Sports Audiences and Fandom

           Of all the absurd and questionable behaviors that people partake in, sports fandom has to be among the frontrunners for deeper examination. Individuals develop incredible devotion to professional and collegiate teams very early on in their lives, and they are doomed to live through a lifetime of incredible peaks and valleys in terms of the team’s success. That’s if you’re lucky. Fans of certain organizations have gone their whole lives without ever seeing their team win a championship. I don’t think I could take the agony if I was a Red Sox fan born around 1920 and I had to hear about the curse of the Bambino my whole life without ever getting any redemption. The question I pose to the class is this: do you think being a sports fan is a mostly good thing or bad thing? Arthur Raney and Daniel Wann propose many theories about both the positive and negative impacts that sports can have on people’s lives and what causes people to live and die by the teams they identify with.

            On the positive side, Raney suggests that sports offer us an all-important escape from our work-intensive lives. He quotes Smith who once noted, “While engrossed in the sporting event a fan’s mood may fluctuate, but any pain is temporary and minor compared to the relief of gaining a respite from a wearisome existence” (320). If you think of the life of the average 9-to-5 worker, it is very convenient that practically all professional sports games start at 7 pm.  After eating dinner, watching a sports game allows people to unwind for a few hours before bed. I can’t say I use sports as much of an escape right now, but that’s because I don’t have that much to escape. I’m sure I will once I’m financially independent and in the real world.

            The most overarching thing sports offer fans is psychological health by providing them with a means of connecting with people socially. Sports probably account for half of what I talk to people about. They are my go-to topic whenever I need a conversation starter with someone I’m not close with. Sid Kirchheimer touched upon the benefits of this phenomenon in the article Are Sports Fans Happier? Kirchenheimer writes, “People who identify themselves as sports fans tend to have lower rates of depression and higher self-esteem than those who don’t. Blame it on our primal nature.” Wann adds, “We’ve known for decades that social support—our tribal network—is largely responsible for keeping people mentally sound. We really do have a need to connect with others in some way.” In a society where the motto often seems to be every man for themselves, being a sports fan gives us a sense of belonging. There’s something comforting about sitting in a stadium full of people where everyone is pulling for the same team.

            There is also a dark side to sports fandom that makes headlines every now and then for the wrong reasons.  Certain fans get too emotionally involved in the game which spawns the issue of fan aggression. Wann suggests that it is caused by high levels of team identification by the fan. That was certainly the case last year when a Giants fan brutally beat a Dodgers fan at Dodgers stadium, sending the Dodgers fan into a coma. This is hardly a new trend though. Throughout the decades, the taunting of fans has induced players to leave the field of play and brawl in the stands. The 1979 Bruins at MSG and Ron Artest’s scuffle are two of the most notable instances.

            Some fans suffer internally due to stress and anxiety and that’s when being a fan can become a health hazard. Kirchenheimer alludes to a 2008 article published in the New England Journal of Medicine which reported there being three times as many cardiac emergencies among German men and twice as many among women on days which Germany’s national soccer team played in the World Cup. Granted European soccer fans are a little more extreme than your average American sports fan, the example illustrates the kind of emotional and physiological toll sports fandom takes on people.

            With these positive and negative aspects of being a sports fan, the question becomes whether or not this hobby is worth it in the end. As a Boston sports fan, I’ve been privileged in my lifetime to see one of my teams host a victory parade practically every other year, but I’ve still had my heart torn out in the last two Super Bowls the Pats played in. After those games, I found myself wishing I wasn’t so emotionally invested in sports teams, so that I wouldn’t be so devastated when things don’t go my team’s way. Or when the players just drink beer in the clubhouse without a care in the world towards winning. Being a casual fan might be the way to go, but that’s just not in my blood.  I rationalize that experiencing those lowest lows will make it even sweeter when my teams reach the mountain top again. It also depresses me to think what my social life would crumble to if I couldn’t talk sports with people, so I will continue to take the good with the bad. What do you all think? Are sports fans totally irrational for what they put themselves through?

Kirchheimer, Sid. "Are Sports Fans Happier?" The Saturday Evening Post. Mar. 2012. Web. 25 Mar. 2012. <http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2012/03/13/in-the-magazine/features/sports-fans-happier.html>

Wann, Daniel L. “The Causes and Consequences of Sport Team Identification.” Handbook of Sports and Media (2006): 331-52. Print.

Raney, Arthur A. "Why We Watch and Enjoy Mediated Sports." Handbook of Sports and Media (2006): 313-29. Print.

NHL All-Star Game

The NHL All-Star Game lived up to my expectations in the worst possible way. All of the players were just drifting around; nobody was skating hard or putting any effort in. An example is that Tim Thomas from my very own Boston Bruins made a save and proceeded to hand the puck on a platter to the other team so that they could score on him. His heart clearly wasn't into the game, and he wasn't the only one.  The game comprised entirely of odd-man rushes and hot potato passing in the offensive zone where the defense of both teams just stood there and let gifted offensive players do whatever they wished. It made for a great highlight reel, but the game itself was absolutely agitating to watch because someone was scoring every thirty seconds.The unwritten rule of the All-Star game is to not hit anybody in order to avoid injuries, and that makes the game essentially unwatchable for hardcore hockey fans like me. Hitting is the very core of hockey. When you take it out, all you have left is squirt-level hockey - the style of hockey I was playing when I was 10.

Don't get me wrong; I don't want to see any of my team's players get hurt in this circus of an event. It's for this reason that they should just get rid of it altogether. The NHL season is quite grueling with hardly any breaks as it is. The league's all-stars log the most time-on-ice for their respective teams so they need the time off more desperately than anyone else but they don't get it. There is so much hockey on every day of the week that I don't think fans would complain over four days off. If Commissioner Bettman doesn't get rid of the game, he should move the game to the end of the season like how the NFL Pro Bowl is scheduled so that injuries can be less of a concern. The last thing the NHL should do is try to add meaning to the game by giving it implications on the Stanley Cup finals as the MLB did to the World Series. I don't want to see Bruins players giving the Penguins home ice advantage or the other way around. Let the team with the better record throughout the season have home ice advantage because of their own accomplishments.


As for the media coverage of the event, I thought it was a redeeming touch that some of the players were mic'd up during the game. It was a unique privilege to hear their thoughts as the game was unfolding - something you don't see during any other game of the year. It worked well for the skaters, but it seemed to really distract the goalies. They would be talking with the announcers and then the play would come to their zone, and they were caught off guard multiple times. I also thought the introductions were over-the-top and unnecessary. It was far too many players for that kind of treatment and the feminine opening act that sung them in just made me feel uncomfortable.  Sportscenter ran a minute-long highlight of the game but didn't do so until 40 minutes into the show. I consider it remarkable that they covered the game at all because ESPN hardly ever shows any hockey.