The biggest sin of modern times is arguably any form of extremism. It doesn’t matter where it comes from or how we label it. Whether it’s extremism that leads to fascism or communism or oppression or dictatorship or bigotry or any other ill that sucks up our humanity, we can usually trace these ills to fanatics who are owned by their ideology.
And yet, there exists one major, bewildering exception to that universal truth– sports fans.
No matter how extreme these fans get (barring any violence, of course), we have no problem tolerating their fandom, or, should I say, their fanaticism.
And yes, it is fanaticism.
Did you see the New York Knicks fans this year when their team slayed the hated Celtics in the NBA playoffs? I don’t just mean Hollywood stars like Timothee Chalamet or Ben Stiller, who cheered for their Knicks as if they were back in high school.
I mean the thousands of Knicks fans who took over Manhattan streets in a state of delirious ecstasy.
Indeed you can find that ecstasy anywhere on the planet—say, with cricket fans in India or wrestling fans in Bulgaria or soccer fans in Brazil or tennis fans in Australia or, for that matter, with fans of any sport in any country. No matter where you go, you’re sure to find fanatics rooting for their teams at a level that threatens mental health.
In a way, this makes little sense. For the vast majority of fans who don’t bet on games, they have nothing of value to gain if their teams win, just as they have nothing of value to lose if their teams lose.
I can understand fanaticism in politics. If you’re rooting for your political party because you feel the stakes are personal and enormous, I get that.
But the NY Knicks or LA Lakers or Tottenham Spurs are not political parties. They’re bloody sports teams. Why get so riled up if they win or lose? The players and the owners have reason to get excited—the get the glory and the money.
What do the fans get?
Well, it turns out they get plenty.
Among other things, they get something I discovered as a kid many years ago when my family moved from Casablanca to Montreal. That’s when I saw, for the first time, a jersey for the Montreal Canadiens hockey team and experienced the limitless bliss of cheering for my city’s sports team.
Do you know how good it feels to cheer for something– for anything!– when you’re an immigrant living the classic immigrant struggle in a tiny apartment in the middle of a North-pole level Canadian winter? It feels amazing, even if you’re only cheering for strangers skating on ice on an old black-and-white TV screen.
But that is what sports does for fans– it gives us something to cheer for, something big, something that rouses our emotions.
The Montreal Canadiens gave my family something to cheer for week after week, year after year, while we made our life in a new land. They brought into our home the warmth of a family gathering, the safe drama of competition, the occasional ecstasy of victory.
Sports also provides a sense of pride. Even though I live in L.A., I’m still proud to be a Montrealer. I still cheer for the Canadiens. I still hate those dreaded Toronto Maple Leafs. My heart still aches for losing the Expos.
Thank God Montreal doesn’t have an NBA team, because I’ve become a diehard Lakers fan and a proud Angeleno. Any time they win I get a dopamine shot of L.A. pride.
What else fuels the passion of sports fans? Something as simple as clarity of result. Have you noticed how so many things in life have such little clarity? We don’t know which expert to trust. We navigate between different narratives, different interpretations, different takes from those who claim to own the truth.
With sports, the results are blessingly and achingly clear: One team wins and the other team loses.
Maybe that’s why people often complain that media coverage of elections is so focused on the “horse race.” It’s the one part of public life that has the clarity of sports—your party or your candidate either wins or loses.
Which brings me to a final observation about the endearing fanaticism of sports fans. Deep down, we know that nothing bad will happen to us if our team loses. We won’t lose our house or our health or our jobs, just as we know we won’t win anything of concrete value if our team wins.
So why do we go crazy? Why do we hate other teams so much? I’m a reasonable person on all matters. Why do I despise the Boston Celtics?
The only answer I’ve come up with is that my sports fanaticism allows me to get that ugly stuff out of my system. All those combat metaphors inherent in sports enable us to fight wars without anyone getting hurt. As someone who abhors real wars, I crave the faux wars of my Canadiens and Lakers.
Oh, and there’s one more thing about sports. It brings a city together. Go to any Lakers game and you’ll see Angelenos from every ethnic and demographic nook and cranny of the city. It doesn’t matter who you voted for, where you live, where you come from or how rich or poor you are. For one night at least, you are a Lakers fan, and we are family.
For that kind of sentiment, I have to say, I can tolerate a little extremism.
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