On a Wednesday in January, without LeBron James (illness) or Anthony Davis (injury), the Lakers beat their old bubble-finals rivals, the Miami Heat in a regular season game. On national TV, our guy Dennis Shrodder entertainingly dropped 32 cacamamie points and willed his starless team to victory.
The Lakers won only 2 of their first 12 games this season. After that horrendous start, they got their ducks in a row for a couple days, fell apart again, suffered a devastating injury to one of their stars, went roughly .500 for a week or two, then did an ok job of keeping the ship afloat for a few weeks. Meanwhile, fans like me were forced to constantly recalibrate expectations: from giving up on the season entirely, to jumping all the way back in (emotion-wise) and hunkering down for another title run, to deciding we were what we always had been: a 10 seed who’d lose in the play-in or first round of the playoffs.
I didn’t watch the Heat game because I assumed they were due for a loss. I’d been conditioned by this sloppily assembled, hard-to-root-for team to not get my hopes up too high. Call me a fair weather fan, but I couldn’t see a reason to follow this version of the Lakers too closely. There was no long term need to watch disjointed, late-career Lebron Lakers games if they didn’t have any chance of ultimately making a run in the playoffs. Not this season, not (in my opinion) until he retired, at which point the team would surely have a completely different roster, making this current batch of temporary players not worth investing my allegiance in.
But, unable to resist hoping against hope that my favorite team would prevail, I checked the score the next morning anyways. I was pleasantly surprised. In beating the Heat, the Lakers had won 3 in a row. I felt the needle on my expectations-ometer start to quiver.
On January 14th, the first day of the NFL’s “Super” Wild Card Weekend. With no “favorite team” or particular “favorite players” to root for, I found myself grappling for reasons to look forward to the games. It wasn’t that I wouldn’t enjoy watching them. Some were bound to be competitive down to the final moments, at least a few spectacular plays would take place, all the reasons one has to watch a football game would be present.
Prior to the first games, though, I felt I would need an extra reason to invest my attention. So, I created two DraftKings daily fantasy lineups. One was an entry I mulled over extensively and entered in a $25 contest (with a $1 million top prize). The other was one I threw together based on pure gut instinct and entered into a free promotional contest, with hundreds of thousands of other people for an understandably limited prize pool.
At the Pacific Star Restaurant and Oyster Bar in North Austin, TX, on a 35-inch TV, they were showing a game between Pachuca and Los Tigres of La Liga MX. I overheard the manager telling the customers at the table next to me that practically everyone here at the Pacific Star is from Monterrey. But, he said, there are two professional football teams in Monterrey. Here at the Pacific Star, they’re fans of Los Rayados. Los Rayados were already eliminated. The other Monterrey team, though, was “the yellow team” on the screen: Los Tigres. These people were watching this game not to root for their team (who wasn’t even playing) but to root against their cross-town rivals.
In solidarity with the manager and his employees, in vicarious hatred of those scoundrel Tigers, I began rooting for the team called Pachuca as well.
At the trade deadline in February, the Lakers didn’t make any huge moves, but they got rid of a couple key players and added a couple others. Lo and behold, they started trending in the right direction. They went 9 and 6 in their first 17 games after the new team was compiled.
I started keeping an eye on the standings.
Unfortunately, I was in a different country and Laker games took place in the middle of my night. Every morning after a game, though, I woke up and navigated to YouTube to find the full game highlights, trying not to get the outcome of the game spoiled. The more I watched, the more the Lakers kept winning. In the final stretch of the season, they won 10 out of 12 games between the regular season and play-in tournament. I’m not saying they kept winning because I was religiously watching the highlights 6 hours after the game, but I won’t rule it out as a possibility…
Somehow, despite the abysmal start and hectic regular season, the Lakers clinched the 7 seed. All of a sudden, analysts and NBA fans were saying they had a chance. Despite my perpetual mistrust of this crew, I was starting to let my guard down.
If they could get everyone on this once-maligned roster in order and move up the standings like they had, what else could they do? If (I allowed myself the indulgence of wondering) they kept playing like this, how far could they go?
As the Saturday NFL games progressed, it started to look like I’d done something right with the lineups I’d entered into DFS contests. Particularly, the one I entered in the free contest.
The Chargers-Jaguars game entered its surprisingly exciting 4th quarter. Surprising because early in the game the Chargers had led by as much as 27, leaving most casual football fans to assume the game was over. But not us gamblers who were interested more in player performance than the outcome of the game. We paid attention no matter how uncompetitive it seemed. And, somehow, the Jags had come crawling back and were threatening to take the lead. As a fan, I had no loyalty to either team. As a DraftKings user, I did have a daily fantasy lineup featuring Trevor Lawrence in a low stakes contest, and another lineup with a couple Chargers players including Austin Ekeler in a contest I stood to make much more money in.
If, say, the Chargers controlled possession and Ekeler scored a touchdown, my $25 lineup could possibly move up into the $45-$50 payout range. If Lawrence scored another touchdown or racked up a bunch of yards, my free lineup could win up to $2. I found myself pulling for Lawrence to bring the Jags down and win the game.
I knew nothing about Mexican professional soccer. The volume on the TV was on, but I didn’t understand much Spanish. In the first half, Pachuca scored, and I silently cheered along with all the employees. Served the Tigres right. Later, they tied it up and we all felt disappointment.
The Pachuca players were not the reason we were invested in the game. They were merely stand-ins tasked with breaking the hearts of the Tigers’ fans, fans who lived in the right city but for some reason chose the wrong team.
I wondered how battle lines were drawn in Monterrey. Was it geographic? Did it have to do with class? I liked to think Los Rayados were the scrappy, under-financed team who made or broke the dreams of everyday working-class Monterrey football fans, while Los Tigres were the prestigious, snobby, Evil Empire team.
Eventually, I became curious about the players, the stakes of the game, records, etc, so I looked it up.
Turns out the game they were showing in the Pacific Star had taken place a week earlier and this telecast was a rerun.
Los Tigres had won 4-1.
2 or 3 times a week for 5 or 6 weeks, I woke up at 3 am to tune into Lakers playoff games. Every game on its own was only as important as one seventh of the series, and each series was only one step on the way to a championship. Still, I paid for a VPN to watch the games internationally and let out silent screams of joy in hostel bedrooms full of sleeping travelers at big moments in close games. They beat the Grizzlies and the Warriors and surpassed even the most optimistic version of my expectations.
A question entered my mind: at what point would I be satisfied? By any metric, the season was a success. They were among the final four teams remaining in the playoffs, outlasting practically every prediction anyone had had for them for most of the season. They went from a disaster with a bleak future to a fairly functional squad that opponents feared. Most importantly, they kept advancing to the next round, thus giving me something to root for throughout April and May.
Unfortunately, they ended up getting swept by the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference Finals. I didn’t expect them to win that series (the Nuggets, who went on to win the Finals, were definitely the best team in the NBA this season). But, who wants to see their team lose four games in a row? A little more suspense would have been nice.
Although they didn’t win the title, for 2 extra months I had something to root for. I wanted a full, successful championship run, but wasn’t it enough that they won more games than expected and kept me engaged?
Against steep odds (odds I was not in a position to put money on), the Jaguars came back and beat the Chargers. I raised my eyebrows at the unlikely outcome, but I didn’t care, really. I told myself I “should have” been thrilled watching the comeback, one of the most exciting games I’d ever seen, on paper. But, really, I was distracted from the excitement because all my attention was on my DraftKings lineup.
It made no difference to me who moved on to play the Chiefs in the next round. For some reason, it did mean something that my Draftkings lineup won $2.
But if you pressed me to explain why that mattered, I wouldn’t be able to. Objectively, $2 was basically nothing. In fact, it was less than I’d lost in my other lineup. That Trevor Lawrence performed well actually lost me somewhere between 3 and 10 dollars. But then, I hardly play fantasy for the money.
Rather, it might have something to do with “bragging rights.” I felt pride in crafting one of the 10 thousand best lineups out of the nearly 1 million that had been entered in that contest. But isn’t that pride kind of pathetic? It was only one small contest out of hundreds that weekend. I didn’t play against anyone I knew. No one on DraftKings would scroll through the standings, see my lineup, and say, “wow, this guy really knows his football.” Honestly, daily fantasy is mostly luck, anyway. Why did it matter to me?
When we talk about following sports, we might say we “invest” in a team or an outcome. Certainly, many people literally invest in sports. Gamblers stake money on games and futures. Players, coaches, managers, and owners make their living banking on their own skill. Journalists and analysts stand to gain financially from communicating accurate (or, at least, entertaining) predictions and perspectives.
As consumers, though, our investment is harder to quantify. We put in money (tickets, merchandise, subscriptions), time (watching games, checking scores, reading articles, listening to commentary), and emotional energy (the highs and lows of rooting for your team to win, your players to perform, your bets to hit). What do we get out?
Some might argue that sports fans do not get what they put in, that we’re being milked by large companies (the NFL, ESPN, TicketMaster, DraftKings, etc), that following sports is a waste.
It is true, it’s possible to invest too much as a fan. It’s one thing to spend hours every day thinking about the Lakers when they’re making a deep playoff run. When they’re having a confusing and ultimately disappointing season, it’s harder to justify. Rooting for your country in the world cup might be explainable, but hoping that a Mexican soccer team you’d never heard of will lose because it will please a few people who happen to root for a different team might not make as much sense.
But sports fans don’t feel that watching sports is a waste. For the most part, we aren’t so deluded as to think the outcome of games really makes that much of a difference in the long run. We know it’s entertainment. When I was a kid, the way I felt about the world might have been largely impacted by whether the Lakers had won or lost the night before, but as an adult, I’m able to relegate those emotions to a specific part of my brain labeled “Lakers fandom.”
Most of the time, we either have a reason to root or we create one.
When the Lakers win, that part of my brain is satisfied and, overall, as a fan, I get to experience the joy of victory.
In a slightly less wholesome version of that experience, when I bet on a team, let’s say, the Jaguars, and they come from behind and win, I feel the thrill of a bet I made paying off.
If I tell a friend, “the Chiefs are damn good, they’re gonna win the super bowl, mark my words,” and they do, the friend and I, knowing that I called it, get to marvel in my aptitude for future-telling.
If I’m in a bar with dozens of Bruins fans staring up at one small TV in the corner, like in some sort of cheesy beer commercial, and the Bruins win, I get to witness and, in some small way, participate in the collective excitement the bar patrons feel, even if I’m not a fan of that team.
Often, there are storylines that have little or nothing to do with the sport. Since Deshaun Watson has been on the Browns, I’ve enjoyed seeing them lose (Deshaun Watson is a real bad dude, for those of you who don’t know). Most years, ESPN features the story of a college basketball player who overcame a serious injury, recently lost a loved one, or turned his or her life around. We get to root for that otherwise unheard of player in the NCAA basketball tournament, and our hearts fill with warm, fuzzy, moral satisfaction when they win.
The reasons we root can get pretty tenuous. Some people approach a game they know nothing about and root for the team with the best mascot or funniest looking player. Sometimes I pick a team based purely on vibes. When there’s nothing else to root for, there’s always the underdog.
Rooting for something is investing in it. If the thing I’m rooting for comes to pass, the payoff is inherent. I don’t gain anything external. It is enough that the thing I wanted to happen, happened. “My team won. Nice.” Whether it’s a favorite team, favorite player, financial incentive, morally compelling storyline, scrappy underdog narrative, opportunity for social connection, or arbitrary feeling of allegiance, most people need a reason to root. I’m not sure if most sports fans consciously think about this, but it crosses my mind often.
This line of thought is liable to get real existential, though. If you haven’t invested anything, watching a sports game might be seen as… pointless. In other words, if there are no stakes, what do you stand to gain? If the outcome means nothing to you, why watch? How many hours have I spent watching games, checking scores, calculating playoff scenarios given different outcomes, skimming articles about internal discord within a team, listening to podcasts ranking players and predicting outcomes, updating twitter at the NBA trade deadline, etc? Is it all worth it?
Well, it depends what “worth it” means. What is time worth? If time is only viewed through a capitalistic lens, then there would be no reason to watch sports unless you’re a gambler or are being paid to share your opinions about the sport. Others delude themselves into thinking they stand to “gain” something from their team winning or their rooting interest coming to pass. “Spending” time watching sports is inherently not “worth it” if there is no tangible “payoff.” Following a game to see what happens at the end will ultimately end up feeling pointless after a while because, really, it is pointless.
I have experienced this pointlessness many times as a sports fan. When the Lakers don’t win the championship, I feel all the Lakers games I watched throughout the season were a waste of my time. When I take a step back and realize that, after years of winning and losing money betting on football games and fantasy lineups, I’m probably roughly even throughout my betting career, I feel a little ashamed that I still do it. When I find out a game on TV in a public restaurant has already happened, I lose all interest in watching it.
Needing a reason to “invest” in a game indicates a scarcity mindset that can sap the fun out of following sports.
If you forget the idea of “investing” or “gaining” or “spending” or “wasting,” you might be able to enjoy the spectacle: the nerves of the players, the excitement of the competition, a back and forth game, a last second game-changing twist, the thought of how much has gone into making this situation possible, the feats of athleticism and intelligence that are all being executed for pretty much no reason other than for their own execution. When viewed this way, the sports match is an end in itself.
This is where the true joy of being a sports fan resides.
I’m reminded of the 2022 World Cup Final. I have no ties to either France or Argentina. Didn’t know enough about international soccer to put money on either side or bet on any props. Neither team could be considered an underdog. In fact they were pretty much the two favorites from the beginning of the tournament. Messi finally winning his first world cup would have been a great storyline, but Mbappe unseating him was arguably just as exciting an outcome. I had nothing to root for. And yet, with no expectations or hopes for the game, it was one of the most thrilling sporting events I’ve ever watched.
Argentina scored two goals early in the game. For the next 50 minutes, the French team was desperate to get back in it and the Argentinians did everything they could not to let them. 2 billion people were watching. The tension was high, but nothing much was happening. The French, playing from behind, were being far more aggressive, so a lot of action took place on the half of the field they were attacking. It felt like the game was building to something, but still the score was 2-0. Finally, in the 79th minute, Mbappe scored on a free kick. Two minutes later, he scored again from the far corner of the box on an insane goal to tie it up. The exact thing that literally billions of people were waiting for happened. The announcer screamed, “OH WOW!!” and I have to admit, I did too. From there, the game only got more exciting.
At the start of the game, I was driving through snowy New Mexico watching the game on my phone propped up on my dashboard because, truthfully, I didn’t care that much. But as it went on, I got sucked in. I couldn’t take my eyes off what was happening, and I was endangering my fellow drivers. I ended up pulling into a gas station and staying there for about an hour to watch overtime and the penalty shootout. Argentina ended up winning, but I didn’t care. I wanted it to keep going. Once it ended, I hadn’t won anything, I was no better off for one team beating the other, nothing in my life had materially changed. And, yet, for the whole rest of what might have otherwise been a tedious drive, I was stoked.
At a certain point, winning money, proving others wrong, and focusing on results can lose its luster. The narratives and outcomes are relevant insofar as they establish the reason for the game. But there is a danger in thinking they are the only reason to watch. As fans, we’re liable to lose sight of the spectacle when we allow a rooting interest to dominate our viewing experience. One of these days, forget why you’re watching and enjoy the show.