Those who are less than enthusiastic about sports are often confused by the vehemence with which a true fan can celebrate their team. A team can change the entire roster of its players, can change the coach, the owner, the logo, can change every single facet of itself, and the fan will continue to cheer without question in a complete validation of Theseus’ ship. This is because the fan is connected to the idea of the team rather than any tangible aspect of the team itself. The critic is baffled as to why the fan would bother with something that is so incredibly alien to them. The answer is simple enough, however: the fan sees the team as part of their tribe.
Sports television is very aware of this. Pre-game shows often deliver the stories and travails of the players and teams as a whole. Relationships will be analyzed and champions will be celebrated. It’s all gossip, and gossip is how we navigate tribes. How is Susan doing? Watch out for Bill. Did you hear what happened to Karen? Gossip is what keeps us safe and connected in our communities; it’s a natural human attribute. When we talk in-depth about the stars and heartbreaks of the previous night’s game, we are engaging in communal gossip.
The thing is, your sports team is not your tribe. The stress of a close game and the pride toward a favourite player kindles deep instinctual drives, but modern sports are “entertainment.” You can’t call any of your team for emotional support during a difficult time. The success of the quarterback does not bring food back to your table. A loss has no concrete consequences. Knowing who is a dangerous player will not keep you safe. Fandom is not so much the connection to an idea of a team, but to an idea of a community.
I value baseball over having a life partner! I’m sure I’ll be able to count on the Red Sox in turn to help me cope with the emotional devastation of losing said life partner
There are merits in the celebration of athletic prowess and remarkable skill. An argument could be made that sports facilitate community by acting as a shared interest among friends, and that’s fair. However, sports as an interest is then interchangeable with any other interest, and the accompanying gossip becomes meaningless. If a group subscribes to the full tribalism of intense fandom, then it is in the same danger as described above. The importance of interdependence and mutual support in a tribe could easily be lost in shallow relationships centred on extrinsic factors.
We are, all of us, literally all of us, living in a time when the necessity of our tribe is morbidly obvious. Communally-deviant behaviours such as hoarding, ignoring physical distancing measures, neglecting essential workers, and spreading disinformation are representative of large swathes of the population feeling disconnected from the real-life human beings that surround them. We’ve been so focused on our false tribes for so long that we’ve forgotten the value of our neighbours.
We seem to recognize the destructiveness of wealth hoarding when the wealth is toilet paper. Wouldn’t it be sad if there were far worse forms of wealth hoarding taking place that people go to great lengths to justify? But I digress…
Whose shoulder can we cry on? Who will drop off groceries for us if we’re sick and unable to go out? Who will help us financially if we’re out of work? Who will mourn us as we lay dying, even if from afar? These are the people who matter. These are the people who have always mattered. None of them are on the television hanging in a sports bar. Let us no longer be distracted by idolatrous practices meant to profit off our deepest human instincts.
Blog for Chumps 
go patriots!!!!!
Don’t pretend like Green Bay isn’t the best.
I’ve had experience with the flip side of support. I was the guy who bailed others out financially, because family obligation and all that guilt. It got old. I didn’t even like these people.
Then I thought through the whole reciprocation thing, and did the math. And then I read about a little thing called codependency.
Rooting for a sports team isn’t the silliest thing you can do. Not by a long shot.
I’m sorry you have had experience with anxious attachment; hopefully your personal experience has not jaded you to the point where you see the world through the lens of personal bias.
And you’re right; sports fandom is not the worst thing in the world. It is, however, a decent example of modern alienation from legitimate community. Internet communities are equally culpable – subreddits, youtube fandoms, etc. Anything that banks on feeling involved in something that offers nothing in return except the occasional in-group validation. I point to sports because I’m not a big sports guy and I listened to a podcast recently that explained the intensity behind the fandom as related to the connection we feel to the players involved. My hope is that readers can see the danger in connecting parasocially to ANY false tribe, and to maybe recognize the pervasiveness and growth of this dangerous trend in other aspects of our lives.
[…] for this brash incompetence fails because modern politics is more about tribalism than it is about policy or even ideology. The attachment most people have to their political […]
Totally agree with this sentiment – see my latest post for a discussion of the danger of this
Cheers! Thanks for reading.