Why I hope we lose the Ashes

I WAS (until now) secretly pleased that Australia is about to lose the Ashes series and did not win the right to host the soccer World Cup. I am still pleased, but it is now no longer secret.

Australia has for too long wrapped its national identity in sport. Since before federation Australia has (to use a sporting analogy) punched above its weight internationally.

Of course, it had nothing to do with any inherent superior sporting prowess in the Australian gene pool. Rather it had more to do with wealth, climate and environment. Australia at the turn of the 20th century was one of the three or four wealthiest countries on earth. Its people had good food and plenty of leisure time and space compared to other countries.

After World War II, while Europe and Asia were struggling under rations and reconstruction, Australia had money and space for tennis courts and swimming pools galore. Over-populated China had to stick to ping pong.

Eventually other countries caught up and overtook us, until the nadir of the 1976 Montreal Olympics when Australia won no gold medals. New Zealand did better.

We should have shrugged and said there is more to life than sport. Instead Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser set up the Australian Institute of Sport. The Government poured money into sport. And if you pour enough money in, improvement follows.

Australian sport flourished. Victories and medals rolled in. National pride was salvaged.

Governments spend more than $2 billion a year on sport. At least a third of it is questionable – state governments chasing big events and the federal government underwriting elite sport. Local government is probably the most effective – mainly providing sports grounds for non-elite sport.

For what? You wouldn’t mind so much if the spending on elite sport and big events engendered healthy attitudes to personal fitness and role models for youngsters to aspire to. But it results in the opposite – beer-swilling couch potatoes and serial off-field brawlers, sexual assaulters and drink drivers.

Image and reality part. The nation of sporting achievers turns out to be a nation of the over-weight and unfit.

Mercifully we were spared the World Cup which would have seen countless dollars spent on unneeded stadiums and uncounted public dollars on related infrastructure.

True, the total amount of money is not hugely significant. Governments rightly spend more on culture and education. But the arts and education add more to society.

Indeed, you could argue that the Australian love affair with sport detracts from our society. For example, it has caused the addition of the ghastly refrain “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi” to the repertoire of inarticulate sports fans.

It erupted in Homebush during the 2000 Olympics and whoever was the “author” of it has sensibly remained anonymous. Any pride at winning gold medals is soon replaced by teeth-sucking cringes when that cry goes out.

Many sporting events bring out of the worst of nationalistic or tribal triumphalism.

And many are so boring. There is little difference between one horse race or one car race and the next. Around they go. One comes first, another second and another third.

Yes, there is drama, emotion and skill, for those who engrossed in it, but does it have to be publicly funded drama, emotion and skill?

Elite sport should fund itself. It is hugely popular with sponsorships in the millions and generous player payments. The public money would be better spent on other things. If, as a result, Australia fared worse in the international sporting we might be better off.

It does not matter two hoots who wins the Ashes. A few years hence only the silliest old cricket buff will even remember it.

This is the fundamental difficulty with investing so much in sport: it is ephemeral. A creative works lasts indefinitely; a sporting achievement awaits the next record or the next game to be obliterated. Also, sporting triumph always comes at the hands of someone else’s defeat, unlike artistic achievement.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think we should stop playing sport. Far from it. Sport, including competitive sport, is enjoyable and contributes to fitness – for players, especially at lower levels where not so much rides on it. I just object to the misplaced vicarious glorification – Australia is doing well if our top sportspeople are doing well and not much else matters.

It might help us to de-obsess over sport. Australians sporting fans usually like a winner. If we start losing more often we might concentrate on the pursuit of excellence in other fields.

Our culture might change.

The important story of international competition this week was not the Ashes.

Rather it was how Australia’s standing has fallen in education. We are down in maths and reading by up to a third of a year of teaching in the past decade. We are static in science. Sure, we are above OECD average, and so we should be given our wealth, but we are getting licked by the developed Asian countries and China, though the China sample was restricted to Shanghai. Also, children from an immigrant background overtook those without an immigrant background.

It seems that Asian respect for teachers and teaching is paying off, but only partially here.

One of the great difficulties with sport funding is that sport is popular. The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports that 44 per cent of people have attended a sporting event in the past year – junior sport aside, presumably because junior sport is more a parental duty than sport. Many more follow it on television.

The temptation for governments is to go with what is popular. But the more popular a sport is the more elite and victorious it is likely to be and therefore the less beneficial – poor role models; couch potatoism; triumphalism.

Occasional, unexpected sporting slumps draw cries for money, as in 1976, but if we have long strings of losses, with any luck people will draw away from sport and governments will be less tempted to spend on big sporting events and elite sport and use their money to promote everyday fitness or divert it to much needed attention to the international education league tables.

That why I hope we lose the Ashes series.
CRISPIN HULL
This article first appeared in The Canberra Times on 11 December 2010.