The Psychology Behind Major American Sports
Over time, almost everything changes.Sports is no exception. Not only the rules, but also the atmosphere in professional leagues. In the NFL, as stringent QB laws developed, so did the evolution of superteams. The trend is even more pronounced in the NBA, with flopping, foul hunting and “protecting the shooter” laws increasingly prevalent. Clear superteams like the Brooklyn Nets and subdued superteams like the Lakers and Clippers, as well as ring chasing among veteran players, in recent years have skyrocketed in frequency. The MLB has changed the least of the 3 most watched American sports leagues, with the superteams era in its infancy, the exception being the Los Angeles Dodgers.
With these dramatic changes in the past few years, fans have changed as well. Sports in the 1980s and 1990s, and even 2000s was not what it is now. Basketball and football have become breeding grounds for toxicity between fanbases. Comparisons have delved deeper and deeper into the crevices of players’ personalities, strategies and characteristics unrelated to the game they play. Propelled by popular culture, especially social media platforms, and insecurities people hold about themselves, sports has become less of an environment to behold and enjoy the spectacle before them, and more of a place to voice their hate and criticism about athletes.
In any sport, dynasties are usually hated by everyone except the dynasty and the team itself. It happened with the Patriots, whose motto is “They Hate Us ’Cause They Ain’t Us”, and who went to consecutive Super Bowls multiple times. Football became about who could topple the king, who was the David to the Goliath that was Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.
Everyone, every year, wanted them to lose.
Anything that could be used against New England was. They became the villain and the toxic atmosphere around them became perpetual as long as their success was maintained. In the NBA, where the Cavaliers and the Warriors met four straight years, fans became bored at the consecutive Finals matchups and the two teams’ dominance in their respective conferences.
The Warriors became the villain in basketball, and the hate directed toward them was exponentially increased by the signing of Kevin Durant in 2017. Superteams have now become a staple of sports, and when those teams win, people find a way to invalidate it. Either through referees, injuries, and further declared sabotages.
The sports world, which is a business in itself, is starting to show that. To sell tickets, to sell jerseys, to keep a team afloat, a profitable idea, especially an underdog narrative, has to be manipulated. The Titans run in the the 2020 NFL Playoffs was spectacular, as they knocked off the defending champions, the Patriots, and the #1 seed, the Baltimore Ravens.
Patrick Mahomes’ and his success has been polarizing, though it’s also followed the same route. His sophomore season, which gave him the MVP and the Chiefs the first seed in the AFC let them go deep in the playoffs. In the AFC Championship game, even though they had the best record, people rooted for them to win, for they were still the underdog against Tom Brady and New England.
Two years later, when Brady went to Tampa Bay, and carried his team from a Wild Card fifth seed to the Super Bowl, where he faced Tom Brady, more fans cheered for the 6-time Super Bowl Champion instead of the up and coming superstar who’d won the previous year. Even though it was the same two players, Brady was the underdog against the defending champs, and even though his resume shadowed Mahomes’, he was the one at a disadvantage. In that game, where the Buccaneers trampled the Chiefs 31–9, Mahomes had virtually no O-Line, running around for over 400 yards with no TDs.
Fans ignored that, but complained when the Chiefs lost against the Patriots in the 2019 AFC Championship, citing referees with Deflategate ties and “rigging”.
Like in life, they enjoyed other’s success when they thought it was finite, but when that turns out false, they envy it and loathe them instead, going from fan to foe.
As much as people love stability in their lives, they hate it in sports. There always has to be drama. Sports, like Kevin Durant said recently, has become a circus where the attractions are the athletes themselves, and he’s right.
