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Losing bonds sports fans
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- hprotagonist 6y agoentirely unrelated to the article itself, i'm adding that title to my list of garden-path sentences.
- neitherboosh 6y agoI had to read the headline at least six times before I figured out what it meant.
- javierga 6y agoIt’s a funny title. Both bonds and sports can be the verb. I’m assuming most people read the verb as Sports vs Bonds: - Why Losing _Bonds_ Sports Fans: why when your team loses you strengthen your affiliations to your team. - Why Losing Bonds _Sports_ Fans: why throwing away good money on bonds is popular (I have no background to decide why bond investing in bonds might be a good or bad idea).
- tgarv 6y agoYour second version of it makes me think of WallStreetBets' "loss porn", where people are fans of others losing money.
- mc32 6y agoAnd then there is/was Barry Bonds...
- reidjs 6y agoUgh I read it so many times because of this. First read: bonds? Like banking bonds? Second time: oh, Barry bonds from the giants? I didn’t like him either. Third read: ohhh bonds as in brings them together. “Losing brings sports fans together” ok that makes sense.
- bla3 6y agoFor others who need some time to parse that title: "bonds" is the verb.
- croddin 6y agoYeah that took me a little bit too. It a garden-path sentence title.
- moate 6y agoAs an MLB fan, I felt like it got even worse/less clear because it was about sports. I thought this had something to do with Barry Bonds. Reread that about 5 times.
- dylan604 6y agoWas the lack of capitalization on the word bonds not a clue?
- orthecreedence 6y agoIt was originally capitalized: "Losing Bonds Sports Fans" before the title was edited. I will add that in the capitalized form, I also had a really hard time parsing the statement.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- lordnacho 6y agoAs a long time fan of a soccer club that endured a decade of humiliation followed by success, the reason is that you can't tell the real fans from the fairweather fans during the good times. So the bonding stories are often the ones where we reminisce about bad times and about players who were marginal in the league but memorable to us. Also the judas story works nicely too, that's always some guy who has to make a living and he ends up joining the rivals. If you're going to find out who really loves the club, because you know tribalism, you can't talk about the time you won the treble. You have to talk about that time you schlepped your friends across the country only to see them get reversed 3-2. Or when someone does yet another shitpost asking for the all time XI, you pull out that obscure defender they got on loan who was terrible and played only 5 games. Or that time you did a pitch invasion thanks to a cult player scoring an equaliser in an otherwise bad game that people were already leaving.
- slx26 6y agodedication
- amoorthy 6y agoYou must be an Arsenal fan. Bloody depressing.
- lordnacho 6y agoFollowing any team is like that. Sadness is what binds the fans together. Luckily, only one team needs to win each trophy each year, and some years one team wins several.
- pbalau 6y ago> As a long time fan of a soccer club that endured a decade of humiliation followed by success This screams Liverpool.
- dylan604 6y agoIf LFC, they would not have said decade. Decades.
- at-fates-hands 6y agoNot a great experiment to say the least, especially in English football where the socio-economic bond between fans in cities is stronger based on region and class structure. I was hoping the research they did would include some of this data, but it was completely missing from the research and the article. To me the class structure as it relates to English football clubs is far more important and deeper than than just the simple "identity fusion" and "dysphoric events" the article puts forth as the key bonding elements of football fans and their clubs
- StevePerkins 6y agoIn 2017, my hometown Atlanta Falcons (an American football team) blew a 28-3 lead in Super Bowl 51. It was the most stunning high-profile choke in the history of the National Football League. In the past few years since, the team has continued to develop a reputation for choking. We have lost a number of high-profile games, where the predictive models suggested a 99% probability of winning near the end. Yet we still found a way to lose at the last second. During this time, I have observed that fanbase has become absolutely toxic. To the point where I don't even enjoy talking with other Falcons fans anymore, and find that many Falcons fans tend to feel the same way. Our fandom is an isolating, silent shame wrapped in a blanket of bitter denial and deflection. The fanbases of other NFL teams, such as the Cleveland Browns or Buffalo Bills, are known for being charming and loveable for their loyalty in the face of decades of futility. But this has not been the outcome for our fanbase, in the face of sudden and abrupt disaster. This is just one counter-anecdote. But I wonder if there are "kinds" or "degrees" of losing, whose nuance matters? Or kinds and degrees of fan culture, prior to the bonding loss? Or maybe the whole thing is just nonsense. I know there are studies linked here, but cultural anthropology is borderline-pseudoscience.
- Jtsummers 6y agoI don't know where it originated, but my family uses the phrase "Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory" for things like that Super Bowl game. After that game, I noticed the Falcons fans in my town actually seemed more into the team (central GA at the time). Some people put away their apparel, but the ones who kept it up were more invested than ever.
- renewiltord 6y agoHaha, any English or Indian cricket fan surely knows that phrase quite well. I remember it growing up in the 90s and it surely precedes that.
- akchin 6y agoAs a 90s Indian cricket fan, this was exactly my thought :-)
- exabrial 6y agoThis is great news for Tampa Bay and their upcoming defeat this weekend!
- oo0shiny 6y agoBet against Tom Brady at your own peril!
- exabrial 6y agoToo bad we can stake HN reputation or something pahaha
- FillardMillmore 6y agoSorry Tom, there's a new sherrif in town.
- renewiltord 6y agoInteresting. As an Arsenal fan, we haven't hit our heady heights of the early 2000s ever again. Chelsea have been better than us, live in the same city, and are oil-powered and they still are tighter fused than Gooners. How strange. I wonder why that is.
- dylan604 6y agoAn above average but not legendary yet beloved manager sat on the throne for much too long. Consistent top 4 and a Champion's League place is not something to be ignored nor laughed at, but not the same as what Fergie achieved in his long tenure.
- renewiltord 6y agoWell, he's legendary to us, considering the Invincibles, but I won't bore this audience with a classic football argument.
- parthdesai 6y ago> Consistent top 4 and a Champion's League place Consistent top 4 and a Champion's League place with a shoestring budget while City and Chelsea were spending like crazy is nothing to laugh at. You're ignoring the context and diminishing his achievement. Just look what happened to Arsenal after he left. He definitely is a legend, albeit not Fergie. But then who can come close Fergie.
- dane-pgp 6y agoThe thing about Arsenal is, they always try to walk it in.
- PaulJulius 6y agoThis reminds of my favorite article by sportswriter Bill Simmons, titled The Consequences of Caring, in which he describes seeing his daughter embrace a sports team and experience crushing disappointment for the first time, and reflects on his own lifetime of fandom. https://grantland.com/features/the-consequences-caring/ https://grantland.com/features/the-consequences-caring/
- gojomo 6y agoMay be more a filter than a cause.
- ksm1717 6y agoCheering for losing sports teams brings people together much in the same way that a funeral does
- rmason 6y agoIf that theory is true the most bonded sports fans in the world have to be those following the Detroit Lions. Why the Lions? The last championship the team won was in 1957, that's ten years before the first SuperBowl. Most of the records the team holds involved losing, like being the only NFL team to go 0-16. It's an extremely rare occurrence when the team makes the playoffs, the team has only won a single playoff game in its history and they promptly fired the coach. The team hires General Managers who have zero management experience and they're going to keep doing it until they win. The Detroit Lions just traded the best quarterback the franchise has had since 1957 in his prime to begin yet another rebuild, such pure joy.
- fuzzer37 6y agoNever gonna change till the Ford's sell the team off.
- rmason 6y agoFord ownership is the only variable that has remained the same. Did you know the date William Clay Ford bought the team? Pretty easy to remember, Nov 22, 1963. Talk about a jinx!
- toast0 6y agoThe Lions have one thing going for them. They always play on Thanksgiving. And we usually get to see my dad get grumpy when his team loses on Thanskgiving ;)
- rmason 6y agoThey get to do that because they invented the entire idea of the Thanksgiving game. It is also one of the few times they ever see their games nationally. I remember twenty years ago they were on Monday Night football for the first and I think only time. In Michigan it was a huge deal, the entire state was talking about something other teams take for granted.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- lionhearted 6y agoI wonder if the causality might run the other way — like, if you imagine a set of "all possible commitment levels of sports fans" you'd have hardcore committed... moderately committed... middle of the road... somewhat fairweather... complete bandwagonner. Something like that, eh? Losing might strip away the fairweather/bandwagoner fans, leaving only the people with a natural predilection to commitment. Winning might attract more bandwagon/fairweather fans. You could probably test this by finding multiple teams that had around a 50% win percentage and finding fans that adopt them in early adulthood, like someone who goes to college in Indiana starting to root for the Indiana Pacers (basketball), etc. If you build a sample of around 1000 people that adopted different middle-of-the-road teams, then followed them longitudinally, you could see whether they increase in commitment, drop out, or stay about the same with rising and falling fortunes of the team. A lot of work, though. No doubt certain experiences shape perception of fandom, but I imagine it's different populations — not just the same type of starting population being effected by different events.
- jkingsbery 6y agoReading through the actual study, there were 752 fans surveyed, but 290 were fans of one team, and 27 were for teams other than the 10 teams they were focusing on, so really the analysis was a survey of 435 people. Also, the measure of affinity was answering a hypothetical question (a version of the Trolley Dilemma, except the person being asked would have to sacrifice himself/herself). So I'm a bit skeptical it's as simple as the study makes it out to be. Anecdotally, it seems like it should be more complicated too. As a New York Yankees fan who was in Massachusetts when the Boston Red Sox won their first World Series (Major League Baseball) in 80+ years, it seems winning was a pretty big bonding moment for Red Sox fans. I think affinity must also be different depending on the region. If you go to Boston, there are signs everywhere for the Red Sox and Patriots. In Seattle, everything is all about the Seahawks. In the New York area, we have multiple teams in the major pro sports, so sport-team-affinity and location-affinity are necessarily more loosely coupled here.
- clovis 6y agoThe less successful teams in the English Premier League tend to not have many "plastic fans". Chances are if you support Sheffield United it's not because they went on a US/Asia summer tour, but rather because people in your immediate social environment (e.g. family and close friends) support them.
- mark-ruwt 6y agoMy career since 2006 has centered around fandom and identifying exciting games in real-time. I'm a devout believer that sports fandom is all about wagering emotion. The more of your heart and happiness you "bet", the larger the payout when your team finally succeeds.
- mat7447 6y agoWhy would you care about a small enterntainment business? Can't you redirect your 'emotional bettig' elseware?