Pro Sport Team Fans - Explain Loyalty Reason

The Game Room
1

I don’t understand why sports fans have a favorite team. People in Atlanta, Georgia root for the Braves. Why? Why not put the same passion into rooting for Coca-Cola over Pepsi? It can’t be because they are “the local team”. There is nothing local about them, even in Europe. It’s just a business. (And I find it no coincidence that baseball caps often come with business logos on them.)

Please explain to someone who when shopping for clothes spends most of his time hunting for ones that do not display brand names. Someone who when he buys a pair of pants the first thing he does is take a seam ripper to the label over the back pocket. (Hint to Dorkers, with necktie, wearers.)

I’ll admit I’m not a sports fan. I remember fondly that day on the sky lift next to a beautiful woman who said her husband didn’t want to go skiing but preferred to stay home and watch a basketball game. He’d rather watch his favorite team instead of actually participating in a sport himself, with a lovely woman! (His lost; my gain.)

Okay, I can understand attending a ball game for the day or watching your son’s high school team play but to say a particular “(business) team” is your favorite I do not understand.

2

It’s a sports thing…you wouldn’t understand.
No, that’s not a snarky answer. If you don’t know, then no amount of explaining will make you suddenly aware. But just a hint: some of us can’t play sports. I don’t have a left ACL, and the ankle on that side has been trashed over the years as well. That pretty much rules out playing baseball. But since that is The One True Sport, I must settle for watching.

3

I can understand watching sports, especially when the underdog makes a last minute rally to win the game…but a favorite team?

4

If you live in Detroit and like baseball.you will likely go watch the Tigers play. They will be on TV a lot. You will learn their names and see interviews. Newscast will show the highlights and scores. It is a gradual thing .

5

Why not? People form attachments to countries, towns, other people…why not sports teams? Rooting for the home team is a lot more fun than just watching two random teams play. Rooting against a team is fun, too. The Yankees and the Giants are on my personal list. If one of them is playing I automatically root for the other team. Makes the game more interesting.

Why do you have a favorite anything?

6

Addendum to the OP:

I’ve noticed a lot of people who pick as their favorite a team from across the country. This often happens when they come from a city or local that does not have a pro team.

7

You’re slightly misreading that thread. The discussion there is (mostly) about the personnel making up individual squads. We see the club as something bigger than that, something which they are just a part of. Ignore chowder’s naysaying, or at least tell him that if City are just a business then he won’t mind them being moved to London :wink: Actually, that couldn’t happen - after the catastrophic attempt some years ago to move a club (Wimbledon) as a going concern to another town American-style, the FA introduced rules restricting any subsequent relocations.

Local allegiances are still the main bulk of the support for all but a minute number of teams. I support Ipswich because of where I’m from, it’s not an exaggeration to say it’s a part of my identity. I grew up within a collective following of the fall from grace in the early 90s, and every subsequent up and down is something of which I feel a part. If this doesn’t convince you, do the math(s). Town population 120k, typical match attendance 20-25k. Nobody’s travelling in from the other end of the country to support us (well, apart from a few fruitcake exiles).

I didn’t even have local-born parents - I could have stuck my neck out, and gone along with my dad’s Spurs. Imagine what it’s like for somebody who’s got supporters of a single team in their family going back generations. One friend of mine got taken to her first match by her dad, when she was about 12. He’s had the same seat in the stadium since the stand was built, decades ago. His father brought him to his first match God knows when, possibly before they were a full professional team. And there’s another generation now, crawling around in ITFC babyclothes.

In most cases, you simply don’t get to choose.

8

Thanks, I haven’t laughed so hard in a very long time,
'cause I started that thread too.
But I understand your point.

9

Because it’s fun. It’s enjoyable to watch a sport being played well, but even more enjoyable when you share an emotional investment in the fortunes of a team with a whole bunch of other people. It turns the sport into a story witha protagonst, antagonists, bit players, and an ongoing plot of victories, defeats, tragedies, surprises, and themes.

We’ve had probably a hundred threads on this subject. I realize they’ve disabled the search function, but surely you’ve been around here long enough to see the “Why do people watch pro sports/root for certain teams” threads; it’s practically a tradition. The question is always the same; it’s always either “why watch sports” or “why care about pro sports” and is, really, a very thinly disguised way of stating “It is stupid to watch/care about sports and I challenge anyone to prove me wrong.” The answer is always the same (“Because it’s fun”) and the counter-response is always essentially “I refuse to accept that answer, it is pointless to root for sports teams.” We’re gone round and round this mulberry bush a thousand times.

Why is is fun to watch movies? I mean, why do you care what happens to the protagonist? It’s all imaginary. Why is it enjoyable to listen to music? Why does anyone enjoy reading novels?

10

I haven’t laughed at myself so hard in a long time! … :smack: :smack: :smack:

11

You become part of a group that has something in common. In most cases it crosses all lines, racial, class, economic group and even sexual orientation.

It is a sense of belonging, a sense of tradition in many casess or pride in your local team.

As a Yankee fan, I am third generation and born in the Bronx and I have lived most of my life within a two hour ride tops to the stadium. My Great Aunt was buried with her Yankee cap, I will be cremated with mine. One of my earliest memories was watching Mickey Mantle Day on TV with my Dad & brother. I was very young, not quite three. I grew up watching the Yanks on TV. It was a big part of my life and still is.

I love the history of the game. I take pride in the big stars of the past and of the present. I loved that the Yankees were the team of Poosh 'Em Up Lazzeri and Jolting Joe DiMaggio. These were the first two big Italian sports stars in the US.

I love the quiet dignity of Lou Gehrig and the “Bigger than Life”, “Force of Nature” swagger of Babe Ruth. DiMaggio, Gehrig and especially Ruth transcended sports in a way that few others have.

DiMaggio was one of the most well known personalities in his day and noted in no less place than the “Old Man and the Sea” and later in the Paul Simon song “Mrs. Robinson.” His marriage to Marilyn Monroe may still be the most famous celebrity marriage and he always kept a carefully guarded dignity about himself.

Lou Gehrig was the epitome of the hard working American and the good son. His farewell speech is among the most famous in the English language. I can think of no other speech by a sports figure that come close to it fame and gentle inspirational courage.

Babe Ruth was so much better than any other player of his day that I can think of no other sports figure that was every so dramatically better except maybe Secretariat. Ruth lived life larger than large. He was as quotable as any President of his day and more charismatic than any Hollywood star.

Rooting for a team brings people together and keeps them together. Half the reason, my brother is my best friend is we love talking Yankees and Giants. Rooting for the Giants through good and bad and boy were the seventies bad, has kept me close to my Dad. I know about old time Football and Baseball mainly from my Dad. My love of the games is from my Dad.

In most stadiums around the country, no matter how much fans of other teams delight in hating the Yankees, when they find out I love the game of baseball enough to visit as many stadiums as possible, they welcome me as a brother in their passion for baseball. I have had incredible experiences in Cincinnati, both Chicago stadiums, Anaheim and Baltimore. I shall soon see how Boston welcomes a Yankee fan though.

There is a sense of community among fans of a team and as I said it crosses all barriers.

Jim (Ack, that was rambling and too long, sorry.)

12

Having a favorite makes being a spectator more fun. You know the players involved, the issues and difficulties, and, over time, a sense of history.

While you can appreciate a game on a basic level if you’re just watching the play, you feel it on a much stronger if you have an emotional stake in the team.

Yes, it’s a business, but it has an identity – and a personality.

13

I’ll answer the OP’s question as soon as he explains to me what the point is of skiing.

I mean, you spend tons of money to go up a hill, slide down it (yelling “Wheeeee” all the way, no doubt), then go back up and slide down it again.

Sounds kind of stupid and pointless to me. You’re not REALLY going anywhere, after all, are you? Sounds like a complete and utter waste of time.

So, you explain to me in PURELY LOGICAL TERMS why skiing makes sense, and I’ll gladly explain why following a local baseball team makes sense.

14

What is the reasoning behind one’s choice of who to fall in love with?

15

I think everyone’s covered all the basic reasons. After you’ve started rooting for a team it’s basically impossible to identify the reason you’ve done so: the Atlanta Braves were the first baseball team I remember ever hearing of. They were playing a playoff series against the Dodgers, I decided I liked the Braves better - team name, colors, I don’t know - and I’ve been a fan ever since. (Being in New York I usually keep this to myself. I’d be a marked man at work.)
Same thing goes for my Buffalo Bills, basically: I have a clear memory of walking down a hallway when I was in fourth grade and seeing a poster showing the final score of Super Bowl XXV. Giants 20, Bills 19. ‘They lost by ONE point!’ I thought. I felt sorry for them and became a fan. Turns out I’m a huge sucker, because they also lost the next three Super Bowls. :smack:
The only team I might have a logical reason for following is the Yankees. I’m a second-generation fan, so I can talk about them all the time with my father (and my younger brother).

Televised sports are just more interesting when you have a rooting interest - I’m unable to watch a game without picking one side over the other. It’s kind of a gamble you make with yourself. I don’t think my participation makes a difference, but it makes the outcome more interesting.
Personally I see sports as a kind of physical poetry in which people push themselves to the limit for a goal. It can be a beautiful thing to watch and experience, and when you pick favorites I think you are able to appreciate it on a level that the dispassionate can miss.

16

I don’t think anyone’s put it in these terms, so I’ll give it a whirl:

A baseball season (my favorite sport, though I love them all) is one long drama. Each out leads to an inning, each inning to a game, each game to the end result of the season. Harry Kalas (the Phillies play-by-play man) becomes my best friend, my companion for five to six months of the year. For me, the protagonist of the season is the Phillies; their opponents, to varying degrees, are villified.

I’ve even heard some broadcasters (usually from other markets–Harry, in my experience, hasn’t done it) refer to their own team as the “good guys.”

Edit: Crap, more thorough reading revealed that someone HAD put it in exactly those terms. :smack:

17

Wayne Gretzky, obviously.

Sorry, I know it’s off topic, but Gretzky was absurdly, ridiculously dominant, every bit as much as Babe Ruth.

Also possibly Wilt Chamberlain. My understand of the NBA in the 1960s is not as strong as it is of baseball or hockey, but Chamberlain’s level of domination is almost unfathomable. The only knock against him is that unlike Ruth or Gretzky, in his prime he didn’t win a bunch of championships, and you do have to wonder why a man whose stats appear at first glance to be ridiculous - *in one season he had more 50-point games than Michael Jordan had in his entire career * - couldn’t push his team to more titles.

18

Gretzky is a ‘great’ example.

Chamberlain does not even get the respect he deserves from the fans of his sport. He was that much better, but if you ask 100 NBA fans, I would expect that 80 would say Jordan was the best.

19

Chamberlain’s lack of championships is a knock against him. That’s not uncommon: John Elway was considered a disappointment at QB until he won a Super Bowl.

Chamberlain was great, but he didn’t really have a particularly good supporting cast and, generally, it was Bill Russell that was winning championships.

Also, when asked who was the better player, even Chamberlain said Russell was better because Russell nearly always beat Chamberlain’s teams when they faced each other in the playoffs.

Other players who were extremely dominant at some point during their careers:

Walter Johnson (playing for a terrible team most of the time).
Sandy Koufax (his last five years).
Pedro Martinez (in his prime).
Johnny Unitas
George Mikan
Jim Thorpe (track and field)
Red Grange (they put together an entire football league to highlight him).

20

We’ve had this argument before. I say those 80 are wrong.

The best player in NBA history is Wilt Chamberlain. After that is Bill Russell and then Michael Jordan.

Jordan was just the most recent player of that caliber to come around.