This past February, American football fans far and wide tuned into the 59th annual NFL Super Bowl, with this year’s estimated 127.7 million viewers making it the most watched Super Bowl and single-network telecast in TV history. Soccer, globally referred to as football, has an even larger reach with FIFA estimating close to 1.5 billion viewers for the men’s 2022 World Cup. These statistics make it evident that professional sports have remained a popular interest for decades, but personally, it’s not one that has ever grasped my attention to the extent of others. Perhaps I’d be more inclined to pay attention if it weren’t for the factor that repels me the most: the culture.

From a surface perspective, both the remote and in-person viewership of professional sports should be honored for their ability to bring people together. Sports are one of the few things that such large amounts of the population share an interest in, and it allows fans of the same team to create a connection that can’t quite be replicated between people who like the same movie, tv show or the like. When a team claims a victory, fans erupt in cheer, jump to their feet and maybe even hug a nearby loved one. But when looking at the culture with a more scrutinizing eye, especially surrounding men’s professional sports, the negative effects seem to outweigh the positive.

I specify that the problem is with men’s sports for multiple reasons. For one, men’s sports see much more viewership, and the only time that women’s sports see similar attention is in situations where both genders are competing at the same time, such as the Olympics. Women’s sports also tend to get the most attention when accomplishments are made in sports deemed to be inherently feminine, like gymnastics and ice skating— everyone knows who Simone Biles and Gabby Douglas are. On the other hand, men’s sports fanship creates a toxic culture because it is dominantly masculine.

This isn’t to say that the culture is perpetuated by purely men, but rather to say that the culture is dominated by traditionally masculine displays. In general, an interest in professional sports is seen as masculine, often deeming a woman “one of the guys” if she actually knows what’s going on when there’s a football game on screen. When a team wins, your neighbor might cheer so loudly that you can hear it from across the street. When a team loses, there’s a similar rise of noise, which can turn into booing and even throwing things when it comes to in-person viewership. Either way, both overbearing positive and negative responses are displays of power. And with heightened adrenaline and testosterone—not to mention alcohol—in high concentrations, the results are anything but positive.

As many joke when the Eagles make it to the Super Bowl, the city will end up in flames whether they win or lose. In the wake of fans celebrating the team’s recent victory, police reported nearly 50 arrests, with some charges even involving assault. Scarcely anything else provokes this strong of a reaction, aside from political riots— two very different things that shouldn’t be producing the same response when considering which one carries more weight. And while the extreme actions of a select few are generally not approved, rowdiness in stadiums, bars and homes that would usually be seen as disorderly becomes excusable.

Because professional sports have such a large fan base, the most popular sports like football, baseball and basketball are also multi-billion dollar industries. With that, some players perpetuate the toxic culture even further. The average football player’s salary is in the millions, which is guaranteed to intensify how much they care about the game. If that large of the salary is on the line, players are bound to be upset when a play goes wrong, and they are. Even with a sport as tame as golf, being the number one golfer for years had quite the impact on Tiger Woods, earning him an article entirely dedicated to his “top 10 biggest tantrums.” When these habits, such as throwing one’s helmet, are televised to millions, it normalizes these aggressive responses for the fans as well. Not to mention, the increasing popularization of sports betting conflates fans’ reactions— not only did your team lose, but you lost money as well.

Along with these salaries also comes an inflation of players’ egos and self-worth. The better and more desirable they are, the more money they’re going to be offered— it’s like they’re a princess at the ball when draft season comes around. Unfortunately, this gets the best of some athletes, with superstars like LeBron James going so far as to say that he’s “the best player in the world.” When offered more money by other teams, some athletes abandon the team where they rose to fame, and suddenly their career is no longer about loyalty and the love of the game. Some of the most desired athletes can be seen negotiating for additional hundreds of thousands of dollars, arguing that they deserve more while already receiving a salary many can hardly dream of.

I’d like to think that if this culture didn’t invade professional sports I might have more of an interest in watching them. In a perfect world, professional sports wouldn’t be much different from how they were in high school, where everyone was there to cheer on their team just for the sake of school pride. College sports produce this environment as well, but with student-athletes recently getting approved to be paid for name, image and likeness (NIL), that environment is becoming less and less preserved. Unfortunately, no such perfect world can exist because in order to pursue their passion full-time, athletes need to be paid for their talent just like actors and artists.

So at the very least, let’s just try not to burn down Philadelphia.