.”

Not true, Mr. Grohl. Exhibit A is the Texas Rangers, who rallied to win their first ever World Series last year after letting their first-place lead in the American League Central Division slip away on the final day of the regular season. That meant instead of enjoying home field advantage throughout much of the playoffs, the Rangers were left with the much more difficult path of a wild-card team. Yet they went on to win 11 consecutive road games on their way to the title – a feat never accomplished in the 51-year history of the franchise in Arlington.

Periodically throughout this unlikely playoff run, Rangers fans at Globe Life Field would unite to sing “Higher,” a 1999 hit by the band Creed. It was a fun anthem adopted out of nowhere by the players for the postseason run. The Rangers’ ability to bring north Texas together was on full display on Nov. 3, when an estimated 500,000 fans packed the Arlington entertainment district for the team’s World Series victory parade. A couple of weeks later, more than 1,500 people – the maximum allowed to register – lined up early at the George W. Bush Presidential Center for an opportunity to snap a photo with the World Series trophy.

For all their imperfections, sports, at their best, enrich our lives in many special ways.

Bryson DeChambeau celebrates after sinking his putt to win the 124th U.S. Open in Pinehurst, North Carolina on June 16, 2024. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

“There’s no pain in live music,” Fay pointed out as we pulled out of the parking lot after the Foo Fighters show. “Everyone leaves happy. There are no concerts when you debate whether or not the band had it that night.” He was right. There’s no lamenting a bad call that went against the band or a missed note by the bass player, who we hear wants to be traded to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Uplifting moments at concerts are just that – moments. There’s no postgame show where you can hear stars answer questions about their performance. We may share a post or two on social media or talk about the show the next day with friends. But when the Foo Fighters left Dallas for the next stop on their tour, we more or less moved on too.

I am grateful to my dad for introducing me to sports at an early age. For all their imperfections, sports, at their best, enrich our lives in many special ways, starting with the forging of connections between the generations. Countless books and screenplays have been written about dads and sons and baseball.

My dad took me to my first Major League Baseball game on Aug. 26, 1965, at Comiskey Park. It didn’t matter that the White Sox lost 8-1 to the Orioles that day. I was hooked. A little more than 40 years later, my dad and I sat down together at my sister’s house in Chicago to watch our White Sox beat the Houston Astros in Game 1 of the 2005 World Series. The Sox would go on to sweep the Astros and win it all. Until my dad’s death in 2010, just about every conversation we had included some reference to our teams – the White Sox, the Purdue Boilermakers, the Dallas Mavericks, the Chicago Bears, or our adopted New Orleans Saints – and whatever big news was then current in the sports world. If our teams were down, my dad always told me to keep the faith, that the next game or next season would be better.

Sports does that, Mr. Grohl.

My friend Ann Smeltzer tells me that her family remembers her sister’s wedding day not as Oct. 25, 1986, but as the day Mookie Wilson’s ground ball went through Bill Buckner’s legs and the Mets beat the Red Sox in Game 6 of the World Series. Ann can’t tell you the exact date her future husband met her parents, but she can tell you it was the same day that the Dodgers’ Kirk Gibson hit the limp-off homer to beat the A’s in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series.

Sports also provide the best stories and the most compelling human drama. On June 16, Rory McIlroy held a two-shot lead over Bryson DeChambeau (a former SMU star) with five holes to play at the U.S. Open golf championship in Pinehurst, North Carolina. On the 16th hole of the final round, McIlroy, seeking to end a 10-year major championship drought, stood over a 2 1/2-foot putt – a putt he had made 496 times in 496 attempts so far this season. Yet on attempt 497, McIlroy pulled the putt to the left and the ball rimmed out of the cup.

On the 18th hole, he missed again from 3 feet, 9 inches. DeChambeau, who had hit an errant tee shot into the sand, made one of the greatest recovery shots in major championship history to save his par and win the U.S. Open. As a despondent McIlroy left the course without speaking to reporters, DeChambeau signed autographs and posed for selfies until long after dark. There may never be a more vivid split screen of unmitigated despair and pure joy.

Sports do that too.

A father and his son walk into Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, New York on September 19, 2018. (Photo by Rob Tringali/MLB via Getty Images)

But the best part about sports is that we don’t know where the great stories will come from. We didn’t know in advance that the Appalachian State football team would overcome incredible odds to defeat Michigan in Ann Arbor in 2007, or that Argentina would knock off the dominant U.S. team to win basketball gold at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. As great as Tom Brady was, no one expected him to lead the New England Patriots back from a 28-3 deficit against the Atlanta Falcons with 17 minutes left in the 2017 Super Bowl. ESPN Analytics indicated the Falcons had a 99.8% chance to win with 2:12 left to play in the third quarter. But the Patriots stormed to victory in overtime – and now every year on March 28 (3-28, get it?), New Englanders celebrate that glorious moment.

Can such human drama be found at software development conferences? I don’t think so.

Sports hold the power to inspire, as we will we undoubtedly experience this summer during the Olympic Games in Paris. All eyes will be on Simone Biles – the most decorated gymnast in history – after her early exit from the Olympics in Tokyo in 2021, when she put her mental health above competing for more medals. Expect all of America to be rooting for her to overcome her challenges – just as they’ll be rooting for McIlroy to do the same at the upcoming Open Championship in Scotland, the final major of the year.

The unfortunates among us who don’t follow sports also miss out on the way that they give us common ground with strangers and adversaries. Sports have the power to bring people together, like the way Caitlin Clark has sparked unprecedented interest in women’s basketball – including among men. While driving down the highway in St. Petersburg, Florida, during the recent NHL Stanley Cup playoffs, I couldn’t help but smile when I saw a giant “LET’S GO BOLTS” banner, cheering on the Tampa Bay Lightning, adorning the side of a public school.

Non-sports fans also miss out on the life lessons that sports offer us, like how to play fair, win gracefully, and lose with honor. They miss out on lessons of leadership, accountability, and unselfish teamwork that can and should be applied to the United States’ executive suites. They also miss out on the fun and the unforgettable moments of unbridled jubilation shared with friends and family – like the Florida Panthers fans who had tears of joy and relief streaming down their cheeks as they watched their team celebrate its first Stanley Cup championship on June 24. I can’t imagine any successful product rollout or strong earnings announcement coming close to matching those emotions.

But what strikes me most of all is that not being a sports fan is simply much easier than being a sports fan. Non-sports fans miss out on the emotional strain and painful character-building that come from standing by your team year after year, decade after decade, through good times and bad.

Arthur Brooks, a Harvard professor and best-selling author, recently addressed the 2024 class of Presidential Leadership Scholars at the George W. Bush Presidential Center. He spoke about happiness, which he defines in the book he cowrote with Oprah Winfrey, Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier. According to Brooks, happiness can be explained with a simple equation. Happiness = enjoyment + satisfaction + meaning.

As Brooks told the scholars, “Satisfaction requires pain . . . it’s about the joy you get from the struggle.” That sounds a lot like the Rangers embracing their fans after a 51-year wait for a world championship. Or DeChambeau refusing to leave Pinehurst until he had signed every autograph after his dramatic comeback. Or the way my dad and I stood together by our White Sox.