What attracts us and pushes us to go to the stadium?

Ultimately, why leave the comfort of your living room for the cauldron of the stadium? The stadium which remains a unique place of conviviality, sharing, connection to others, collective belonging through the wearing of jersey colors and songs.

The stadium which is also a reflection of our society. A place that can also be violent or discriminatory.

With the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, we listen to the beating heart of the stadiums.

To talk about it :

François Miquet-Martypresident of the Viavoice polling institute and BloomTime
For BloomTime, he developed with Lucia Socias “‘Life Stories’ Notebooks: Listening to Sports Stadiums”, survey published on the Jean Jaurès Foundation website on June 12, 2024

Mary Patruxsports journalist on BeIN sport, she has presented the NBA Extra program since 2013. She comments on numerous French team matches, notably basketball and handball.

Laurent Vergne, journalist, head of news at Eurosport.fr, he has covered the biggest sporting events in the world. Co-author with Maxime Dupuis of Great Stories: dive into the crazy history of sport (Amphora editions, 2023)

Jeremy Peltierco-director general of the Jean Jaurès foundation is the author of The party is over ? (Editions de l’Observatoire, 2021). He will be a weekly columnist in Great good to you! from the start of the school year.

François da Rocha Carneirodoctor in contemporary history, professor at the Jean Moulin high school in Roubaix and teacher at the University of Artois, vice-president of the APHG (association of History-Geography teachers)
Author of A story of France in crampons (edition of Le Détour, 2022).

The guests of the show all consider that it is a positive signal that, in a hyper individualistic and digitalized era, we still accept to spend an hour and a half next to a stranger to get through a moment apart from society to rediscover the meaning of collective sharing.

François Miquet-Marty carried out a qualitative survey for the Jean-Jaurès Foundation where he collected life stories around the stadium to find out what the stadium means in people’s lives. And it reveals that, in our hyper-digitalized society, the stadium embodies a miraculous place that we praise more and more. Last year, 9 million people went to Ligue 1 stadiums. A number that has increased in recent years and which demonstrates the importance that the stadium atmosphere can represent for part of the population.

An exceptional collective event that fuels common sense

The sociologist considers that going to the stadium means experiencing both individual and collective emotions. Being present at the event allows you to become one with a unique atmosphere that nothing can replace, and where above all you become one with others: “This is a moment when the charm of collective reality is suddenly felt. In a stadium, there is no more me, there is only one us. And then who says stadium, says competitions, goals, moments of collective adrenaline with a growing feeling of collective pleasure. It’s a pretty powerful collective excitement that grows as the match goes on. We return to reality which gives us wonderful emotions thanks to a new real life free from screens“.

Journalist Mary Patrux adds that nothing beats this communion of so many people who do not always know each other, who do not come from the same backgrounds. Being able to feel this emotional contagion all together at the same time is incomparable: “We are finally few to be able to live this moment together, and it is unforgettable every timeit is a very special moment of sharing in reality where everyone is interconnected alongside each other.”

For Jérémie Pelletier too, going to the stadium builds a feeling of community and collective belonging: “We cultivate a collective ritual dimension which goes beyond individual consideration since we are part of a history which is greater than our own..”

Reconnect with reality

It is a festive and joyful moment, extremely precious when it is experienced live from the stadium, outside the screens. It’s a moment that has nothing to do, as François Miquet-Marty explains well in his investigation, with seeing a match on screen. : “If we have been going to the stadiums for decades, the increasingly sensitive articulation with digital means that this collective communion, enabled by the direct presence in the stadiums, allows you to get away from the screens to see what is happening in (real) reality. We enter with real life.

François da Rocha Carneiro adds that we experience a certain number of things in the stadium, which we cannot experience through the media, in particular through television: “Television focuses excessively on the ball during a football match, but what is interesting to watch in a football match is everything else, everything that is put in place, the whole game. players without the ball which is fundamental to the success of a team**”.**

A community that restores faith in humanity, and makes people better

“ There is no place in the world where man is happier than in a stadium “.

– Albert Camus

All is said ! There is indeed, in the atmosphere of the stadium, the belonging to something greater than being in a bubble which allows for an hour and a half to free oneself from the conventional feelings of vulnerability, which one experiences at the same time. outside on a daily basis. For sociologist François Miquet-Marty, here is suddenly an event that transports the public beyond the harshness of everyday life: “The stadium allows you to escape from society, to abandon yourself, to escape from your tensions and conflicts to become someone else in communion with others. We draw from it a universe where everything that can be experienced as stigmatizing, difficult, conflicting, the pangs of everyday life disappear for a time to find a form of collective in this stadium. The atmosphere of the stadium, when it is harmonious, is like a dream, the metaphor of a harmonious society which is felt viscerally, where it is possible to both be oneself and experience pleasure for oneself and respect for others.”

Jérémie Pelletier draws our attention to the idea that it is a whole set of experiences and collective rites which are experienced and disinhibit the public from external reality: “We become one among a whole. Contact with the crowd, the fact of being an actor in the game, allows you to get out of yourself and your daily bubble because of the electrifying dimension that the spectacle experienced in the present moment provides. The stadium moment is a moment separated from the rest, it is reconnecting with another reality apart during which to pause and enjoy and like entering another world, a moment separated from the rest with a disinhibiting side, an airlock of decompression**”.**

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