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The Conversation
The Conversation
Jim Davies, Professor, Institute of Cognitive Science, Carleton University

Why do we like watching the Olympics so much?

Fans cheer during the women's snowboard slopestyle final at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Interest in sports is so common that we don’t always stop to wonder why. Unlike food and sex, there is no obvious survival or reproductive value to sports spectatorship and fandom.

If we weren’t in a pandemic, people would have undoubtedly travelled across the world to watch the Olympics in China. Even people who don’t usually watch sports tune in the Olympic Games.

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