When someone asks you why you are a fan of a team, what do you usually say? Does winning usually play a role in your answer?
And fair warning, we are heading for a bit of a soapbox moment here...
I have a feeling if you asked a lot of fans, while you would have a variety of answers, winning would be a big underlying reason why someone likes a certain team. I also think location of a team and who your family was rooting for when you were a kid play a role, but taking out those two things I think winning or things associated with winning would be a primary response.
My first reaction to that - is being associated with a winning sports team really that important to people? Don't get me wrong, I would much rather win than lose, and being a fan of a team that wins it all is something I think all of us would prefer. But I was thinking about back in college a guy I worked with had a brother and group of friends that cracked me up. It was early 2000s. They were Nebraska fans but decided in early 2000s they were now USC fans. They bought all the gear, watched all the games together - it was pretty hilarious. They wouldn't admit to it, but it was very important to them to be associated with a team competing for a National Championship. It was even funnier, me being a KU football fan, trying to talk football with them because they thought being associated with USC made them superior when it came to football knowledge (noting they never played, never was recruited, and didn't have family members like I that played college football...pointing out that doesn't always mean much).
It always made me wonder - was their lives so much better being associated with a winning college football team? They never got promotions at work (for as long as I knew them) after switching to being USC fans, their family life didn't improve substantially, etc - things that are pretty important. That's the beauty of sports to me. I'm the kind of guy that has to constantly be doing something. Sports help take up a good chunk of that time to me. I like getting excited about things related to sports - the games themselves, the recruiting, the player development, and on and on and on. But the bottom line is even if things don't go the way I want them to for my team, no big deal as life goes on. That's the kind of thing that I personally need in my life - having something to have fun with, but at the end of the day not mean a whole lot if things go bad.
Now that isn't to say sports, and especially college sports, are meaningless. We are seeing what realignment can do to the funds a university receives, which is in part driven by college football. And college football is much more than just some guys out there playing a game. From the various conference media days the past couple of weeks, we have heard examples of how society can learn from college football and how it can even help. College football provides opportunities to some that they otherwise wouldn't have had. College football can bring people from communities together. It can do a lot, which is a beautiful thing.
So going back to the original question of what do I say when someone asks me why I am a fan of a sports team. This answer has changed for me from when I was a kid to now. It also differs a little bit for professional sports to college sports. When I was a kid, pretty much the big reason I was a fan of the teams I was/am a fan of was because my family was fans of those teams. I remember having one part of one side of the family that was KSU fans and would by me KSU stuff I would wear as a kid (luckily a bigger portion of my family was KU fans!). Now with professional teams it is a little bit deeper. I am a fan of the Chiefs and Royals because I like supporting local teams, knowing KC is a small market team compared to some other NFL and MLB teams. They need local fans a lot more (relatively speaking) than those bigger market teams, and knowing what those teams can do for the KC and surrounding communities, I feel like they need support as it helps KC.
Now why am I a KU football fan now? The simple answer is because college football is easily my favorite sport and KU is easily my favorite school. A little bit deeper is going to KU football games is much more than the game itself to me. It is an opportunity to go to a great city in Lawrence more times than I usually would. It is an opportunity to get back together with friends I don't see as much as I would like. It is an opportunity to spend a Saturday grilling, drinking, and just in general having a good time - again something else I wish I would do more. I know there are some that would go to more KU games if we were better, and I get that - it's their money and they can do what they want with it...but I just wish they would see the bigger picture and realize there is a lot more to KU football Saturday's than just going to the game itself.
Slowly stepping off the soapbox...
And fair warning, we are heading for a bit of a soapbox moment here...
I have a feeling if you asked a lot of fans, while you would have a variety of answers, winning would be a big underlying reason why someone likes a certain team. I also think location of a team and who your family was rooting for when you were a kid play a role, but taking out those two things I think winning or things associated with winning would be a primary response.
My first reaction to that - is being associated with a winning sports team really that important to people? Don't get me wrong, I would much rather win than lose, and being a fan of a team that wins it all is something I think all of us would prefer. But I was thinking about back in college a guy I worked with had a brother and group of friends that cracked me up. It was early 2000s. They were Nebraska fans but decided in early 2000s they were now USC fans. They bought all the gear, watched all the games together - it was pretty hilarious. They wouldn't admit to it, but it was very important to them to be associated with a team competing for a National Championship. It was even funnier, me being a KU football fan, trying to talk football with them because they thought being associated with USC made them superior when it came to football knowledge (noting they never played, never was recruited, and didn't have family members like I that played college football...pointing out that doesn't always mean much).
It always made me wonder - was their lives so much better being associated with a winning college football team? They never got promotions at work (for as long as I knew them) after switching to being USC fans, their family life didn't improve substantially, etc - things that are pretty important. That's the beauty of sports to me. I'm the kind of guy that has to constantly be doing something. Sports help take up a good chunk of that time to me. I like getting excited about things related to sports - the games themselves, the recruiting, the player development, and on and on and on. But the bottom line is even if things don't go the way I want them to for my team, no big deal as life goes on. That's the kind of thing that I personally need in my life - having something to have fun with, but at the end of the day not mean a whole lot if things go bad.
Now that isn't to say sports, and especially college sports, are meaningless. We are seeing what realignment can do to the funds a university receives, which is in part driven by college football. And college football is much more than just some guys out there playing a game. From the various conference media days the past couple of weeks, we have heard examples of how society can learn from college football and how it can even help. College football provides opportunities to some that they otherwise wouldn't have had. College football can bring people from communities together. It can do a lot, which is a beautiful thing.
So going back to the original question of what do I say when someone asks me why I am a fan of a sports team. This answer has changed for me from when I was a kid to now. It also differs a little bit for professional sports to college sports. When I was a kid, pretty much the big reason I was a fan of the teams I was/am a fan of was because my family was fans of those teams. I remember having one part of one side of the family that was KSU fans and would by me KSU stuff I would wear as a kid (luckily a bigger portion of my family was KU fans!). Now with professional teams it is a little bit deeper. I am a fan of the Chiefs and Royals because I like supporting local teams, knowing KC is a small market team compared to some other NFL and MLB teams. They need local fans a lot more (relatively speaking) than those bigger market teams, and knowing what those teams can do for the KC and surrounding communities, I feel like they need support as it helps KC.
Now why am I a KU football fan now? The simple answer is because college football is easily my favorite sport and KU is easily my favorite school. A little bit deeper is going to KU football games is much more than the game itself to me. It is an opportunity to go to a great city in Lawrence more times than I usually would. It is an opportunity to get back together with friends I don't see as much as I would like. It is an opportunity to spend a Saturday grilling, drinking, and just in general having a good time - again something else I wish I would do more. I know there are some that would go to more KU games if we were better, and I get that - it's their money and they can do what they want with it...but I just wish they would see the bigger picture and realize there is a lot more to KU football Saturday's than just going to the game itself.
Slowly stepping off the soapbox...
