If you intentionally flipped or clicked to the sports section of this paper, your patronage is much appreciated; however, this article is not directed at you. For readers who arrived at this piece by dropping a newspaper or by a friend commandeering your electronic device and rerouting you here, I encourage you to read on.
Not everyone likes sports. You may believe athletic fandom to be a time sink, or maybe you don’t understand or care to understand the general appeal of sporting events. Sure, sports aren’t for everyone, but the majority of individuals who completely write off sports as a potential interest never even test the waters. How, then, do people know for certain that they “just don’t like sports”? The answer is simple: they don’t.
For the sake of comparison, there was once a time where I didn’t understand Zumba. Why would people go to the gym just to betray the fact that they were out of shape and couldn’t dance? After attending a session myself, albeit compelled by my mother, I had a moment where it all clicked. Zumba was a way of doing something enjoyable with other people, while also working out. In essence, aside from the part about working out, following sports is a similar experience.
Okay, maybe the image of me awkwardly flailing around to “Chihuahua” by DJ Bobo doesn’t make you immediately jump out of your seat to pick a random sports team and support it. But there are several reasons why you should follow the sage advice of ABBA and “Take a Chance on [sports].”
There’s a sport for (almost) everyone
Whether you have high intensity and a short attention span or would prefer to spend your weekend reclining on a La-Z-Boy, there’s probably a sport that you would enjoy. The traditional sports that rack up the ratings are football and basketball, so maybe you start there. Maybe you prefer a more relaxing game that can offer bursts of excitement but loads of strategy – watch baseball or golf. Perhaps you enjoy the individual triumphs that are the mark of peak human performance from people like tennis player Serena Williams or Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps. So watch them. Or maybe you’re Canadian – then watch hockey.
The sport itself is of little consequence. It’s more about becoming immersed in the world of that league, team or player that produces an experience unlike any other, the experience of:
Being a Part of Something Bigger than Yourself
Whatever sport you choose to follow, there will be a legion of other fans – well maybe, it really depends on what fanbase you’re joining here – whose ranks you will join. You are now part of a community. From here, you specialize. Once you find a team or individual that you really like, you can now find your people. There are others who throw themselves into their fandoms and who will make endless conversation about their rooting interests. More importantly, sports has a way of bringing people together. Just look at some of the more recent championship teams in football and baseball.
The New Orleans Saints’ 2010 Super Bowl victory was huge for a city ravaged by Hurricane Katrina and struggling to lift itself out of turmoil. The whole city of Boston rallied behind the 2013 Red Sox after the Boston Marathon bombing. And just two years ago, the Houston Astros raised the spirits of many people whose homes and livelihoods were swept away by Hurricane Harvey. These are extreme cases of the profound effect that sports can have on a community, but are in fact commonplace on a smaller scale throughout the sporting world.
Sports Tell Stories
I’m sure you don’t need convincing on how uplifting some of these aforementioned accounts are. The prospect of a sporting franchise, of all things, rallying hundreds of thousands to strengthen community when they need it most, is chilling. However, we need not reach this far to come up with the epic tales that have played out on the field, court or on any other playing surface.
Legends are born in the fire of competition. Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Simone Biles, Lionel Messi, Joe Dimaggio and countless others have all woven complex narratives that would inspire anyone in written form. Some of the off-the-field stories are often just as compelling as in the cases of Tiger Woods, Colin Kaepernick and most recently, Robert Kraft.
In sports there is always something to talk about, to have an opinion on or to analyze more deeply. Sports make up such a large part of American culture that some understanding of or appreciation for sports is always valuable. And finally …
The Memes
Yet another dominant form of expression and media today, memes more often than you would think originate from sporting events. Think of “The Warriors blew a 3-1 lead”, Lebron James holding his hands out pointing at the basket, Phelps giving a South African swimmer the death stare, the Kaepernick Nike ad, Bartolo Colon or Peyton Manning’s forehead. Sports and the many peculiar situations in which athletes often find themselves are a goldmine for original content.
Ok, you’ve convinced me. Where do I start?
Pick a team, any team, good or bad and just learn about it and the rules of the game. (This works for individual sports too.) I would recommend picking a team somewhere in the range of bad to mediocre, but on the rise, because when it does eventually win a title, it will feel that much more rewarding. You can pick a good team too, just be warned that you open yourself to others assigning you the “bandwagon” label. Now, stick with that team through it all and voila, you’re a true fan.
Take The Daily’s Managing Editor of Sports Bobby Pragada as a prime example. Through an act of poor foresight and judgment, Pragada chose to support Blake Bortles and the Jacksonville Jaguars when he started following the NFL. Sure, the Jaguars have been a dumpster fire of an NFL franchise for the majority of their time in the league, but that didn’t stop Pragada. In fact, their ineptitude gave him all the more reason to rejoice at their brief moment in the spotlight when the Jaguars reached the 2017 AFC Championship. Regardless of the results – and let me tell you, for the Jaguars, they are almost always bad results – Pragada remains a fan, and this undying support for a team that most people aren’t even aware of makes him a part of something bigger than himself.
Being a sports fan can be hard, especially if it doesn’t come naturally, but once you truly appreciate a sport for what it offers, continued commitment to that sport and the team or players in that sport that you enjoy is exceedingly rewarding. To those of you who came to this article sportless in a world so profoundly impacted by sports, I entreat you to give sports a try.
Do it for yourself. Do it to be part of a community. Do it for the legendary stories that sports constantly produce. And if nothing else, do it for the memes.
Contact Andrew Tan at tandrew ‘at’ stanford.edu.