I am printing this article from today's New York Times, because the Times does not always allows access through an internet link. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did. Happy New Year to all, and Fight on State, and beat Georgia, Cheerleader Ed
Why Fans Stand by Perennial Losers
Keeping Score
By BEN BERKON DEC. 31, 2015
Although they advanced to the World Series in October, the Mets last won a championship in 1986. For some fans, the vigor surrounding that team still has not worn off.
Bonnie Margulies and her husband, Alan, have loyally waited for the franchise to return to its 1980s glory days.
“It’s easy to be a fan of a team that wins all the time,” said Bonnie, a native of Little Neck, Queens.
The Margulieses have been fans of the Mets since the early 1960s, attending as many as 75 home games every year since becoming full season-ticket holders in 2006.
“My father was a Mets fan, and then my parents got divorced,” Bonnie said. “My stepfather was a Dodgers fan, but I stayed a Mets fan out of stubbornness.”
“Out of spite,” Alan injected.
The familiar pangs of anguish — a product of unfulfilled annual expectations — are not unique to the Margulies family and Mets fans.
The list of affected fan bases is endless. Devotees of the Chicago Cubs, the Cleveland Browns, the St. Louis Blues and the Sacramento Kings, for instance, also cheer through their tears.
But if the outcome is so predictable — and the experience so morose — why do fans of perennially lackluster sports teams continue to remain loyal? As with any bond or relationship that causes personal turmoil, the real question always becomes, why do you not just leave?
Loyal fandom is a multifarious, psychological quagmire, which academics have attempted to study and model throughout the years.
In 2001, Daniel C. Funk and Jeff James developed a Psychological Continuum Model in conjunction with their article “A Conceptual Framework for Understanding an Individual’s Psychological Connection to Sport.”
According to the model, one’s path in fandom can be isolated into four “floors”: awareness, attraction, attachment and allegiance.
“Looking at a basic elevator analogy, you cannot just get to the top,” said Funk, a professor at the Temple University School of Business and a consumer behavior expert. “People go through a progressive development in their fandom.”
Michael Serby, a professor of psychiatry at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, said that in most cases, a person became aware of the team that made sense geographically, and in order to change the allegiance, “you have to unlearn it.”
“But if fandom starts early — and it is reinforced enough — that is a pretty profound impression,” Serby added.
A fan could become “attracted” out of vanity, like jumping on the bandwagon during a team’s run of success. Escapism is another recurring, more addictive motive.
“I could have the worst day at work — bar none — but as soon as I walk through the turnstile at Citi Field, that feeling is gone,” Bonnie Margulies said.
But there is still no guarantee a person — whose father, aunt, neighbor or local bodega owner facilitates the introduction to a sport or team — becomes attached. Attachment is based more on “intrinsic than extrinsic processes,” according to Funk and James’s model.
The Escalator Model, developed by Bernard Mullin, Stephen Hardy and William Sutton, identified the possibility for two fans to develop a simultaneous “awareness” of a team, but with varying rates of progression.
In the context of Funk and James’s model, it is possible that Fan A more quickly proceeds to the next “floor.” Fan B might never proceed past the initial “awareness,” whereas Fan A’s mental security mirrors the ebb and flow of a particular game and its result.
“It is kind of analogous to how committed you are to maintain a close family tie,” Dr. Serby said. “There may be siblings who grow up together, but only one sibling feels allegiance to the family: a total connection, stays in a neighborhood near the parents. But another sibling may not feel that way: This sibling moves away and doesn’t see the family often at all. What determines that is the different experiences in childhood despite the same environment.”
Get the big sports news, highlights and analysis from Times journalists, with distinctive takes on games and some behind-the-scenes surprises, delivered to your inbox every week.
Sport teams’ inherent communal and social nature also fills a lacuna in the lives of those who seek or necessitate it.
“I can’t imagine going to games without having Bonnie and Alan there, and without all the people we sit with,” said Eric Sternberg, one of the 13 Mets fans the couple has sat with for years. “In some ways, I’m closer with them than I am with my actual family. We have that kind of special bond. A bond over the Mets.”
Trying to measure and analyze the mechanics of fandom is like trying to understand what bonds family members beyond mere biology. It won't...
Everyone loves the underdog and the loveable losers syndrome is a banding identity.The popularity of Red Sox & Cubs is directly related to...
I grew up in Syracuse NY in the 1950s-1960s, where the Yankees ruled. But I was born in Chicago. So, while everyone else in the...
The idiosyncrasies differentiating attachment from allegiance are subtle. While attachment is the physical and psychological nexus at which internal importance is fostered, allegiance is the perpetuation of the process. Essentially, at the point of allegiance for a fan, a sports team can do no wrong — even if the team consistently loses.
“Only 20 percent of sport fans show allegiance,” Dr. Funk said. “The majority of sport consumers are not loyal; they are fair-weather fans. A sport team cannot have 65,000 loyal fans.”
But there is a term for fans’ loyalty to losing teams: Basking in Reflected Failure, or BIRFing, occurs when individuals who identify with a team that fails to consistently win maintain their in-group membership status.
“People start to wear it as a badge of honor,” Dr. Serby said.
In some cases, the camaraderie of losing actually supersedes the sanctity of winning.
“The sport is this platform that brings that relational group together, and it keeps it strong regardless of what a team does,” Dr. Funk said. “There are people who do not even like the sport team — but they like the in-group. And that would make it difficult to leave.”
The definitive Transtheoretical Model proposes a six-stage antidote for behavior change — for leaving.
The model is effective, though, only if those involved are committed to its deliverance. The first three stages involve getting ready to make a change: precontemplation, contemplation and preparation. And once action is taken, it must be maintained to prevent relapse before the connection can be declared terminated.
“I couldn’t be a casual fan; it would be like being a casual parent,” Bonnie Margulies said.
Dr. Serby understands the fealty of rooting for a team that has a record of losing. He supported the Brooklyn Dodgers, and now, the Mets.
“When I was kid, the Brooklyn Dodgers were great but found a way to lose every year,” Dr. Serby said. “Brooklynites were really proud of saying, ‘Wait till next year.’ We were ‘the bums’ — but affectionately.”
He added: “But for a fan to be in my office, for example, and present losing as a crushing personal defeat, I would try to wonder with you what the context of that was. What is it about the rest of your life that makes losing have such an oversized lever?”
Why Fans Stand by Perennial Losers
Keeping Score
By BEN BERKON DEC. 31, 2015
Although they advanced to the World Series in October, the Mets last won a championship in 1986. For some fans, the vigor surrounding that team still has not worn off.
Bonnie Margulies and her husband, Alan, have loyally waited for the franchise to return to its 1980s glory days.
“It’s easy to be a fan of a team that wins all the time,” said Bonnie, a native of Little Neck, Queens.
The Margulieses have been fans of the Mets since the early 1960s, attending as many as 75 home games every year since becoming full season-ticket holders in 2006.
“My father was a Mets fan, and then my parents got divorced,” Bonnie said. “My stepfather was a Dodgers fan, but I stayed a Mets fan out of stubbornness.”
“Out of spite,” Alan injected.
The familiar pangs of anguish — a product of unfulfilled annual expectations — are not unique to the Margulies family and Mets fans.
The list of affected fan bases is endless. Devotees of the Chicago Cubs, the Cleveland Browns, the St. Louis Blues and the Sacramento Kings, for instance, also cheer through their tears.
But if the outcome is so predictable — and the experience so morose — why do fans of perennially lackluster sports teams continue to remain loyal? As with any bond or relationship that causes personal turmoil, the real question always becomes, why do you not just leave?
Loyal fandom is a multifarious, psychological quagmire, which academics have attempted to study and model throughout the years.
In 2001, Daniel C. Funk and Jeff James developed a Psychological Continuum Model in conjunction with their article “A Conceptual Framework for Understanding an Individual’s Psychological Connection to Sport.”
According to the model, one’s path in fandom can be isolated into four “floors”: awareness, attraction, attachment and allegiance.
“Looking at a basic elevator analogy, you cannot just get to the top,” said Funk, a professor at the Temple University School of Business and a consumer behavior expert. “People go through a progressive development in their fandom.”
Michael Serby, a professor of psychiatry at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, said that in most cases, a person became aware of the team that made sense geographically, and in order to change the allegiance, “you have to unlearn it.”
“But if fandom starts early — and it is reinforced enough — that is a pretty profound impression,” Serby added.
A fan could become “attracted” out of vanity, like jumping on the bandwagon during a team’s run of success. Escapism is another recurring, more addictive motive.
“I could have the worst day at work — bar none — but as soon as I walk through the turnstile at Citi Field, that feeling is gone,” Bonnie Margulies said.
But there is still no guarantee a person — whose father, aunt, neighbor or local bodega owner facilitates the introduction to a sport or team — becomes attached. Attachment is based more on “intrinsic than extrinsic processes,” according to Funk and James’s model.
The Escalator Model, developed by Bernard Mullin, Stephen Hardy and William Sutton, identified the possibility for two fans to develop a simultaneous “awareness” of a team, but with varying rates of progression.
In the context of Funk and James’s model, it is possible that Fan A more quickly proceeds to the next “floor.” Fan B might never proceed past the initial “awareness,” whereas Fan A’s mental security mirrors the ebb and flow of a particular game and its result.
“It is kind of analogous to how committed you are to maintain a close family tie,” Dr. Serby said. “There may be siblings who grow up together, but only one sibling feels allegiance to the family: a total connection, stays in a neighborhood near the parents. But another sibling may not feel that way: This sibling moves away and doesn’t see the family often at all. What determines that is the different experiences in childhood despite the same environment.”
Get the big sports news, highlights and analysis from Times journalists, with distinctive takes on games and some behind-the-scenes surprises, delivered to your inbox every week.
Sport teams’ inherent communal and social nature also fills a lacuna in the lives of those who seek or necessitate it.
“I can’t imagine going to games without having Bonnie and Alan there, and without all the people we sit with,” said Eric Sternberg, one of the 13 Mets fans the couple has sat with for years. “In some ways, I’m closer with them than I am with my actual family. We have that kind of special bond. A bond over the Mets.”
Trying to measure and analyze the mechanics of fandom is like trying to understand what bonds family members beyond mere biology. It won't...
Everyone loves the underdog and the loveable losers syndrome is a banding identity.The popularity of Red Sox & Cubs is directly related to...
I grew up in Syracuse NY in the 1950s-1960s, where the Yankees ruled. But I was born in Chicago. So, while everyone else in the...
The idiosyncrasies differentiating attachment from allegiance are subtle. While attachment is the physical and psychological nexus at which internal importance is fostered, allegiance is the perpetuation of the process. Essentially, at the point of allegiance for a fan, a sports team can do no wrong — even if the team consistently loses.
“Only 20 percent of sport fans show allegiance,” Dr. Funk said. “The majority of sport consumers are not loyal; they are fair-weather fans. A sport team cannot have 65,000 loyal fans.”
But there is a term for fans’ loyalty to losing teams: Basking in Reflected Failure, or BIRFing, occurs when individuals who identify with a team that fails to consistently win maintain their in-group membership status.
“People start to wear it as a badge of honor,” Dr. Serby said.
In some cases, the camaraderie of losing actually supersedes the sanctity of winning.
“The sport is this platform that brings that relational group together, and it keeps it strong regardless of what a team does,” Dr. Funk said. “There are people who do not even like the sport team — but they like the in-group. And that would make it difficult to leave.”
The definitive Transtheoretical Model proposes a six-stage antidote for behavior change — for leaving.
The model is effective, though, only if those involved are committed to its deliverance. The first three stages involve getting ready to make a change: precontemplation, contemplation and preparation. And once action is taken, it must be maintained to prevent relapse before the connection can be declared terminated.
“I couldn’t be a casual fan; it would be like being a casual parent,” Bonnie Margulies said.
Dr. Serby understands the fealty of rooting for a team that has a record of losing. He supported the Brooklyn Dodgers, and now, the Mets.
“When I was kid, the Brooklyn Dodgers were great but found a way to lose every year,” Dr. Serby said. “Brooklynites were really proud of saying, ‘Wait till next year.’ We were ‘the bums’ — but affectionately.”
He added: “But for a fan to be in my office, for example, and present losing as a crushing personal defeat, I would try to wonder with you what the context of that was. What is it about the rest of your life that makes losing have such an oversized lever?”
