I’m a fan of many varied things. I love Star Wars (even as I rail against it). I read most everything Stephen King and Warren Ellis write. I still follow some of my oldest favorite bands. And I try to keep up with the NFL (even if my predictions can be way off). A new thought struck me this football season. There’s something unique about being a fan of a sports team versus a fan of a movie, author, or band. Which made me wonder: why is sports fandom so different than any other fandom?
Changing Alliances
I’ve been a devoted Washington Redskins fan since 1992. Two factors drove this choice. First, my geographic proximity to Washington D.C. and being raised in the milieu of Redskins coverage. Second, 1992 was the team’s last Super Bowl appearance, a 37-24 victory over the Buffalo Bills (who were the bridesmaid four years in a row in that era). Unfortunately for me, that was the last gasp for the Washington franchise. The team has made the playoffs only five times in the intervening 27 seasons, and only won two playoff games in those five appearances. There have been 28 different starting quarterbacks over that same period. It hasn’t been a good quarter century to Hail to the Redskins.
Since my son was born he’s been subjected to the same futile fandom. I dressed him in Redskins footies. He drooled on Redskins bibs. His fall Sunday attire was foisted upon him by my own team allegiance. As my son reached school age, he started actually paying attention to the games I had on the television. But he had little interest in rooting for his dad’s losing team. He wanted to watch the team right up the road from our house in Maryland, a team I had chosen to despise since their inception for their encroachment on my beloved Redskins’ turf. He wanted to root for the Baltimore Ravens.
Who could blame him? Much like my original introduction to the Redskins coincided with the crescendo of Joe Gibbs’ coaching career, my son’s introduction to the Ravens happened as the team discovered a new superhero in Lamar Jackson. And the predominant team in our locale is the Ravens, so the majority of people he knows are Ravens fans. I, for one, was not going to perpetuate the sorrow caused by following the Redskins.
During the same 2018 season, I also discovered a new player along with the rest of the NFL: Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs. His rookie season was magical and a joy to behold, increased by his inclusion on my fantasy team. Another player I finally managed to get on my fantasy team was Travis Kelce, who I had wanted for a couple years simply for sharing my name. The combination of these two Chiefs having stellar seasons for my fantasy team while providing exciting highlights to watch slowly started turning me into a Chiefs fan.
Then came the 2019 season. Lamar Jackson and the Ravens took off in October. Mahomes and Kelce continued to energize the Chiefs. Meanwhile, the Redskins sank even further. Why was I subjecting myself to rooting for a team I no longer enjoyed watching? Why make myself miserable every Sunday afternoon?
Would it be so bad to start rooting for a new team?
Fairweather Johnson
The main accusation thrown at sports fans that start cheering for a new team is being a fair-weather fan. Die-hard fans sneer at anyone that roots for successful teams. Ditching loyalty to a single team for happiness each season is viewed as some sort of sin.
Most people would accuse me of jumping on the bandwagons of two successful teams in the Ravens and the Chiefs while ditching my loyalty to the dreadful Redskins. But an implication of being a fair-weather fan is only caring about winners. So why did I feel crushed by the ignominious exit of Jackson and the Ravens in the divisional round of the playoffs? Wouldn’t a “true” bandwagon jumper would simply shrug his shoulders and move on to the winning team?
Of course, I did quickly recover from the Ravens’ loss during the magnificent comeback victory by the Chiefs the very next day. And when Mahomes pulls off plays like this one against the Titans in the AFC Championship, my son and I cheer like crazy while imitating Mahomes’ flex in the end zone.
No one gets shamed when they stop listening to a band they no longer like. Sure, you initially feel disappointed, even “betrayed”, but you simply move on to other bands. You can always revisit the older material that satisfied you. Everyone goes through multiple “favorite” bands, songs, books, and movies. But it’s sacrilegious to change sports team allegiances.
This brings us to the crux of the issue with sports fandom and how it differs so greatly from other forms of fandom. Being a fan of any other medium means enjoying the work and having fun with it. Being a sports fan means sticking with your chosen team through good and bad. Especially the bad. In fact, it’s when a team is terrible that fans are most judged. If you keep rooting for a losing team, then you’re a “die-hard” fan. If you decide to cheer for a new team, then you’re a “fair-weather fan.” This simply doesn’t happen with any other type of fandom.
So why is sports fandom so different than any other fandom?
Home Is Where the Heart Is
One of the major differences that sets sports fandom apart is how the choice of teams is foisted upon each fan. Traditionally, you root for the teams of your hometown. If you move, you keep rooting for those same teams your entire life rather than switch to the new local teams. You even try to indoctrinate your children into your teams rather than let them cheer for the same teams as all their friends with parents who grew up locally.
This just doesn’t happen with other things besides sports. If geographic location dictated musical tastes, then I would have grown up enjoying Dave Matthews Band, a thought that makes me shudder. Besides Stephen King famously being from Bangor, Maine, I have no idea where exactly any of my favorites authors live. Good luck figuring out which movies you’re supposed to like by this criteria.
Relatedly, fans naturally root for the sports team at whatever colleges they attend. This usually turns into a life long loyalty, although this one makes more sense than the hometown enforcement since once you graduate college that relationship is locked in stone. But, again, this doesn’t happen outside of sports. I don’t know of anyone choosing to read books only by authors from the same college. No one really cares what school musicians, directors, or other artists attended (except, maybe, other musicians, directors, and artists).
One reason this geographic selection only applies to sports is because teams are naturally identified by and associated with a specific city or state. You can just as often refer to a team by its location as its mascot. In fact, college teams are almost exclusively identified by the names of their colleges rather than their mascots. Still, mascots and iconography of a sports team is usually strongly tied to the team’s location. Often that’s because the team inherits the local customs, such as the Pittsburgh Steelers, Green Bay Packers, or New York Knicks. This local association gets blurred when teams move.
Many sports teams change cities, though. A team changing location brings up an interesting conundrum for sports fans. Do you continue to root for the same team in its new location? Usually, it’s the opposite. Fans of the Baltimore Colts despise the Indianapolis Colts. Fans of the Cleveland Browns hate the Baltimore Ravens. I imagine Seattle Sonics fans hate the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Now imagine this same behavior happened in other mediums. Every successful band that relocated to Los Angeles, New York, or Nashville would lose its fan base. An actor or director moving to Hollywood would become vilified. True, there are some fans that declare such changes as “selling out”, but that’s a different issue than simply selecting something based on geographic location.
Us and Them
Sports fans are notoriously antagonistic to other teams and their respective fans. It’s the old “if you’re not with us, you’re against” mentality. This part of sports fandom taps into one of the oldest elements of humanity: tribalism.
Most people might not consider themselves a part of a tribe, but in reality we all are. We just call them “countries” now. In the United States, we break it down even further, going from country to state to county to city to neighborhood. And unfortunately, we still have a lot of tribal warfare in the world, wherever ideologies collide.
Thankfully, we can also use sports to simulate that tribal warfare without the property destruction and loss of life. Just witness fans chanting in a World Cup game. Or look at college kids in a football stadium. Fans paint their faces and put on costumes, imitating ancient warriors.
This tribal aspect to sports fandom causes fans to identify as part of the team. A fan will refer to his team as “we” even though he’s not literally part of the team. This is more akin to to political parties than other types of fandom. No one refers to themselves as being a member of a band or involved in the making of a movie or writing of a book. Just try to imagine someone associating themselves that way with an artist’s work.
Sports treats “us versus them” as part of the product. A fan becomes part of “us” and distances himself from the fans of “them”. Other forms of entertainment don’t pit their fans against each other. The distance between “us” and “them” is between the creators and the consumers.
Hate the Things You Love
All fans complain about the things we love. It’s part of the culture to pick apart the object of obsession. The recent Star Wars movies have certainly generated a wealth of such critiquing, including right here on Rampant Discourse from Paul, Miguel (and again and again), even me. This can quickly lead to toxic fandom, which is exacerbated by tribalism and online interactions.
But even when a discussion slides into toxicity, that vitriol originally comes from a place of love. Some fans of Star Wars felt betrayed by The Last Jedi, while some fans of The Last Jedi felt betrayed by The Rise of Skywalker. Fans of books almost inevitably claim the book was better than the movie (never mind that no one truly wants a note-for-note recreation). Fans get so angry precisely because they love the material. If they didn’t love the material, there’s an easy solution: stop consuming that material. Except in sports.
Fans of your original team will view you as a traitor, for all the reasons already covered. Instead of simply dropping a team that no longer provides you any enjoyment, you’re expected to tough it out through the bad times. Just as other fans will complain about their fields, it’s a grand tradition for sports fans to grouse about their teams’ trials and travails.
Sports fans will rail against the players, the coaches, the referees, the general manager, the owner, the commissioner, and the league officials. This complaining can apply to your own team or to teams more successful than your team. The New England Patriots mastered the art of infuriating fans both for and against them. Most Patriots fans dug in their heels over scandals such as Deflategate. Meanwhile, fans of actors, producers, musicians will turn on those people when scandals are revealed; just look at the rise of cancel culture. I can’t think of any attempt to “cancel” a sports team. Individual players might be run out of town (see Ray Rice or Michael Vick) but their teams never miss a step.
It’s a Zero Sum Game For Us
Sometimes fans of different entities come into conflict. There used to be a rift between Star Wars and Star Trek, or Windows and Mac. Sometimes the conflicts are used to generate attention (see Oasis vs Blur). Other times it represents generational or subjective differences (see Taylor Swift vs Tool). But there’s a huge difference between those cultural conflicts and sports.
Sports, practically by definition, is a zero sum game. One team’s win is another team’s loss. The result of any single game will leave about half the fans happy and half the fans disappointed. This is why sports are so much more tribal than other fandoms. The Swifties might have been upset that a “dad band” like Tool managed to sell more albums for a week, but someone buying a Tool album in no way prevents a Taylor Swift fan from buying her latest album. Same goes for all great music rivalries, from Oasis vs Blur to Beatles vs Rolling Stones to East Coast vs West Coast.
The fact that one team winning means the other team loses pits the fans against each other. That’s built into the equation. Two rival sports fans arguing the merits of their respective teams have reason to be in direct conflict with each other. Fans arguing over which band, book, or movie is better are generating conflict where none needs to actually exist.
Eye of the Beholder
The reason fans argue so vociferously over music, books, and other forms of art is because it’s totally subjective. There’s no way to objectively state which item is better than another. You could cite sales numbers, but selling more of something doesn’t make it “better”, it makes it more profitable; look at the gulf between the highest grossing movies and the award nominated movies of any given year. Of course, no one ever agrees with those awards either. The difference in scores from critics and audiences also illustrates the subjective nature of art.
Sports, meanwhile, are ruthlessly objective. At the end of each game, one team wins and one team loses (or, unfortunately, the teams tie, which satisfies no one). Analysts track and cite tons of statistics for teams and players, and they keep generating new ones in the vain hope that analytics will somehow solve a sport. At the end of a season or tournament, one team can definitively claim to be the best, at least temporarily.
And any sports fan can tell you, that ephoria from a championship is fleeting. Fans are expected to slog through years of disappointment to attain the “reward” of a championship. The closest other mediums get to this are fans that claim to have known the artist before the artist was cool. Interestingly, rather than be heralded as “die-hard” fans, these fans are usually labeled pretentious. That’s a fascinating inversion of how we treat long suffering original fans.
Winning a game and eventually a championship is the whole point of sports. Yes, there are positive aspects such as sportsmanship, camaraderie, and physical fitness, but those are meaningless to fans just watching the game. The fact that artists created awards like the Oscars and the Grammys to generate some form of “objective” conflict shows how ingrained conflict is in human nature.
In the End
Hopefully I provided some answers to my original question, “Why is sports fandom so different than any other fandom?”
All my thoughts seem to return to the same theme that the direct conflict of sports scratches the tribal itch of humans. Tribes used to be based on proximity, and sports still relies mostly on rooting for local teams. No other medium provides the same visceral competition. We contrive an “us vs them” mentality with awards and subjective metrics, but in the end only sports pit fans against other fans. This simulated combat enforces singular allegiances, and any change feels like a desertion.
What we forget is that each sport is a game. Games are supposed to be entertaining, in the same way books and music and movies should entertain us. This creates a cognitive dissonance regarding our relationship with sports. We want to be entertained and have fun, but we also need to satisfy our need for tribal conflict.
In the end, I’m going to start favoring entertainment over stagnation. I’ll still root for my terrible Washington Redskins, but that won’t stop me from having a blast cheering for fun teams like the Baltimore Ravens or Kansas City Chiefs.
