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This week, a list carefully compiled and researched by yours truly with the intention of protecting would-be frugal individuals from blowing their budgets on sports wholly inappropriate to their class identities. That’s right, these sports are ones at which you cannot ever hope to excel unless you are extremely rich, or dirt poor. So everyone else in the middle should just save their money and quit right now. That’s right–if you want to be a frugal person, I had better not hear anything about any of you taking up one of the following sports–that is, unless you’ve figured out a way to substitute in a dryer sheet for the required equipment. But where possible, I have provided you with rough middle class equivalents that can be had at a reasonable price as consolation. You’re welcome.
- Tennis. Volleyball is middle class.
- Sailing. Riding Pirates of the Caribbean is middle class.
- Shooting. Paint ball is middle class.
- Flying planes. Wii Fit is middle class.
- Auto racing (Vintage or Formula vs. NASCAR). No middle class equivalent, unless you count those cars they make Cub Scouts race.
- Golf. Extremely rough middle class equivalent: Baseball.
- Cycling. Going to spinning classes is middle class.
- Lacrosse. Hockey is a middle class substitute if you’re Canadian or from Minnesota.
- Rugby, but only if you’re American.
- Skiing. Snowboarding is middle class, though.
- Fencing. Football is middle class and much more violent; but it doesn’t have swords.
- Crew. Using the crew machine at the gym is middle class.
- Jousting. Tough to find a middle class equivalent here, but I’m going with mailbox baseball.
- Polo. Uh. Field hockey? Water Polo, despite its name, is not anything like it.
- Equestrian riding (English). Horseback riding (Western) with a specific purpose that is not work can be middle class under certain circumstances (taking tours, pony rides at Griffith Park, for example.)
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I was thinking about the intersection of WASPy sports, race and class this weekend as the Williams sisters battled it out on Wimbledon’s center court (or, more properly, centre court) and Tiger won another golf match (championship? game? meetup? clambake?) – all three had fathers who completely disregarded the culturally enforced restrictions on the participation of blacks. And can you imagine those sports without these three? (I happen to believe fashion will survive without the interference of the Williams sisters, but what they’ve done for tennis cannot be underestimated.) And then the men’s tennis finals featured two of the whitest guys ever – one of whom is Swiss, for god’s sake – which underscores your point, I guess, that excelling at these sports will always come easier to the upper-middle-class.
I have friends who sail. They are the most brutally competitive men you will ever meet and all they do is bitch about how expensive sailing is. “Like standing in a cold shower as you tear up $100 bills.” OK. Then quit. But noooo. Never.
I think I would have put distance running (5Ks, 10Ks, half-marathons, etc.) as a middle class substitute for cycling! The same type of people do it, but runners spend a lot less money. Even if you spring for things like the Garmin Forerunner, you have a long way to go before you spend as much as a cyclist would just on their bike, and never mind the matching outfits and water bottles and tire colors that all have to match (I am serious- cyclists are VAIN!! Especially the men.).
Also, I would suggest swimming as another middle class sporting alternative for crew, especially for the kiddies, who might not be down with doing ergs at the gym.
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