sports are a way to win at art
1: they're both kind of useless
if we put aside the psychological and physiological good the arts engender across history and culture (what we in america like to think of as the stuff getting in the way of progress), and the economic good the arts engender despite being actively discouraged (in 2011 art made up 3.4% us gdp [504billion], yet the .00004% of the national budget the nea received [154.7million] was on the chopping block once again as a liberal opulence), art performs no function. it is, materialistically, a useless reorganization of stuff. unless you bolt bottle-openers to the finger-ends of a bronze, in which case you have a very kitsch bottle-opener. to me that is what's most valuable in the arts--our brains ability for symbolism is the most human thing about us, and the first two things it does with that ability are art and science, respectively the subjective and objective responses to being here at all.
likewise, there is not now nor has there ever been a materialist function to putting any ball, puck, shuttlecock, or stone in, through, over, or on any post, plate, net, or line. doesn't mean they're not fun or valuable, doesn't mean they're not deeply human, but a painting is no more likely to fix a flat tire than a penalty shot in double overtime.
2: quantity first
when we discuss an artwork or artist in the public square, we use our handy pattern recognition systems to help navigate the new terrain. we learn how many galleries they've shown in, how much they sold for, which prizes they've won, etc. we make similar use of those systems when discussing sports or sports figures--their salary, rbi's, yards run, rings, scholarships, etc. in the preface to his book Number and Numbers, Alain Badiou asserts "what counts is that which is counted. conversely everything that can be numbered must be valued. [...] a 'cultural fact' is a numerical fact. art, which deals with number only insofar as there is a thinking of number, is a culturally unpronounceable word."
for this reason, we're unable to deal with the quality of an artists output before we've dealt with the quantity. this attitude shows up time and again in many aspects of life--consistently in sat testing, the longer your essay the higher your grade, for example. sports have neatly subverted this problem by defining its commodities, the athletes, exclusively by their numbers from day one. this isn't to say that quantity doesn't breed quality, or that quantitative achievements aren't impressive, simply that we seem hard-wired to deal first with quantity (i even defended art on quantitative terms three paragraphs ago, for christs sake).
3: the allure of both is rooted in empathy
watching someone do something you can't is always a powerful experience; knowing that someone has spent tens of thousands of hours to get great at something which seems so simple can be a similarly powerful experience. when Anthony Bourdain ate at Thomas Kellers' french laundry restaurant, he said in his summary that it "was like being confronted by your own limitations with every bite." that feeling can be a real downer, or a real gift. my recent artmaking has been very concerned with empathy, so i might well be suffering a bit of synchronicity sickness, but my contention is that the great art made by the great artists all has, just beneath it's skin, empathy and/or the desire for increased empathy, for some companionship or encouragement on what is really quite a difficult and strange road. to see someone achieve something in an area we ourselves have trodden is hopeful. to see someone careen into the catcher and still miss homeplate is hilarious.
4: so...
taking sports and art as equivalent in their uselessness, capacity for empathy, and inability to purge themselves of even patently guilty abusive womanizers, the only functional difference is the vicarious winning people get from their teams--the feeling that in an entirely rotten day something in your life made progress, because your batch of people that all totally care about your city more than their paycheck won. you get some of the benefits of art, plus ads, and minus all those pesky unanswerable questions that made art desirable and important in the first place.
that i can't do what they do and vice versa goes almost without saying, but what's outlined above is why sports-themed art and art competitions (arts-themed sport) are, whatever their business use, such utter cheese.
qed, motherfucker
thank you for coming, and have a lovely superbowl xlix. one final prediction--they will abandon roman numerals next year, because 'superbowl L' looks funny.UPDATE: within hours of posting, it was made known to me that it is definitely not going to be superbowl L. apparently this was made public in the middle of last year. even though it's entirely possible i heard and internalized that, i'm going to go ahead an claim my tiny victory.