Professional sports as opiate of the masses

[quikchange]

While watching a baseball game a few weeks ago, I wondered why people have affiliations with sports teams. What makes them care so much about the fortunes of an organization from which they receive no tangible benefit? More surprisingly, why is it that so many people care more about the progress of the sports teams they follow than they do about

Comments

[quikchange]

Does that mean that people would take a more active interest in politics if we had bookies involved?

[lambda_calculus]

There's apparently a website for just that. Let me see if I can find it after work...

[morethanreal]

InTrade and News Futures, among others. They're probably as good as polls if not better.

There're a couple reasons why people are more interested in spectator sports than current affairs. Entertainment, local identity, escapism (part of entertainment I guess), herd mentality, etc..

[tangbu]

Exactly this topic came up at work many years ago. One guy's hypothesis was that "we're all losers", so we compensate by trying to associate ourselves with a winning sports team. This doesn't explain the Maple Leafs.

[jfpoole]

I've seen the same behavior (albeit not on the same scale with companies) -- look at the loyal fan base Apple has, for example.

[quikchange]

To some degree, that behaviour on the part of Macheads does reflect self-interest, because the network effect means that more marketshare for the Mac improves the user-experience for Mac users (by giving them more choices of peripherals, 3rd-party software, etc.), although I'll hand you that this does not entirely account for it.