This study into the benefits of hitting up live sporting events comes from across the pond, specifically the folks at Anglia Ruskin University’s School of Psychology and Sport Science. They collected data from more than 7,209 adults ages 18-65, all of them living in England.

How the Scots, Welsh, and/or Northern Irish may have affected the outcome of this study, we may never know…

The study — which was published in the very official sounding Frontiers in Public Health — measured “subjective wellbeing.” Subjects who frequently attended sporting events tested high for life satisfaction and a sense of “life being worthwhile.”

The jump in “life being worthwhile” was on par with that of getting a new job.

[I’m gonna guess that there’s a lot of correlation and not much causation in this study. For instance, are people who feel good physically and emotionally more likely to participate in sports events, or is it the other way around? Or both? I’d hazard a guess that people who feel poorly about their physical health probably don’t attend sporting events as often.

Even so, I’ll be citing this study the next time I buy tickets to a football or baseball game! — Ed]