chaniarts wrote:
Mike Marlow wrote:
Bill wrote:


I totally agree with you in spirit. In the case of collegiate sports,
they help form an "important" connection between the institutions and
their alumni (and other potential supporters). They are a thought-out
part of the equation.

Indeed they are a very well thought out part of the equation. Straight
from the Accounting Department. Colleiate sports are all
about the income. Look how many college sports figures actually even
know what college is all about...



Someone wrote (somewhere) that the athletes on the field are
surrogates for us. We don't need to play tennis, we can play through
put name of modern tennis pro here. We're encouraged to be
consumers rather than producers by our cultu the food is ready to
eat, the music is ready to listen to, the sports (surrogates) are
ready to watch, the furniture is ready to use, the disposable fiction
is ready to read.

Maybe some truth in that, but I'd argue there's only a little... if
any. I can only speak from my own perspective and from that of
people I know well, but from that limited perspective, watching
sports is more of an activity of watching those who are great at what
we do in a less great way, do it to the max. Far from a surrogate
role.

all sports teams foster the 'us' as in both the team and the fan being one,
and it's all about making the team be the surrogate.

Nicely put.

it's much easier to get
the city to spend public money to give them an arena this way.

Gosh, please tell me they are not that naive..

if it was
about watching a better team play football on sunday afternoon better than
one could play ourselves, the stands would be mostly empty.

Definitely agree. Quite a few years back, the Detroit Redwings made it
to a major playoff. My MOTHER, who doesn't know one end of a hockey
stick from the other, became a hockey fan. She had plenty of "team
spirit" too! I teased her that she was a "blue sky" hockey fan... If the
marketers (including everybody involved, especially other fans I believe
in this case) can make mother into an adamant hockey fan, however short
lived, then ANYTHING is possible! : )

After writing that, I would expect that "mob mentality" would be one
aspect of an explanation for people's passion for watching sports.
One doesn't need to search too hard to find evidence to try to support
this notion.

Bill