¹ Or any other group, but US Americans in particular seem to love this cry.
² And are probably mistaken about their ranking, but that’s a different issue.
Edit: And I'm curious how this relates to the topic at hand. Not that I think it is unrelated, but specifically how. We seem to be in rather strong agreement that it is the relationship with a thing that is unhealthy, with regards to sports. Why or how would that be different with regards to social media?
The mechanism seems to be the "media" part. All the promotional content is blasted out at scale in a way that triggers this false or amplified sense of social engagement. It's not the social part of social media that hurts, so much as the media platform part that enables so many promoters to thrive.
This leans into all media and aligns with how much credence is given to pundits. People with good ideas wind up digging in and pushing that they have the only reasonable idea.
It's common for sports fans to say things like, "we're playing Los Angeles next week" or "we picked up so-and-so in the draft" when there's really no "we" about it. The speaker is not involved in the action in any way other than as one observing it. But using that language makes them feel included in something bigger. And sometimes the brain starts to believe you really ARE part of that bigger thing, and you start taking actions to reinforce that belief.
(And I want it noted that I'm very much including myself in this assessment. This is not some "nerds > jocks" kind of thing. As an American football fan myself, I've made a conscious effort to stop saying "we" specifically because this has started to bother me.)
So no, participating in sports isn't unhealthy. Succumbing to the delusion of participation as a spectator, that's what becomes unhealthy.