Author:
An Observer
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Date Posted: 12:33:49 01/20/22 Thu
Did you ever wonder why people root for sports teams? Seriously, why is that something that human beings do? We kind of take it for granted as normal because it's so universal.
I played sports as a younger person and loved most of them. But that does not explain why somebody would root for the Dallas Cowboys, whether they live in the metroplex area or not. I believe that most people root for sports teams because they have a hunger, a deep seated psychological need to achieve. Most people in normal jobs and normal careers do not have the opportunity to experience short-term, binary episodes of achievement or failure. Sure, over time, you hope to get better at your job and advance in your career. But that's a gradual process.
Sports allow us to experience episodic flights of self-esteem and self-worth when our favorite team wins. So it's important to us, very important.
Given all of that, is it any wonder that alumni of Texas A&M University can quickly raise half a billion dollars to renovate and expand Kyle Field? (By the way, it is absolutely stunning. If you're going to drop half a billion dollars, you should expect the Taj Mahal.)
Well, if you're willing to drop half a billion dollars to renovate and expand a building which will be used for its primary purpose on only six Saturdays per year, you're probably also willing to drop several tens of millions of dollars to increase the probability that you leave the stadium on those six Saturdays with a smile on your face.
I like to play poker. Where I play, about three-quarters of the higher stakes players are full-time poker players. This is what they do for a living. The remaining one-quarter are recreational players. The way that I see it, the full-time poker players supply their time in return for what they hope is an erratic, inconsistent stream of income. The recreational players supply their money in return for entertainment.
If you cancel the like commodity in both relationships (money), what's really happening in this ecosystem is that the full-time poker players supply their time to create entertainment for the recreational players.
But since there are three times as many full-time players as recreational players, the full-time players have to work harder and harder, spend more and more time at the table, to cobble together an income.
Similarly, most avid sports fans crave a sense of achievement which is important to their self-esteem. Jimbo Fisher creates for Texas A&M fans an erratic, inconsistent stream of that vicarious sense of achievement. So the fans are willing to pay money even though the return on investment is uncertain and sporadic.
Because there can only be a small number of champions compared to the total number of participating teams, the supporters of those teams, like the professional poker players, have to work harder and harder, spending more and more money, to generate what they hope is an inconsistent stream of vicarious achievement.
And that's why Jimbo Fisher makes $8 million a year.
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