It has been my experience with people that I know, that women are less likely to be sports fans than men, but that those who are sports fans are more likely to be passionate fans then men. Questions are:
Is this experience typical?
If so, what might account for it?
Nobody will listen to them, unless they are really into it and know what they are talking about.
I kinda agree with kniz. When trying to have a conversation most guys will ignore me unless I really know what I’m talking about.
In my family my dad doesn’t really like football, my grandpa has never watched sports at all, my other grandpa is a “Fairweather fan” and my husband is slowly becoming a fan. However, my mom is a very avid, passionate fan, and so am I.
That’s my small sample.
I don’t think it’s really typical, Izzy. I know plenty of female fans (myself included) who are pretty damned obsessive about our teams. I also know plenty of female fans with only a moderate level of interest. Maybe the obsessive ones just stand out more because there’s fewer of us (compared to the men).
I agree with kniz and pepperlandgirl, and one of my favorite stories shows what happens when a woman does talk intelligent sports around guys.
A few years ago, I taught at an all girls’ school; the boys’ school was down the block. One year, due to a combine physics class, 3 boys had to take my honors U.S. History class. Several of the girls in the class were athletes, and sometimes we did get sidetracked into talking about baseball or football. The boys seemed to accept it from the girls–after all, the girls were star athletes in their own right, so it was okay for them to know sports. But they seemed fascinated that ** I**, the close to middle aged, overweight teacher, knew anything about either sport. And I could talk a good game–I dreamed of playing ball for the SF Giants when I was a kid, and devoted many hours to its play and strategies, and one of my brother-in-laws was a football coach, and I watched the games with him. Just how amazed the boys were was made clear to me when one of the boys brought his older brother–the star pitcher for the baseball team–to my classroom, introduced us, and then said “Talk baseball to him, Miss Baker.”
To this day, I count myself as one of the steps to manhood for those boys.
I don’t think it’s so much a matter of how much a person knows about the sport - it’s about how much a person cares, and how emotionally tied up they are with their team.
In my office, my division has about 30 people, split roughly evenly between men and women. All the men are sports fans to one extent or another, with the exception of 1 guy. The vast majority of the women have little or no interest in it at all - they will tune out conversations about it etc. But there are two women who are sports fans, and they are at least as into their teams as the most committed male - more, most likely. Their offices are full of memorabilia, they obsess in the latest tidbit of information about it etc.
In my family, most of the female members do not have the slightest interest in sports at all. But the two that do - my two teenaged sisters-in-law, are obsessive fans of the NY Yankees. All sorts of memorabilia, the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat etc. In fact, my own sister went through a period when she was in her late teens when she was a die-hard Yankee fan - now that she is no longer a die-hard fan she has lost all interest entirely.
My experience may not be typical, as ruadh suggests. I was wondering if it has some basis in the emotional differences between men and women.
I think it may have more to do with the fact that men are expected to know/talk about sports. Sports spectatorship has been pushed on them their whole lives.
Let’s say (making up numbers here) that 10% of women and 10% of men are die-hard fans. Of the remaining 90% of men, most will have learned to enjoy sports enough to watch a game, talk about last night’s game, etc. It’s expected of them. Therefore, the 10% will not stand out, because most of the men in the office are in on the conversation. The 10% of women will really stand out because the other 90% of women are over in the corner talking about their hair and nails. 
Also, I don’t really like talking sports with guys. I don’t know why, but I don’t. I was at a small party on Friday with 4 other women and my husband (who doesn’t like sports). All of us had a rousing and long conversation about the world series. The two who knew little about baseball weren’t afraid to ask “stupid” questions because there was no one there but us chickens.
mmmmm…It was a trivia game: boys answer traditional “girl” questions, girls answer traditional “boy” questions. They looked at me with challenge, just knowing that they’d sealed the game with this one. Enunciating carefully, he read,
“Who won the Formula One World Championship in 1995?”
“Michael Schumacher,” Snicks fires back, not even needing a second to think.
The looks on their faces - priceless. I’ll savor that moment for a long time. I think I even heard a “No way” way back there. It was nice.
That said, I can’t even come close to my bro-in-law for sports knowledge. I watch it, and I’m a little fanatical, but I’m not hugely knowledgeable. But I do enjoy my sports.
Snicks
Let me throw in a small semantic distinction, since this very topic came up during today’s departmental lunch. Not the idea of women as sports fans, but the idea of what makes a sports fan to begin with.
One of the people in the discussion – perhaps coincidentally a woman – claimed to be a sports fan. Another individual – perhaps coincidentally a man – said, no, you’re not a sports fan, you’re a team fan. In other words, this woman goes to probably one out of every four home-team baseball games, wears home-team garb, knows all the home-team players and their stats, and so on. However, she doesn’t really know anything much about the other teams (with the slight exception of those who are the home-team’s special rivals), and she certainly wouldn’t just sit down and watch a baseball game between two other teams, especially not outside the home-team division.
Now that I think about it, my mother’s the same way. She’s a huge Mariners fan, with autographed stuff on her office wall, stickers on her car, the whole works. She even goes down to Arizona for spring training two years out of three. But if you asked her who she thought the National League rookie of the year should be (and I don’t think there’s any argument about it), she wouldn’t have even the beginning of a clue.
So if we’re talking about who is and isn’t a sports fan, we should perhaps set some definitions. Does one have to like all sports generally, or at least a few? If one specializes in a single sport, does one have to have detailed knowledge of the standings and lineups outside one’s home division? How much history should someone know? If somebody says they’re a baseball fan, and I ask them if they know when Cleveland last won the Series, and they don’t know, are they disqualified? Does a “true” baseball fan in, say, California, have to be able to watch a game between the Expos and the Pirates with as much interest as a game between the Athletics and the Angels? I read the box scores and summaries for every single game in both leagues, but I generally don’t actually watch entire games outside my home team’s league. Does that make me less of a fan?
Seems to me, before we start saying that women are or aren’t as likely to be sports fans as men (despite some good points raised above), we should know what we mean by the term “sports fan.” That might be a whole other debate, but if we can’t define the basic term, then any offshoot discussions may be flawed. Thoughts?
Snickers, I like you!
heres two easy ones:
which driver won the championship without scoring a race win?
only posthumous champ?
tougher:
how did Frank Williams end up in the chair?
what other luminary was involved?
tougher still:
driver to win only victory in the six-wheeled tyrrell?
who did he later earn his championship with?
Interesting question, Cervaise.
I’m not a “sports fan.” I’m a baseball fan. And my baseball fan-dom has only developed over the last few years. I’m kinda new at it. I don’t think it makes me less of a fan–I’m quite enthusiastic. But there is no way I could hold my own in a conversation between lifelong basesball fanatics.
And yeah, it would be fair to call me a “team fan.” My team of choice is the single-A Staten Island Yankees. Consequently, my big-league favorites are the NY Yankees. I will watch other teams/games in other divisions, and I do check the scores for all divisions, but I do mostly concentrate on the Yanks.
I think women tend to identify more with both team and individual personalities. I love baseball and basketball and I know lots about the members of my favorite teams but I couldn’t tell you Luis Gonzalez batting average if God himself asked me. I’m a Diamondback fan from day 1 and before that I was at every Triple A game I could get to, long before the Ds came to town.
My husband LOVES the Raiders but will bet against them if he thinks they will lose; I consider it disloyal. It goes the other way too; I flat refuse to excuse or forgive Latrelle Sprewell–the man should be doing hard time. I love players who have heart. Same for Jason Kidd, and I love the Suns. I despised Kim Perrot for being so fast and tough but cried like a baby when I found out she had brain cancer; and that was before she died. I love it that Curt Schilliing buys a seat to every game he plays for his long passed father.
I believe that women are more passionate because they experience sports on a more emotional level. I don’t know statistics well, but I can tell you who pours their heart and soul into the game. I may be the only diehard NBA fan who couldn’t care less about Jordan’s return; it just doesn’t seem his heart is really in it.
I don’t either and I think it is because I don’t understand statistics. But I do know why a pitcher is good even though he has only two pitches and why a good defender doesn’t always score highly. Wish I could have been there for your conversation. I am knowledgeable about sports but I confess I still have a lot of stupid questions myself . . .
Oops, I mean Jason Kidd should be in jail (for beating his wife, among other things). He is, was, and always will be a thug.
Well, I’m watching the Raiders/Denver game right now. It’s pissing me the fuck off because the Raiders are currently winning…but that’s not the point.
The point is, I love the Denver Broncos. I am a diehard Broncos fan, and right now, as I watch it, I’m screaming and cheering and swearing. You think, so? It’s her team.
But I was doing the same for every football game I watched this weekend. So I agree that there are some team fans and some sports fan. But I don’t think it’s fair to claim that most women are simply team fans.
And no, I don’t know all the anal statistics. I know enough to make educated predictions about the upcoming weeks, I know (almost) all of the rules, I don’t need the sports commentators to tell me what’s going on, or analyze a play. I do specialize in football, I used to have a passing interest in basketball, and I’ve never been able to sit through a baseball game in my life.
That’s pretty much the kind of sports fan I am, too.
I used to think I was a team fan, but I think I’ve become more of a sport fan. (Comes with watching my teams die off early in their postseasons, I suppose. :rolleyes: ) While there are teams I strongly prefer to watch in the sports I like the most (baseball, collegiate volleyball, and football), it doesn’t have to be those teams playing to get me to watch it. If the team that happens to be playing plays good game, then I’ll definitely watch.
I suppose that I’m a team fan rather than a sports fan. I can’t watch unless I have a rooting interest (either my team (NY Rangers or NY Giants) is playing, or perhaps a team I really hate is playing). I can watch Islanders games, because the Islanders can’t lose enough. (This is a basic rule in my house, along with the Cowboys - it’s irrelevant how well either team is doing; they can’t lose enough. Ever.) But, let’s say, a Vancouver Canucks game? Nope. And I can’t watch baseball or basketball for more than five minutes. But I can yell at the TV with the best of them.
I do like shocking guys by speaking intelligently about hockey. I apparently don’t strike people as a hockey fan, or a football fan either. (Nice Jewish girls apparently don’t watch sports involving hits, as a rule.)
My friends are amused by me, and don’t get it at all.
Sorry Pepperlandgirl, but I’m a Raider Fan. Actually I’m an eclectic fan (I think that’s the word). I am a fan of any AFC team over the NFC. I am a fan of any AFC West team over any other AFC team and a fan of the Raiders. But then I’m a guy.
My wife on the other hand loves football pools. We belong to a simple win/loss type pool and she picks the team whose city she likes the best over who they’re playing. Her two favorite cities are San Diego and San Francisco and I believe when they play (which ain’t too often) she’ll pick San Diego (better weather, and we live closer). She’s kind of eclectic too in that she tends to favor California teams first, then the West in general, then less favorable the more east you go, with the exception of Washington Dc. She loves that town, well not more than California teams, but close.
She’s also won twice so far this season (we have about 20-25 players per week).
Go figure.
When I was watching the Raiders tonite, she said ‘Are they playing again? I thought that was all over last night!’ 
Sorry to hijack, being a guy and all, but I just hadda say that. 
I’m going to get ripped for this, but my experience with MOST female sports fans seems to come up with these common denominators:
The only reason most women root for sports teams is because they think the players are hot. This is ESPECIALLY TRUE of hockey fans. They know zero about the other team, the history of the sport, etc etc, but boy do they get excited when their favorite player is one the ice.
If not #1, then it’s because theur boyfreind roots for the team. The girlfriend roots along with him, wears the jersey, goes to games, but this eventually wears off as the relationship continues since she was only doing it to con the guy into thinking she was a “cool” chick.
MOST female sports fans make really, really irrational opinions on their teams, and seem unable to back it up with any knowledge whatsoever. Some examples:
At a sports bar, while the Arizona Diamondbacks were playing I heard this one woman say “I hate Curt Shilling, he turned his back on Philadelphia.”
Actually, sweetie, Shilling during the 90s turned down higher offers to stay in Philly since he liked the area so much. When it became obvious they weren’t going to win anything anytime soon, Shilling looked elsewhere.
A female sports fan called a local talk show during the Laker-Sixers series, and berated the host for “not using the same tone of voice when he said the Lakers were a good team as when he said the Sixers were a good team.”, implying, brilliantly, after careful analysis of the host’s voice, he was biased towards the Lakers.
I’ve also heard COUNTLESS female callers call this same guy and tell him he needs to support the home team more, how mad he makes her, while he calmly explains he wants the home team to win as much as the other guy, it’s just its not his job to be a cheerleader.
Granted, a lot of male sports fans are dopey, but whenever I hear a female offer her opinion on a team, I’m so prejudiced because I’ve heard so many women say so many stupid things pertaining to sports.
I agree with most of the things said so far, and I think our answer is probably a combination of them – that female fans tend to stand out because it’s still somewhat unexpected in our society, and that men still have an edge because they were usually raised to be at least fairly conversant about sports.
I also think the team fan v. sports fan is an interesting concept, and I think that in many cases, being a team fan is a gateway to being a sports fan. Many female sports fans that I know, including myself, started off being team fans. Based on what I remember, when my brother was a little kid, the first teams he followed were of course our local teams. However, since he was a boy, he was encouraged to become an overall sports fan – through interactions with his friends, little league, coaches, adult male role models, etc.
Oooh, here’s another factor – when I was growing up (and I’m only 32), little league (baseball, hockey, football) was practically automatic for boys, but girls had to show an exceptional interest in order to play. I believe playing in a league, even as early as tee ball, gives kids a sense of “sport” rather than just “team,” because you interact with kids on other teams, and what happens to other teams affects you and your team. I suspect that when the current generation of girls – who are more likely to play little league sports – grows up, we will see more sports fans in that population.