The stands are packed – fans, with painted faces and matching jerseys, scream at the top of their lungs while jumping from their seats. It is impossible to ignore the energy in the arena. The music on the loudspeakers is all but drowned out by the cult-like chants coming from the thousands of followers, there to support their favourite hockey team. I don’t get it. I hate it.
Sports have never made sense to me, not the games themselves. I am smart enough to figure out the rules, but the cult-like following is incomprehensible to me. When I hear people talk about how “their team” won last night, I can never relate.
I get it; people want to identify with something bigger than themselves. Sports may be the easiest way to do this. You see someone wearing the same jersey as you and instantly you have something in common. This is a shallow, nearly meaningless connection.
When I hear people constantly talk about sports, the one thing I want to know is – what is going on in your life? Why don’t we talk about that instead? By doing that we could create a connection with something behind it, something personal. There is nothing personal about being a fan of a specific sports team.
Sports fans have been known to develop superstitious conditioning. This is a situation in which a person develops a habit or ritual and believes it affects the outcome of situations beyond their control. Fans may claim by wearing their lucky socks, they made their favourite team win or lose. The effect was first discovered by B.F. Skinner and published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. He learned about the behaviour while training pigeons to perform various feats, including performing Take Me Out to The Ballgame on a xylophone.
The psychology of adamant sports fans can be studied through pigeons, interesting. This is not my only gripe with sports. I am talking professional sports here. I don’t have a problem with unpaid students playing the games they enjoy. What I have a problem with is Connor McDavid, who is currently the highest paid player in the NHL and can sign an eight-year contract worth $100 million to play a game.
The richest NHL team as of December last year, according to Forbes, was the New York Rangers, valued at $1.55 billion. I will be the one to point this out bluntly – that is absolutely absurd! If it is fans that make a team worth this much, imagine what the world could be if these people put their money into something more impactful than a game.
I think it is worth questioning how such a simple thing, a game, became so huge and worth so much. I’ll say this, sports do not belong in the news. It is pathetic that a man can make millions of dollars skating around with his friends while people suffer from hunger and poverty. Forget the sense of identity you get from supporting sports for a moment and have a logical look at it.
