Marvin Gandall
Spectator sports has its share of beer-bellied yobs, but I'd hestitate to compare the occasional soccer riot to the long history of cruelty and violence provoked by religious belief. Marx was addressing one aspect of its contradictory nature, but it has been as much a stimulant as a narcotic, and it's hard to say which has been the more socially destructive.
In modern urban societies, including in the US, professional sports is now more widely and intensely experienced than religion but largely continues to serve the same function as a source of group identification, relief from material concerns, and distraction from politics. That's all the analogy was intended to suggest.
^^^^ CB: I remember years ago thinking " spectator sports is the opium of the male masses". In the U.S., NFL football is on Sunday, conflicting with church time. It may not be the heart of a heartless situation, but it is some fun and frolic, play, in an world saturated with alienated laboring. Sports spectating permits displays of public silliness even, through convention of fans or fanatical cheering masses for sports teams.
I wondered " does draw off some of the inspiration masses get from mass meetings that might be directed into mass political action ?" The masses are spectators in sports, watching, passive; they are "objects", not "subjects". But I don't really think now that a radical program would want to include discouragement of spectator sports events. It might want to promote more amateur participation in physical activity of sports by sports fans, i.e. fanatical spectators. Workers especially need to use their bodies for fun, active leisure.
I agree with Jerry that there is a serious chauvinizing partial theme to spectator sports, inherent in the competition between teams different places - from schools to cities- pumped up sometimes to correspond metaphorically to the American ,patriotic and military nation. This seems to be especially true of football.