Do you ever talk about the game? The game you saw on Saturday, the game you read about in the paper or watched on Match of the Day, the Test that has just started, the prospects for the series? You may want to know, if so, that Colin Tatz, visiting fellow at the Australian National University, has you down as engaging in something completely vacuous. Well, ouch. Tatz maybe has a legitimate grumble in the build-up to his conclusion - in what he has to say about the way 'the hyper-reality of gadgetry' can distance spectators from what really matters. But as for the conclusion itself... well, check it out:
[W]hy so much natter and clatter about sport? Eco's answer is that sport "is the maximum aberration of 'phatic' speech", which is really a negation of speech.
Phatic speech is meaningless speech, as in "G'day, how's it going?" or "have a nice day" or "catch you later" - small talk phrases intended to produce a sense of sociability, sometimes uttered in the hope that it will lead to further and more real intercourse, but human enough even if the converse goes no further.
Sport is international phatic but also a crucial Australian (male) vehicle. It enables not just short, passing greetings but allows for what may seem like deep, passionate and meaningful conversations but which in the end are unmemorable, empty, producing nothing and enhancing no one.
It's a savage indictment: negation of speech, meaningless, producing nothing and enhancing no one. An alternative hypothesis is that people talking about sport are conversing about something (a) that really interests them, (b) that has its own beauty, and (c) that often improves their day. Oh yes, there's also (d): Tatz, on the strength of this article at any rate, sounds like a miserable killjoy.