Such is the magic of a beautiful new philanthropic initiative that has its roots right here in Boston, a program called Big-Hearted Battles that just could change the way we see recreational sports forever. Built around the endless availability of local sports leagues or friendly athletic competition, Big-Hearted Battles challenges any combatants to up their stakes. Not for themselves, but for charity. As the tagline says, “Turning philanthropy into funlanthropy.”
In essence, when you turn a chosen game or contest in anything from archery to Zumba or golf to pickleball into a Big-Hearted Battle, you agree that the loser makes a donation to a charity of the winner’s choice. When you do that, and share the exchange via a video on the program’s website to help spread the word, you’ve just turned something relatively ordinary into something potentially extraordinary.
“It does build character to learn how to lose, but it builds even more character to learn how to enjoy giving,” says Newton resident Michael Rothman, the author of the idea that sprung from the Wicked DAHTs darts league he belongs to at Michael’s Bar in Somerville.
“Giving is built into human DNA. Giving lowers your blood pressure. It makes you happier. When I talk about it, I talk about it making the recreational game more fun. If this is something that generically changes the way people play recreational sports and games, it’s because it’s more fun. And by the way, it’s also great for those worthy causes.”
The idea occurred to Rothman during the pandemic shutdown, when he and his fellow dart players, like all of us, were sent home for the foreseeable future. Rothman, nicknamed “Iceman” for a pace of play slow enough to ice his opponents, and his doubles partner, a.k.a. “The Beast,” kept their dart skills sharp by playing each other from their respective homes over FaceTime.
When the perpetually vanquished Rothman suddenly thought to make things more interesting by including the charitable donation idea, a movement was born. It has grown steadily, bolstered immeasurably in its infancy when Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson turned a TikTok rock/paper/scissors game into a Big-Hearted Battles video.
For Rothman, a 70-year-old transplanted Brooklyn native, big ideas have guided his life and work as both an MD and an entrepreneur.
“In all of my life’s ventures, the guiding principle has been: First who, then what,” he said. “In the first phase of Big-Hearted Battles, the who related to who would be the best generic group to get out the word about the movement. The answer was the celebrities with the largest social media platforms.
“We succeed here beyond our wildest dreams — over a billion views. People like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, with the largest social media platform in the world, Ben Johns, the top pickleball player in the world, Olympic gold medalists, and so on, put out the word for us.
“The principles we would like to highlight are simple ones: In a fractured, polarized world with winning and losing imposing itself on all matters, in the Big-Hearted Battle, everybody wins. Instead of one happy winner and one less-than-happy loser in traditional recreational sports and games with and without betting, in a Big-Hearted Battle there are at least three winners — the winner, the charity chosen, and the loser, who may be the biggest ‘winner’ if one believes that giving is a better path to happiness than receiving.”
There’s no doubt that the high stakes, supreme skills, and local pride of professional sports combine to keep us enthralled, bringing us together here in the sports section. Yet for the many among us who devote time to watching sports, there are as many or more who spend their time playing sports, bringing participants of all skill levels together for competition, camaraderie, and community. And, as it turns out, funlanthropy.
So take a turn around the website, see the many charities that have benefited, listen to the Grammy-winning artist who wrote a song for the program, read the fun poems from another participant, and remember it the next time you’re out there competing. For Rothman, whose home backs up to a golf course, a recent walk to the 18th hole reminded him of the endless possibilities of this venture.
“That was one of the greatest moments for me — I saw the end of a Big-Hearted Battle,” he said. “You see the winner saying, ‘You, $25 to Save the Children, you, $25 to Doctors Without Borders, you, $25 to Habitat for Humanity.’ It’s amazing. People start talking about charities, young people in their 30s who hadn’t even thought about philanthropy yet, now they’re doing research ahead of time.
“In short, Big-Hearted Battles is a movement that makes recreational sports and games more fun, happier, healthier, and kinder, while harnessing the immense power of sports to make the world a better place.”
Check it out.
Tara Sullivan is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at tara.sullivan@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @Globe_Tara.
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