The Inherent Illogic of Sports Fandom

The Cubs' season being what it has been thus far (awful, if improving maybe, but probably not) I've had cause to recall this Economist article from last July.  And for the same reasons that I was able to recall a short blog post from ten months ago, I cannot let it pass now.  This is not just for Cubs fans, but for any sports fan who has ever felt anything for a team.  Look how far this guy misses the mark:

To pick a team that is known to lose is technically to anticipate a loss, but in a manageable, predictable way. There is no real loss to avoid; a win would merely be an unexpected bonus. Backing a more successful team raises the stakes by making wins just as viable as losses, so losing is more of a loss.

Teams like the Cubs give people a safe space in which to lose. Fans get the benefits of commiseration without incurring any real costs.

No "real costs."  Said the same way that only people who have never been in love say "better to have loved and lost..."   And filled with the same detached half-understanding endemic to any behavioral economist, ignorant of--and apparently unconcerned with--the realities of sports fandom. 

An aside: as you may have surmised, I am a Cubs fan.  This is largely because my father was a Cubs fan.  And his father was a Cubs fan before him.  My early adolescence coincided with the 1998 season and the Sosa-McGwire home run race (whatever the numbers say and whatever shit has come to light and whatever my current feelings regarding Sosa, his name will always come before McGwire's) and the Cubs winning the N.L. Wild Card.  The Cubs hit their high-water mark of the post-1945 era during my late teens.  I was sixteen going on seventeen when The Bartman Game happened (an aside within the aside: ESPN Films' documentary Catching Hell is well worth your time if you're into the Cubs, or the topic of the overzealousness of sports fans).  By the time I left home--and for all intents and purposes long before--my fandom was signed in blood.  I never had a say in who I ended up cheering for, or at least no time to ponder it before it sunk in irretrievably. 

And I've had the chance to switch loyalties.  I had just moved to Washington when Major League Baseball announced that the old Montreal Expos would be coming.  And while the decision to become a Nationals fan might look pretty good right about now, it was never realistically going to happen.  To have been here a few short months and have already assimilated that much and, implicitly, shunning my former beliefs?  Just a year After Bartman?  Any sports fan worth their memorabilia understands that there was never any conflict there.  Because, at the risk of invoking an overplayed meme, one does not simply choose a sports allegiance. 

I could've become a Red Sox fan and helped mankind achieve new heights in the field of obnoxiousness.  I could've become a Phillies fan and learned how to hate life and myself, regardless how well the team does.  I could've become a Yankees fan and never had to worry about thinking or feeling anything ever.  I could've become a Rays fan or an Indians fan and ceased to exist.  But this all assumes that there is ever a point at which a sports fan sits down and consciously decides what team to root for.  This happens on occasion but it never sticks in any case that I've ever seen.  And why should it?  Without the revelatory moment of "I love this team" the interest withers as soon as the moment stops being exciting. 

We're talking about cheering on millionaires with overactive pituitary glands chasing a ball around a meticulously landscaped field in large and ostentatious (and often taxpayer-funded) stadiums.  We wear clothing with the team logos and our favorite athlete's name and number on them, signaling us as part of the flock.  We have traditions and superstitions that we follow when watching these events--events in which we the fans have no direct effect upon the outcome whatsoever.  We refer to the domes and stadiums at which these events take place as "cathedrals" and "holy ground;" at the older ones, we talk about the ghosts of long gone athletes and coaches watching the action--perhaps even playing small roles of their own, when convenient for the narrative.  In these places, logic and reason are checked at the gate along with outside food and beverages. 

Comparing sports fandom to genuine religious faith isn't fair, but the concepts share similar seeds.  Most are born into it, as I was; the faith handed down through the generations.  Others are raised agnostic and only come into their faith later, following moments of great excitement that forever bonds a fan with her team.  Some others will marry into a faith, either having abandoned a previous one--opening harsh wounds with old friends and family--or never having had any of their own.  Still others will experience a tragic rift with their team, anything from decades of poor performance to scandal to a team leaving town and having to start anew; though, especially in the last example, the aggrieved will often not return to any faith, having been too heartbroken to trust again.  The point is, no fan ever really feels as though they choose their fandom--those that seem to can most often thank happenstance and serendipity, rather than reasoned analysis of the options.  And if you ask fans, they'll tell you they couldn't change their affiliation if they wanted to (and sometimes, even despite the fact that they might want to).  How could they, when they've already found Truth? 

That's not to say we're unquestioning.  We question frequently.  And we'll abide or ignore the sometimes awful things done by our teams and the members of it because the team is, or needs to be, above than the foibles of mere mortals.  More often, we'll rage at our athletes and coaches and front offices when things aren't going well.  We'll appeal to the names of the aforementioned ghosts of the stadium and demand that those spirit-legends be counseled on everything from personnel issues to jersey colors.  We'll spew our rage for weeks on end, but unless we've done it for years, we rarely leave the church altogether.  Even those that do still carry around acres of old wiring; the ex-fan--unable to ignore Mother Team thanks to the interference of friends and family who remain within the fold--ever peripherally aware of his former team's transactions and transgressions, outside trying not to look in. 

Sometimes, we become overzealous and even ruthlessly violent.  We'll hound players and our fellow fans if they have not properly rewarded our faith and do not satisfactorily atone; we'll run them out of town on a rail (yes, that's another plug for Catching Hell).  After absorbing enough alcohol prior to the sixth inning cut-off, we may resemble the religious fundamentalists of our modern age, decrying the unbelievers and the infidels and lashing out at those who enter our temples.  Sometimes we attempt to exclude them from profaning our sanctuaries entirely.  If not for the fact that we actually need other teams to exist in order for our teams to have opponents, we could probably stoop to much worse.

The point is:  There are forces involved in sports fandom that cannot be reckoned with metrics and formulas and statistics.  The phenomenon exists in a realm beyond analysis.  And nothing about it--in all its communal glory and corrupting groupthink--can or should be examined with a spreadsheet.

It would be like trying to explain an economist's compulsive need to categorize everything around him for the sake of another blog post.