Ok, I'm likely to get some nasty answers on this one...and I'm not even certain that I'm posting it in the

Question

correct category...BUT: Why is it that fans get so excited over team sports?...I live in Vancouver and the BC Lions just won the Grey Cup...My question is --why do the fans treat the victory as if it were a personal accomplishment?...They only sat on their sofas/or in their bars watching....but they treat it as if they as individuals had accomplished something?

Answer 1

I think many of us feel somewhat frustrated and even helpless in many life situations and certainly in the daily humdrum. Sports represents the overcoming of obstacles in a long-term, concerted way. Usually these big victories are huge and hard and many sports fans feel an emotional connection with the effort, in part because they have faithfully attended 'their' team's regular seasons through thick and thin which many teams depend upon. In fact I think many of us feel we are also working hard against the odds but our victories are not celebrated in a grandiose way. So these sports victories amplify the principle of success, overcoming obstacles and even rough opposition through unremitting effort. In the case of football it is very much a group effort combined with, or enhancing individual effort. It is also a very rough, dangerous sport. I was hospitalized for a month with a serious football injury when I was in high school and was not happy with the way my team mates handled it, so that sobered me at the time. They seemed to care more about 'school spirit' than about my well-being as an individual. I thought they had lost perspective.

But yet I can see that the spectator feels an emotional wave of overcoming the tough obstacles. It can be a hugely emotional release through identification with their own team (or even an adopted team like an underdog). And this idea of their 'own' team is important because in their own environment it is often repressed, nasty, competitive. They feel unappreciated, ignored, often insignficant. A victory from your own team helps to unite a community in a common emotional bond that acts a bit like great music. Perhaps they should not be compared, but the truth is a shared emotional experience is the same no matter how it comes about. A lot of love can be expressed and exchanged among happy fans who have faithfully attended the struggles of 'their' team.

And of course the same victory can also release a lot of violence and craziness; the whole thing can go to excess like anything else. The vicarious emotion that accompanies any group event from watching a sit-com, to attending a rowdy rock-concert, to going to church on Sunday, always has the potential of failing to really satisfy what the individual actually needs. But as long as it is kept in perspective, a group spectacle such as a sports victory can be a legitimate emotional release that unites a community that otherwise is in a tense competition with itself most of the time. It has a similar effect as New Years celebrations or fireworks during natal day. I myself choose not to attend these sports events mostly because I don't enjoy the level of violence and that sort of thing. But I do understand that others have different taste and need the elevated group experience and the emotional feeling of belonging to a larger frame of reference that momentarily transforms their feelings of loneliness, frustration and insignificance - states that I myself feel more often than I like to admit.

But your question is important and often it does seem mystifying to watch people getting all worked up over sports or movies or any other apparently vicarious activity. The need to belong and the need to feel one's emotions amplified within a greater form of humanity seems to be with us for the duration. Many people really need that extra feeling of belonging and sharing with the group - the mass. It roots them. It increases the sense of meaning. Even recently when visiting New York I was amazed at the emotional pleasure I got out of watching the skaters going round and round the rink in Rockerfeller Center. Each skater had their own style. Some were hilarious. But they were individuals who really wanted to just get on that ice with others and go round and round. It was relaxing and fun. The music was pleasant and the crowd who watched seeemd to enjoy it as much as I did. Then we drifted off with an even greater crowd until we were swept into Times Square - a sea of amazing faces. Flowing with this sea increases one's sense of humanity at least sometimes. It is an incredible reminder just how many others are out there beyond one's own immediate isolation. Many people love to belong. For many loneliness is an unbearable waste of time. I covet all private time to work, but yet I understand that group urge.

Important question.

B. Lyons

Answer 2

Not a bad question at all.

People, when they get bored, need something interesting to do. They play board games, card games, video games.

However, sometimes they get vicarious thrills by engaging their interest in a sport or task they themselves cannot do. They then identify with their favorite team or player. Add to this good old tribalism (still alive and well) and you'll get the same emotional response you get when your gang wins...

It's an identity transfer "groupish" thing. Just sublimated in such a way that not as many people are killed as they were in tribal warfare.

Answer 3

That's a good question, and a great observation. People come up with all kinds of reasons for liking sports, like it's fun or exciting. But why is it fun and exciting? At root I think it has to do with identity and ego. "My team is better than your team, therefore I'm better than you." I'm not saying sports fans are aware of this, but I think it's a subconscious motivation.

Answer 4

Fan comes from the word "fanatic!" It takes a special event to help you understand the excitement that big time fans experience. Drinking alcohol really helps, too. It has to do with abandoning your inhibitions and having a vested interest or an imagined one (read you've placed a bet or you imagine that you are actually on the team!)

When you are totally vested in any team and you lose your self censor, you are available to go nuts about winning a game.

In soccer everywhere in the world except the U.S., the fanatics come out in droves. Witness football hooligans who get off on creating mayhem at some games. Their motive might be that they just love violence and use soccer as an excuse to strike out.

Drinking can be a big part of it, though. Hic.

Answer 5

It's like gladiators or even warriors: people take pride in their fighters. It's a tribal thing, and really far more a man thing than a woman thing. But in general, it's pride in our strong, smart young men who beat out someone else's not so strong, not so smart young men.

Answer 6

They identify with and/or live vicariously through the team. Studies have shown that male fans' testosterone levels rise when their team wins.

Answer 7

I have to wonder the same thing. I hope that you don't get a lot of bashing for asking .

Answer 8

Just the way people fantasize about being celebrities. They live their fantasy of what could have been through the players. Honestly, it makes no sense to either.

Answer 9

you are correct.i feel the same way when the Pistons/Red wings/Lions/Tigers are doing good.i don't know why.but it makes me feel good about my state.when the local high school teams win ,same thing.

Answer 10

I am not much of a sports fan, but I assume they are proud of the team they support...just as a parent is excited for their child when he or she takes her first steps or says their first word..its not the parent taking the steps, or speaking for the first time but you are happy and excited for them.