LZHS has a population of around 1800 students among all 4 grades. All of these students watch LZHS sports for when they are playing, as since they go to that high school, they become fans of their sports teams. But, the collegiate and professional levels of sports are different. Not everyone in a city is a fan of their city’s sports teams. People in college might not have always been fans of their college’s sports programs before they went there, or have gone to college at all. This begs the question, what makes people fans of different teams in sports?
There are many common reasons you’ll get from people who became fans of their sports teams. Most people attribute it to where they grew up locally. Others will attribute it to whoever was winning the most at that time. A multitude of reasons exist for why people become fans of sports teams, but you tend to find clusters of fans in specific places that seem to have no reason as to be fans of a certain sport. Matthew Nesheim, Senior at LZHS, discusses the many reasons why people become fans of sports.
“I think that for most people. It gives them something to do and mainly on the weekends, but really anytime it gives them a hobby…it gives them something to look forward to and something they can be invested in and root for,” Nesheim said.
Nesheim talks about the many ways people become fans of sports. But the most common reason people become fans of sports teams is because of proximity. People born in a certain state or city are more likely to be fans of a sports team that’s in their state rather than a different one. There’s very little quantifiable statistics on the amount of fans around the world of NFL teams, but we can assume that there are more than 60,000 Chicago Bears fans around the world.
“Yeah, I think that there definitely is. I know for a lot of people, it’s family…it runs in the family. But they also all lived in Illinois…I like the bears because I’ve grown up in Illinois and I’ve grown up around the bears because of my family,” Nesheim said.
As Nesheim refers to, there are many different reasons to attribute a proximity effect to why people become fans of sports teams. Typically, sports like the NFL broadcast their hometown teams if they’re playing home or away, allowing residents to view the hometown team more, which can lead to residents becoming fans of the hometown teams. Also, since they do live closer to the stadium, they typically have more accessibility to see their team play, which can lead them to further build a bond and start supporting a team they are a fan of. When these fans move away or around the country, they can bring their fandom among their children, even if they are disconnected from the team by distance. A question arises regarding how fans of a sport who don’t have any familiar ties to a team or sport, what teams do they become fans of?
“I think part of it is you hear about the winners. So when teams start winning and keep winning, more people hear about them. So if they aren’t already fans of a team, they’re more likely to pick a team that they have heard about and know, which are the ones that win,” Nesheim said.
As Nesheim discusses, this idea of people gravitating towards winners has many applications in life, known as the coattail effect. The coattail effect is described as the tendency to ride off of other people’s success due to the fact that they are succeeding. Many examples of this phenomenon exist in sports, some teams that come to mind are the 1990s with the Chicago Bulls, the 2000s and 2010s with the New England Patriots and the 2010s with the Golden State Warriors. People who watch sports like to watch their teams win games, so they naturally will root for teams who win games. In sports, these people are called bandwagons, or fans of the sport who only support the franchises who win the most. Jennifer Morgan, AP Psychology teacher gives her opinion on the topic of bandwagon fans in sports.
“I don’t think that they’re harmful, especially if somebody who’s just getting into sports…maybe they don’t have a team that they necessarily care about, so they just jump on who’s trending right now…I think it’s a good introduction for someone to get into a fandom of a sport,” Morgan said.
As Morgan refers to with the comment on their harm within the overall fandom, Bandwagon fans are a contentious topic in sports. Bandwagon fans are described as fans who switch which teams they root for based on who’s winning. They often switch allegiances based on who’s winning in the current season. But fans of other teams tend to group more people under the bandwagon label than actually deserve to be under the label. However, if this idea can apply to individual sport teams, why can’t it apply to sports themselves?
“I think sports are a really easy way to bond or connect with somebody. If you’re meeting somebody for the first time, sports are kind of an easy way to have a conversation with somebody…it just gives people something to talk about and connect to another human with, which is so important to us psychologically,” Morgan said.
As Morgan refers to, sports are an easy way to connect with other people. Sports that are more popular get spectators who normally don’t watch sports during their big events. One example of this is the NFL with the Superbowl, which averages 7 times more viewers than the average NFL game. This viewership spike can be explained many ways, however, as the Superbowl is seen more as an event than a sports game. The Superbowl Halftime show pulls in more viewers than the actual game on average, which is statistically significant enough to have a correlation to the fact that a significant amount of viewers aren’t watching the Superbowl just because they like the sport of Football, otherwise they wouldn’t have a near 6X Spike in viewership. But this is just a one sport phenomenon, how do other sports compare in viewership when compared to each other?
“I think early exposure definitely allows you to jump on something a little bit sooner. I went to a high school where lacrosse was big and we won state, and so lacrosse was kind of on my radar…it’s really what you’re exposed to and when,” Morgan said.
As Morgan describes about exposure, sports themselves can have differing effects for the coattail effect. Mainstay sports in the U.S such as basketball and football benefit from being able to broadcast their product on national television due to having a large amount of fans. These fans by consuming the games influence the next generation, which in turn can influence groups of people into becoming fans of certain sports. The popularity of sports and teams largely has to do with their sustained success and popularity. Examples from Europe can be seen in the different Soccer leagues in Europe. The Italian top flight was at the top of European competitions from the early 1990’s to the late 2000’s. But once their success started to falter, the overall popularity of the Italian League in comparison to others faltered. This can be applied to other sports throughout history. Popularity of sports is tied to their success, and although the loyalty of some fans can keep a sport or a team going, sports can only live as long as they have an audience to see the athletes compete.
“You’ve got things that rise in popularity and then fall…who’s to say that the next big thing will flop and there’ll be something new that comes in…I love watching football and I love watching bears games, but am I gonna turn on a random game that the bears aren’t involved in? No, I’m not going to,” Morgan said.
