As many of you out there may know (yes, that’s right, you down in the back there), I’m not a huge sports fan.
Having said that, I’m at a complete loss to understand how people can get so completely and passionately worked up about sports teams and sporting events in general.
It was Grand Final weekend here last weekend, and we had people taking Saturday off work to watch The Footy, talking non-stop about The Footy, and probably a third of our customers were wearing team colours for various teams playing in The Footy. Naturally, as the guy who didn’t follow The Footy, I became very popular with the boss when I told him I’d run the store so he could take the day off to watch The Footy.
Perhaps some of our Sports Fans here would like to share why they’re so passionate about (insert sport here)? I don’t mean the people who actually play or participate in a particular sport, just people who religiously watch every match, know all the statistics for their team, wear team colours, etc.
Anyone want to shed some light on this for the Non-Sports people here?
Couple of thoughts (from a non-sports fan):
I think many people get a feeling of belonging to a group from identifying with a particular team. I suspect it provides an accessible culture and history - almost like “real life lite.”
I think people find appealing the opportunity to form strong opinions about a subject that they realize really doesn’t matter a whole heck of a lot.
I think many people’s lives lack drama, or even a long term plan - following a team/league through the season and over time provides a ready substitute.
I also think sports are marketed very effectively, and are an convenient entertainment choice for many people.
I was a late comer to being a sports fan. The reason for me was as a way of socialising. About 5 years ago I moved to Bolton, an area where I had no friends or family. I decided supporting the local football team would be a good way to meet some people. As it happens I really took to it and now support Bolton because I want to.
Really, I don’t think there’s a lot of difference between being a sports fan and a fan of anything else. Personally, I’m a pretty big football fan. I played in high school, I follow my favorite team closely (I only miss games if I have something important to do that I can’t put off), and I often watch other games unless I loathe both teams playing.
Similarly, I’m a big fan of music. I play an instrument, I read up about my favorite bands, and go to their shows (I only miss shows if I have something more important to do that I can’t put off), and I some times go to shows for bands I may not like as much and expose myself to new bands unless they’re from a genre I loathe.
The real difference comes in why we’re drawn to it. Its easy to understand why someone is drawn to something like music: its intellectually intriguing, emotionally expressive, creative, relaxing, stimulating, rebelious, inspiring, talented, brotherhood, etc. What draws me to sports are other aspects: athleticism, competition, strategy, adrenaline, team pride, “belongingness”, etc.
Why do some people who like sports like certain ones and not others? For the same reason some people who like music may like rock and not country…mere preference. We’re still attracted to sports in general for at least some of the reasons above and probably plenty of others I missed.
Why do you do any of the things you do for fun? Do you understand why people get excited over any recreational activity? Start there. Being a fan of a sports team is no different than being a fan of a singer or a television show or an author or anything else.
After that, there’s a certain regional bonding when you’re a fan of a local sports team. It’s easy for a Yankee fan to walk into a room and have an instant connection with another Yankee fan. They might not have much in common, but they’ll agree that Boston sucks.
As for the crazy fanataical part of it, the gathering nature of a sporting event is kind of like going to a big party. Folks get excited for big parties. Wearing your team’s colors is a way of showing that you’re a part of that party.
What I don’t get is NASCAR racing. It is not a sport, nor are the drivers athletes. it involves great skill and daring, but watching cars go around a track doesn’t do anything for me. yet, it is the fastest growing sport in the USA, with a fiercely loyal fan base. i don’t get it.
I would agree with this as far as the fanatical following goes. Real life can be pretty complicated with work, families, illness … . To many sports is a simplified and distilled representation of life and the main human emotions.
Others, like me just like watching the actual sport without developing much loyalty to any one side. To me American football is like watching chess with the additional bonus that the pieces are large men that beat each other up.
I think fandom is sort of tribal in nature. We all want to belong to something to have a connection to people beyond our nuclear family. Work is lousy at it because most people don’t want to be there anyway. Sport is great for it, I can be connected to other people, loyal to my side, have things in common and something to talk about. I can get a ticket to the game, and be surrounded by thousands of like minded individuals.
Even if you don’t all root for the same team, you’re all Baseball Fans, or Football Fans, or whatever.
My family are NASCAR fans and they say that you really don’t get it until you actually go to a race. Then you can hear and feel the excitement. Just watching it on TV is pretty dull until there is an accident. So much so that they have a fantasy racing system to inject some much needed drama into it. They compete against each other to pick the drivers who will earn them points by doing well in the race.
As for sports in general, they are not only entertaining but also give people a sense of community. Here in Pittsburgh you can hear housewives talking about the Steelers in line at the grocery store. In fact, when the major grocery chain here which also has store in Ohio became the official supermarket of the arch-rival Cleveland Browns enough people in the 'Burgh stopped shopping there that they dropped the promotion.
Story of my life— as illustrated by the brief conversation I had recently with the teenaged son of a friend-of-a-friend, while over at their house for a barbecue:
***He: *** [gesturing toward football game in progress on television] so, are you rooting for [Team A] or [Team B]?
***I: *** Ah, I’m afraid I don’t really follow football.
***He: *** So what sports do you watch?
***I: *** To be honest, I don’t really watch sports at all.
***He: *** [blinks twice] Oh.
And there the conversation lapsed into awkward silence. For the rest of the time I was there, he eyed me with incredulity and suspicion.
I’m a huge sports fan with a particular emphasis on soccer though I am a big fan of American football. That said, I can only get emotional about two teams: The Irish national soccer team and the Dublin Gaelic football team.
I can’t understand how people refer to teams as “our Chicago Bears” or “we won the World Series” when the White Sox won it last year. The Chicago Bears are a business. They threatned to leave Chicago several years ago. I should support a business I have no direct interest in?
This is the one thing that has always bothered me about sports franchises.
I am sorry about that awkward conversation. In order to continue the conversation he should have asked you about what you do for fun, or you should’ve volunteered that information. Or you could talk about the weather.
I had a similar conversation with a coworker. Upon learning that (although I sometimes enjoy participating in certain sports) I don’t care to watch other people play most team sports, my patriotism was actually called into question. ( :dubious: “Are you sure you’re an American?” :dubious: )
You have to start talking about minor league Bocce and say you don’t follow those other sports because they have been tainted by commercialism and are nolonger pure.
Really well said, I love baseball, I have always loved baseball. One of my earliest memories is being really little and my father pointing to Mickey Mantle on Mickey Mantle day and telling me, I will never see a better ball player. He has been right so far. I am basically a middle-age white geek from the Burbs, I meet up with people wearing a shirt with the Yankee Emblem on it and I am talking like an old friend to a 20 year old inner-city Black kid that listens to gansta-rap or an old lady that remembers watching Joltin Joe play. Sports are often the great equalizer.
Football does the same thing, but I know far less about Football. Sports are a great Icebreaker.
Yes, exactly.
Specifically why I love baseball:
The sport is all about history, records, and debates. It is about tradition. It is about my being a third generation Yankee Fan and my son being the fourth Generation. It is about my Great Aunt being buried with her Yankee Cap. It is about watching the most popular player on my team, the Captain, go 5 for 5 last night in the first game of the playoffs. It is about watching Nolan Ryan pitch his seventh no-hitter when he was over 40. It was about the celebration of how Ripken became the new Iron Man of Baseball, but nothing in baseball is done in a vacuum and it brought the Iron Horse, Lou Gehrig, back to everyone’s lips for several years. It is also about rivalry and competition.
I do not watch reality shows, when I am asked about it, I now say Baseball, Football and Basketball are my reality shows.
I’ve often wondered myself why I can let myself get so wrapped up emotionally in a team or a game that doesn’t really affect my life at all. Part of it is the vicarious desire to win something. You feel like part of yourself is one the field somewhere. Part of it really is the sense of community and connection that it brings. If your city wins a Superbowl or a World Series (or an F.A. Cup), it feels like everybody has won and it lifts the morale of the whole community.
I think part of it may also have something to do with a sublimated instinct to engage in combat and war. “Us against them” is a very powerful impulse.
Another thing for me is that even absent the issues of winning or losing I really do enjoy the aesthetics of a lot of sports just for its own sake. A moonshot homerun is always cool just to look at, no matter who hits it. The same goes for a monster dunk in basketball, a pass that goes 60 yards in the air and hits a receiver in the numbers, an 80 yard, broken field, shake and bake run by Barry Sanders, Tiger knocking it stiff from 150 yards out of a bunker or a striker dribbling through a gauntlet of defenders and getting loose for a dead shot on the net. It’s stuff that the vast majority of us will never be able to do. There’s a thrill in seeing acts of human virtuoso. There’s always a few athletes in every sport that people will watch even if he/she doesn’t play for their team. Jordan was like that. Barry Sanders was like that. Barry Bonds used to be like that. Tiger is like that even though he doesn’t play a team sport. The virtuoso element has always been very attractive to me personally.
I must say, this bugs me as well. As much as I love our team, the 'Skins, when I realized I was saying “we won” rather than “the 'Skins won”, I thought it sounded silly. Our fandom of sports has gone a little too far when we stop thinking of ourselves as fans and start thinking of ourselves as members of the team. But it speaks strongly to one of the major points many have brought up… people WANT to belong to something, and sports teams are one of the easiest things to attach yourself to. Sport is so pervasive in our culture that its almost impossible to NOT have some basic knowledge… all you have to do is pick a team. Just about anything else requires a higher (or at least harder to obtain) base level of knowledge.
My favorite aspect of sports is the uncertainty of the result. Most other forms of passive entertainment are staged in some way. I also love how I can talk to almost any guy in Chicago, and we probably have team that we like in common. Great way to break the ice in awkward situations.
I don’t really understand it myself, and I am one of those rabid fans of which you speak. I will not go count the number of Columbus Cottonmouths (SPHL hockey) t-shirts I have in my closet, but I have 8 game-worn jerseys I wear with pride.
I was never a sports fan. Sports bored me silly. I didn’t go willingly to my first hockey game - but I was an instant addict. I am in awe of the skills of these guys. Once I started going to the games and became a season ticket holder, I made a lot of friends there. It was a short step to getting talked into joining the Booster Club, and then I got talked into running for the Executive Board. I go on road trips whenever I can. I am pathetic.
Our Coach/GM encourages us to feel like part of the team. The year our team won the Championship, all of the season ticket holders received replicas of the Championship rings. Our town is not known for supporting sports franchises - we’ve lost two arena football teams, a NBDL team, and a couple or three baseball franchises in the 12 years I’ve lived here. Our hockey team has changed leagues from the CHL, to the ECHL, to the SPHL, trying to cut travel costs and stay is business. I know it’s not a money-making deal for the owners at this level, but fortunately they have stayed with it. I would be seriously unhappy if we lost hockey.
I don’t watch much NHL hockey except during the Cup. I still don’t watch other sports. But I don’t laugh at sports fans anymore!