Rock Paper Scissors shows up in professional sports more often than you'd expect, and the context is almost always the same: a fast, fair decision needed immediately, with two people who both want to win and no time for anything complicated.
NHL players use it to decide who leaves the ice last before games — a genuine competitive tradition that has produced documented rivalries, at least one documented cheat, and enough footage that it has become part of the pre-game visual vocabulary for hockey broadcasts. Tyler Seguin and Mark Scheifele turned their personal series into a running story that fans tracked across multiple seasons.
NFL players use it for touchdown celebrations, most famously after the Oklahoma Sooners' RPS tradition migrated into the professional game. Robert Woods and Todd Gurley played after a Rams opening score. Odell Beckham Jr. and Saquon Barkley were spotted playing during a preseason game on the Giants bench. Jason Witten famously interrupted one — incorrectly — which became its own story.
Baseball players play it during rain delays, which are long enough to develop real competitive sequences rather than single-throw decisions. The pace of baseball creates more RPS opportunity than faster sports. A rain delay with a dugout full of competitive professionals and no game to play is ideal conditions for a bracket forming organically.
Soccer players use it for free kick selection, wall positioning, and any other decision that needs immediate resolution with no obvious hierarchy. The game travels to practice sessions, into strategy meetings, into any moment where two people with equal claims to something need a clean tiebreaker.
The reason it keeps appearing in professional sports isn't nostalgia. It's function. Rock Paper Scissors solves the immediate decision problem faster than any alternative: faster than a coin flip (no coin required), faster than a coin toss (no waiting for the coin to land), with outcomes that feel more intentional because both parties actively chose their throw. Every athlete on every team already knows how to play. There's no learning curve, no equipment, no setup time. When something needs to be decided in the next five seconds, Rock Paper Scissors is almost always the fastest available tool.
The competitive instinct that makes these athletes good at their sports doesn't disappear when they pick up a three-gesture hand game. Watch the footage and you'll see the same focus, the same post-outcome processing, the same desire to win the next one. The game is different. The competitor isn't.