Sports are an incredibly unique product in many ways, but the distinction I want to look at today has been a subject of discourse on social media, boiling down to this:
If we are looking at a sports team that we support as a product, why are we expected to stick around with a smile on our faces, when we are spending our time and energy on other things?
It is not just a product for sports to be popular, it is not just a sport. The teams we love are part of our identities, and the "rain or shine" aspect is a huge part of what fans see as culturally acceptable. Bandwagon fans invest their time, interest, and money in a product that they know is going to succeed, but we all know that is not what they are about. We don't see them as having real loyalty, of crawling through the mud with your team on a down streak until they see the light of day on the other side. It is easy to be a bandwagon fan, so does that mean that consumers should expect their investment to be met with days, weeks, or years of difficulty and frustration?
There is no real return on the product of sports, aside from the fact that you get to brag about your team. Which is why the comparison from the social media site doesn't work. At a restaurant, you are probably consuming a bodily necessity in food and drink. We need to give you money in return for food to stay alive. Does it have to be from that restaurant? We are consuming a product in sports. It is a choice, not only to support your team, but also to become invested in sports.
I understand. I am a Cubs fan. The Charlie Weis era saw a lot of Notre Dame games. It is not fun to see your team lose, but you do expect better. It is normal to have a human reaction to your team not being better. Taking that anger and frustration out on the athletes is not necessarily the way to go.
The Mets players gave the crowd a thumbs down after scoring this summer. In a press conference after the incident, he said that they are not machines. We are going to struggle seven times. It feels bad when I strike out and get booed.
I know that they make millions of dollars and we don't feel bad for them because they get booed. I think fans have a right to express their feelings about a sport, which is an extremely emotional product that we consume. We receive a wide variety of emotions from our sports consumption, which is dependent on how your favorite team performs on a given day. There is a sense of identity that is visible and vulnerable to those around you in sports fandom. If your team performs poorly, your friends and acquaintances will turn to you to make fun of them or ask tough questions. By investing in one fandom or another, you become an extension of that team or program in your daily life.
The athletes are only one part of a larger production system that surrounds sports, and while we can express our anger with coaches, GMs, presidents, owners, and the like, the only people we are really granted personal access to are the athletes. The people who have the misfortune of hearing booing are the ones who are using their bodies and doing their best to succeed. I was at a college football game this fall where the starting quarterback was booed by the home crowd when he came back in to replace the backup. Is the jeering directed at the coaching decision? Probably, but a young man playing for no money who will probably never see the NFL is booed off his field by tens of thousands of people.
It is an interesting thing to think about, but there is no real conclusion on this. I think Knicks fans have a right to express their frustration, and while it is not classy to boo your own team, it is also their prerogative as invested fans. They have a certain level of power because the team couldn't exist without them. He was within his rights to come back at them. He is a person, not a god. He is getting booed by the people who are expected to support him and his team.
The fans owe him respect, but don't owe anything to the organization they support The organization doesn't owe the fans success, but they do owe the fans an effort, at least. It is hard to compare the consumption of such a unique aspect of our culture to the restaurant metaphor as it is hard to see how it works. The Knicks won the game.
