Sportsiology

Watching the playoffs often means watching your favorite team through the eyes of a national audience. While many of us would deny our own analysts as “homers,” we still find a level of familiarity in them that often makes us turn to them in times of sport. As sports fans, we develop an “us” vs. “them” mentality—our team vs. their team, our fans vs. their fans. Without even thinking about it, we have defined our in-group and our out-group. Within our in-group, we have loyalty. We will follow our in-group and accept much of what they do, even if we wouldn’t stand for it from others. A foul is dirty when committed by someone in our out-group but it becomes justified, or not a foul at all, when a member of our in-group is accused. We accept criticism from our fellow fans, analysts and commentators in a way we would not from those in the out-group. Are we truer fans if we appreciate the challenge of listening to our out-group announce our games or, can we still be called fans if we find ourselves muting TNT and ESPN whenever we can?