You Always Were The Perfect Fan

“Hence, it’s easier for original fans to dump on newer fans than to tolerate them and hope they advance the cause of whatever they like. I notice this every time I mention the UFC or poker — there’s this bizarre (and totally dismissive) backlash, as if I’m not allowed to watch those sports or even mention them because I’m not a real fan. Well, how do you become a real fan? By liking a sport without disliking the core people who like it. So it’s a self-perpetuating cycle, and as weird as this sounds, the original fans like it that way. It maintains their ownership of the product. When the product outgrows them (specifically in the case of a creative entity), that’s when the core fans start throwing around phrases like “jumped the shark” and “sold out,” mostly because they’re bitter it’s not just them and the product any more.”

-Bill Simmons, July 22^nd mailbag.

For all the Simmons bashing that goes on the Internet, here he actually hits on something that is probably bigger than he makes it sound. He called it something stupid (“The Cult of Status Quo”), but the real fan argument is one of my least favorite things in the sporting world. It invades bar arguments, destroys internet forums, and is among the things that makes Yahoo! comments unreadable. The entire idea is knuckle-draggingly stupid- but not because people get bitter and cry sell-out (Shockingly, there’s a difference between sports debate and debate over Simmons’ career). It’s stupid because there’s no good definition of a what true fan is, or should be.

For reference, let’s look at a few hypothetical fans.

Fan #1 is a nearly lifelong fan. The team was good in this fan’s youth, so fandom probably started as a bandwagon thing (kids do that stuff). The quality of the team diminished, but the fan remained, attended games whenever possible. Now the fan still follows closely, and is a decently active member of blogs devoted to the team…which mainly act as a support group. Also, owns multiple jerseys from different eras. Watches only some of the team’s games, but living out of market (and the crappiness of internet feeds) is the main reason for that.

Fan #2 (more…)

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Tags: Bill Simmons, Fandom, Idiots, Puck Bunnies!, SHOOT, Unnecessary Backstreet Boys
Category Recent, Uncategorized |

The Importance of Sports and Sports Video Games

Sports are a huge part of the world today. Almost every major city has a least one major sports team, and many “small” cities have at least one. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry. According to Wiki which got it’s info from forbes.com Sept. of ’08, Manchester United was worth $1.800B, Dallas Cowboys $1,612B, Washington Redskins $1,538B, New England Patriots $1,324B, and are all more valuable than the Yankees $1,306B(suck on that New York). It’s an industry where people devote their entire lives to either playing, covering or following the games.

It’s also something that adds an emotional component to people’s lives. This emotional component can be of the good or bad variety. Fans of the Cubs have to be dealing with the fact that they haven’t won a Championship in a 100 frikken years, and it’s counting. On the other hand, the Detroit Lions fans were overjoyed in 1991 when the team won a playoff game. It was the first playoff game that they had won in 44 years. They Haven’t Won One Since, which allows them to feel the other side and for you to laugh at them. No matter whether you’re on the winning or losing side of a real NFL team, you’re going to feel something at the end of a game.

Now most of us are alcoholics, fat lumps or people devoid of any modicum of athletic ability. That pickup game of Coed volleyball you play every other week doesn’t count, nor does getting off the couch to grab another beer. continue

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Tags: Fandom, Fans, MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, PS3, Sports, Video Games, Xbox 360
Category In All Seriousness, Random Deviations |