It should have been a golden sporting year.

2020, the year with the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, the Ryder Cup, football's European

championships, all on top of the staple jewels of Wimbledon, the climax of the Premier League,

Formula One and Racing's Dubai World Cup.

Yet across the world our playing fields, racetracks and stadiums have been empty and silent.

It's a situation almost without precedent.

And confined to our homes, locked down in our living rooms, we felt that absence of sport

even more acutely.

TV broadcasters have scrambled to find some sport, any sport, from Belarusian football to

Icelandic cricket to satiate audience hunger.

On social media fans have flocked to discuss and reminisce debating favourite players,

greatest moments, their most cherished memories.

What can these experiences under lock down tell us about the meaning that sport brings

to our lives is sport really important or merely as the Liverpool Football Manager

Jürgen Klopp said, the most important of all the least important things.

I'm Claire Boulding and in this documentary for the BBC World Service, I'll be speaking

to experts from philosophy, sociology and behavioural science, as well as one of the

world's greatest sporting legends, as I try to get to the bottom of humankind's tumultuous

love affair with sport.

I feel like about it, it's really a puzzle why we should be interested in sport and why

we should be interested in athletes, so when you think about it, aren't doing anything

useful.

...