This past week I was downtown with some other global scholars watching the Washington Nationals win an amazing World Series Game 7 victory when I realized that, despite the hype around me as a new DC resident, I didn't really have any kind of investment in the team. Others voiced their doubts as well, "all these college students cheering are fake fans", "guys we aren't really from here", "its not our team". After the initial hype died down, I began to wrestle with these ideas of having some sort of "loyalty" or "responsibility" to a certain sports team. I knew that I had always liked when teams from Cleveland won or were successful, but why?
My first train of thought was that the reason I enjoyed seeing my local teams win wasn't the actual win, but rather the joy and excitement of the people around me. There's a victorious atmosphere that everyone has when a team that everyone is interested in does well. To some degree, the pride that people have feels like an air of superiority or even accomplishment. It astonishes me that us sports fans take so much credit for a win or for a consistently good franchisee just because we like the team or live in the city that the team plays in. "Why is this?", I asked myself. The answer I found wasn't simple, but describing it as a sort of constructivism helped me express my ideas.
If we zoom way out and just talk about the phenomenon of sports culture in general, we see something quite strange: masses of people paying in mass amounts to watch or celebrate other people who wear colorful outfits that correspond to geographical locations because of their talent in running around and competing in accomplishing various tasks. What is the significance of a team or a number on a jersey or a mascot? Its all based on the value we as a society decide it should have. Since sports and other athletic competitions have been such a prominent form of entertainment for centuries, the culture developed around them hasn't really been questioned. There is no intrinsic value in sports, but the enjoyment we get out of watching them and cheering for teams/players enables people to engage in festivities together, unite over a common goal (or enemy), and argue/discuss our opinions freely. In a way, we use sports as a social outlet of sorts.
The next thing I began to contemplate was the idea of being a "good" fan or a "real" fan. People who jump onto successful teams are usually called out for being "bandwagon" fans, since they've either never really stuck through a rough patch in a teams history. On the other hand, what about fans who root for teams that they have a legitimate connection to, but whose teams have been consistently good (Patriots fans, Warriors fans, etc). My thought, being a Cleveland sports fan myself, was that it definitely takes more heart and loyalty to keep rooting for an awful team than a successful one. So why do fans of successful teams get so much more "credit" than fans of bad ones? Did they really contribute to their teams success in any way?
Don't get me wrong, I'm quite happy the Nationals won, especially since I do feel some type of connection to DC sports teams now that I spend so much of my time here (and plan to do so for at least three years while in school). However, I'm still a proud fan of Cleveland sports teams back home and Israelis soccer teams abroad, because those are the teams I have my own connections to. So, I guess my point is that sports should be enjoyable and fun to watch and follow, but also should be something people devote loyalty to if they choose. In the end, the competition, the excitement, the heartbreak, the whole experience, is an entertainment medium that has blown up into a large part of the identity and daily lives of most of America (and even the world).
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