Editorial: Sports are more than a game

Pennsylvania is a state with a lot of sports history.

There is no major sport that doesn’t happen in the Keystone State. Whether you want your games as all-American as baseball or as global as soccer, it happens here. As grassroots as NASCAR or as high class as horse racing. As brutal as boxing or as elegant as figure skating.

Here in black-and-gold country, we know the heights of championship trophies with the Steelers and the Penguins. We also know the pain of the long stretch of Pirates losing seasons.

Sports, for many, is not just something to watch on a Sunday afternoon between cleaning the garage and sitting down to dinner. It can define people in a tribal way. Whether you are a Pitt family or Penn State may have little to do with where (or whether) anyone picked up a degree. It’s a way of identifying like souls who share your joys and pain.

Yet for some people, not having sports to watch might seem like a minor loss in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. People’s lives have been turned upside down, unemployment is at Depression levels, and 5,000 people have died in Pennsylvania alone. Is sports really a big deal compared to all that?

Yes, it is.

We have faced challenges like this or bigger before. When the Tree of Life synagogue shooting happened in October 2018, the Pittsburgh region grieved — and part of that collective grieving happened at Heinz Field the next day at the Steelers game, and again two days later when the Penguins played at PPG Paints Arena, after an emotional video and a moment of silence for the lives lost.

We have turned to sports for respite and to rally hope amid war and after tragedy. When players went overseas to fight in World War II, the Steelers who were left behind merged with Philadelphia Eagles players to form the Steagles, who played 10 precious games in 1943. There may be nothing that shows the base need we have for sports like the setting aside of that rivalry.

Gov. Tom Wolf said Wednesday he is talking to pro sports organizations about how to hold events. OK. But that feels like he doesn’t understand what sports is for many Pennsylvanians.

It’s not a game. It’s traditions and relationships. It’s normalcy and comfort. For those who work at everything from taking tickets to taking the field, it’s paychecks and mortgage payments.

Sports betting alone was a $1.5 billion industry in 2019. According to Forbes, the Steelers and Eagles together generated $921 million in revenue last year, and that’s just one sport — and it doesn’t even count college programs.

Finding a solution to the sports issue is important. It needs to be a priority from an economic standpoint, to find a way to put so many people back to work in a safe, reasonable way.

But more than that, we need to find some way to make it work to give people something to cheer for when we could badly use a little team spirit.