Do you have fond memories of going to the ball game with your family on the weekends? Or maybe you're the first to buy season tickets for your favorite team. Of course, you could have absolutely no interest in watching sports.

Whether you've always been a sports fan or opted out of watching live sports, both can be influenced by many factors, including your genetics and environment. AncestryDNA^® + Traits can help determine whether you have any genetic markers that are likely to influence your level of enjoyment.

Why Do People Watch Sports?

For generations, watching sports has been a popular social experience. Many people watch for the love of the game. From the ancient Olympics to going to your child's soccer game—and everything in between—cheering while people compete for a win is a longstanding tradition. People cite all sorts of reasons for watching sports. Some say it's because they're entertaining and engaging. Others like the experience of watching a game unfold, not knowing what will happen next.

Watching sports isn't just fun—it’s also good for you. A large-scale study looked at 20,000 Japanese residents to examine the impact of watching sports. Those who regularly watched sports reported a higher level of well-being.

Another survey of 7,209 people living in England revealed that those who attended sporting events were typically more satisfied with their lives and reported lower levels of loneliness. The same results held true whether the respondents attended amateur or major league games.

The Science Behind Sports Fandom

The Ancestry^® science team was interested in the connection between genetics and being a sports fan. To find out more about the DNA involvement, they asked over 224,000 people, "How much do you enjoy watching sports?" After careful analysis of the respondents' DNA, the AncestryDNA team found more than 510 DNA markers related to the behavioral phenotype of watching sports. Using these data, the team developed a polygenic risk score, a tool for determining how likely you are to watch sports based on your DNA.

While the scientists found many DNA markers related to watching sports, environmental factors are also clearly important, like whether you had the chance to attend or watch games when growing up, and if sports was an active part of your family life. In fact, your inclination for watching sports has a lot more to do with the "nurture" component than the "nature" component. About 6% of the variation in whether people enjoy watching sports can be attributed to differences in people’s DNA.

What Else Do Scientists Say About Watching Live Sports?

Sports may be a universal component of human culture, but not everyone is excited to sit back and watch the game. In the United States, 71% of Americans report being sports fans. However, there's a stark gender divide. While 81% of men claimed to enjoy watching sports, just 61% of women report the same.

No matter where you're watching sports, nothing compares to the live experience. In Japan, around 68% of people reported watching live sports on TV or on the internet in 2023.

A study conducted at the University of Connecticut analyzed sets of fans who either watched a basketball game live and in-person or remote on TV. Both groups wore heart rate monitors to track their physiological response to the event. The researchers found that those who watched the games in person showed greater synchrony in their heart rates than those who watched the games remotely. Fans who experience sporting events together—sometimes wearing similar team garb or even painting faces in a team’s colors—can have a strong bonding experience called "identity fusion."

Insights About Watching Sports

With modern-day access to the internet and streaming services, watching sports is no longer limited to local events. You're able to watch major events—from the U.S. Super Bowl to the World Cup—as they're held around the world, all from the comfort of your home or local pub. Of course, there's a special excitement that comes with being in a real life sports arena or stadium.

Over the years, numerous games around the world have shown just how prevalent the cultural practice of watching sports is, based on record viewership numbers. Soccer is one of the most popular sports to watch. In fact, the most widely watched sporting event of all time was the 2006 FIFA World Cup. This event took place in Germany from June 9 to July 9. When adding up viewers for every day, this event was watched by a cumulative 30 billion people.

No matter whether you've grown up watching major sporting events on television or simply cheering on your siblings at their amateur games, watching sports can become a big part of your social life. Your interest in watching sports may be influenced in part by your genes and whether it was an important part of your childhood or culture.

Are you interested in finding out if you have the genetic markers for liking to watch sports? Take an AncestryDNA^® + Traits test today and find out. If you've already taken one, your results are now available online with an Ancestry^® membership.

 

References

Baranowski-Pinto, G., Profeta, V.L.S., et al. "Being in a crowd bonds people via physiological synchrony." Scientific Reports. January 12, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-04548-2.

"The joy of sports: How watching sports can boost well-being." ScienceDaily. April 15, 2024. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/04/240415110530.htm.

Keyes, Helen et al. "Attending live sporting events predicts subjective wellbeing and reduces loneliness." Frontiers in Public Health. January 3, 2023. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.989706.

"Largest audience collectively for a live sporting event." Guinness World Records. Accessed June 3, 2024. https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/largest-audience-collectively-for-a-live-sporting-event.

Newson, Martha. "Why Losing Bonds Sports Fans." SAPIENS. February 1, 2021. https://www.sapiens.org/culture/football-fans/.

"St. Bonaventure/Siena Research survey reveals 75% of Americans to watch Super Bowl; wings are king." St. Bonaventure University. January 31, 2024. https://www.sbu.edu/news/news-items/2024/01/31/st.-bonaventure-siena-research-survey-reveals-75-of-americans-to-watch-super-bowl-wings-are-king.

"Share of people watching sports on TV or the internet in Japan from 2018 to 2023." Statista. March 2024. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1293159/japan-most-popular-tv-sports-by-viewership-rates/.