What a past week this has been (November 2 through November 8)!
With two exciting news media results, I would like to discuss the one dearest to sports fans here in the Chicago area: our Cubbies’ World Series Victory! How does the Cubs win for the first time in 108 years play a bearing on their fans’ health?
The Chicago Tribunes’ Sunday, November 6 article entitled “Team victories give fans psychological boost,” by John Keilman and Genevieve Bookwalter, says it all. Social scientists have been studying this extreme emotional reaction from dedicated sports fans for years. We are referring to the truly dedicated Cub supporter who has stuck with his hometown team through “the thick and the thin of it,” mostly “the thin of it,” for years and years and years. How much sweeter was this triumph! Daniel Wann, Murray State University’s sports psychology professor who has been intrigued in his studies of fan psychology, mentions “When the team does well, since (fans) have such a psychological connection, they (the fans) feel the success as well.”
While we all know the physically stressful pressure in a “tight game” (like the Cubs’ World Series seventh game), the article goes on to comment “A vicarious win has been shown to increase a fan’s testosterone level – and some scientists who measured these changes theorized that they could lead to larger effects, such as improving the health of one’s immune system.”
Huffington Post in their Healthy Living article, January 30, 2015, by Editor Anna Almendrala, states the undisputed research-supported evidence that there are “very real mental health advantages to claiming a sports team as your own.” Mr. Wann adds “Epic fandom is also linked to higher levels of well-being and general happiness with one’s social life, as well as lower levels of loneliness and alienation.” Around the world, athletic teams have boosted their fan base’s psychological health and even negated their supporters’ depression levels. Numerous studies have even concluded that sports teams’ victories have led to a drop in their city’s suicide rates.
It doesn’t even have to take a top championship win (though so much better), according to Robert Fernquist, a sociology professor at the University of Central Missouri. Having studied professional teams for 20 years, he concludes that sports culture is a part of identification. Fernquist points out “It’s a way for us to make a good life better or a bad life good…”
While the hormone rise of euphoria can quickly subside, pride or self-esteem when other Cub fans are near you can remain. How long will the good effects continue? This answer “is still up for grabs.” Dr. Wann, in his book “Sports Fans: The Psychology And Social Impact Of Spectators,” explains that sports fandom is simply another kind of chosen community, much like any active sports team participants or opera season ticket holders or Sun City charter club members. Wann states “The simple fact is that people are looking for ways to identify with something, to feel a sense of belonging-ness with a group of like-minded individuals.” Wann also mentions that the sports fandom’s community has an edge over other cultural communities. The fact of the matter is that no one knows the outcome at the beginning of a sports spectacle. The unexpected ending heightens the excitement!
And so it goes! Cubs supporters continue to purchase what seems like an endless supply of look-alike Cub paraphernalia during the weeks after their team’s World Series Victory. Wearing our new purchases, we can smile and talk to other now known Cub enthusiasts while expanding our special Sun City community to a larger one. Indeed, my husband and I are looking forward to wearing our new team caps, headband, sweatshirts, and shirts while in Florida this winter, seeking out fellow fans there. And then there is the fact that baseball has always been and still is a great “family sport.” This strengthens our own inner community. Many of us have grown up hearing family members comment, my deceased father included, “Never in my lifetime.” Well, our Huntley senior community did experience it now – the billy goat curse is gone and we did survive, especially into our own older years, to see the moment that the Cubs were victorious on a world baseball stage. It did happen in our lifetime!
