Watching sports: the secret to happiness?

"If sport be the food of life, play on." (With apologies to Shakespeare.)

Yes, there are other things in life. Other pastimes that stimulate the brain. Movies, books, art, music, El Hormiguero . But is there anything that provokes more well-being, more intensity, or more joy than watching sports? Not for me.

Over the weekend, I reread a book I love, Journey into Fear by Eric Ambler, a mid-20th-century thriller writer. I watched a delightful Robert De Niro film, Midnight Run . I started an intriguing Danish series, Reservatet . I watched for the umpteenth time on YouTube the best live version (search for "the best version ever" ) of the Rolling Stones' Gimme Shelter .

But what captivated me most, what gripped me every second of the nearly three-hour match, was Carlos Alcaraz's match against Andrii Rublev at Wimbledon. This is primarily because I'm a huge, huge fan of Alcaraz, the tennis player who has entertained me the most of all the many I've watched since the days of McEnroe and Borg. Partly, it's also because his opponent was Russian, and Russians, these days, are second to none.

It wasn't a matter of life or death, but close enough. Alcaraz had to win, and after the delicious suffering he always subjects us to, he won.

I think about my highlights so far in 2025, and among them, right at the top, are the Champions League semi-final matches between Barcelona and Inter Milan, Rory McIlroy's victory at the Augusta Masters, and, of course, Alcaraz's victory against Jannik Sinner in the Roland Garros final.

Everything I'm saying is ridiculously subjective, some might say. But science backs me up. It turns out there was research on the subject conducted in Japan a couple of years ago. The question they were seeking to answer was: "Do people who frequently watch sports exhibit structural changes in the brain related to well-being?"

Watching sports stimulates the brain in a positive way. It's good for you.

The academics in charge of the research used 20,000 Japanese citizens, evenly distributed by gender and social class, as guinea pigs. They subjected fourteen of them to MRIs while they watched sports competitions.

Here are three of the conclusions of the Japanese scientists.

“The results indicate that perceptions of what a fulfilling life means were met for sports viewers in stadiums, online, or on television”: “Watching sports daily is positively associated with greater gray matter volumes of reward sensation”; and “it may mean that brain structures could gradually change through daily sports viewing to the point that people may more easily experience well-being.”

For Rushdie, nothing can compete in happiness with a Tottenham victory over Manchester United.

Understood? No, me neither. Not entirely. But I think I get the message. Watching sports stimulates the brain in a positive way. It's good for you.

A second Japanese study confirmed the findings of the first. Watching baseball games, which are very popular in Japan, boosted “subjective vitality,” it found. One of the study’s authors told The Guardian : “There are numerous ways in which watching sports can improve mental health.”

If from time to time, for the sake of my intellectual health, the notion crosses my mind that instead of watching Carlitos or Lamine I should be reading Dostoevsky or Proust, I seek support from some of the various intellectuals who have immersed themselves in the classics, but are as fanatical about the sport as I am, or more so. The writer Eduardo Mendoza, for example. I know each other well, and I'd say at least 50 percent of our conversations focus on the ups and downs of Barça .

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Salman Rushdie, whom I also know, says that nothing in his life can compete in happiness—not even a bestseller for one of his books—with a victory for his team, Tottenham, against Manchester United. Julian Barnes, one of the most thoughtful novelists of our time, seems to think the same. In a recent essay, he listed his five great articles of faith. The first four were: the primacy of art, the primacy of love, the certainty that after death there is nothing, the certainty that religions are “comforting fantasies,” and, “finally, that there is great joy, inexhaustible joy—joy to last a lifetime—in sport.”

Well, that's it.