Recently I went to a LAN party (which is basically a video game party) whilst a football game

was going on, and upon entering the room I was immediately struck with a question: “why did

those guys get onion on the pizza?” I then had a second, more pertinent question: “why are there

1200 people outside eagerly watching people passing a pigskin, and only 12 people pushing

buttons?” Now this led me to ask an even bigger question: why do people come in droves to

watch college sports, but virtually nobody comes to a video game party with free food and drink?

Now there was a question I could really sink my teeth into, but with one small problem; there

was literally no research on this subject! However, when one comes across a question that has

literally never been asked before, one should rejoice, for this indicates an area where your lack of

expertise can be more readily overcome through research. Hopefully this paper will spark some

research into this topic by people who have the time and money to do it much more properly than

I can.

When faced with the utter lack of research in this area and faced with the prospect of

having to do my one’s own, the first action that I undertook was to figure out why people enjoy

sports so much. After all, as a gamer I can understand why people like video games, but when it

comes to sports I’m pretty much clueless. So perhaps by comparing the underlying psychology

of gamers to the mental makeup of a sports fan, the differences might elucidate some possible

explanations So I decided to delve into the psychology of sports fans, and it was massively

confusing at first. After a while I managed to get some sources that were not written in the lingo

of psychologists and what I found was most fascinating.

Turns out that there are two psychological factors at play when you talk about sports, and

they all sort of build off one another. According to a study by Adam Earnheardt, people do go to
sporting events to see top athletes show off how awesome their skills are, as shown by the

percent of respondents who watch sports for the aesthetics. After all, it’s amazing watching pros

show off their skills, which is something that tends not to happen at the college level for nerds.

The other and biggest psychological factor is a bit more complicated. It has to do with

association. According to a post by Eric Simons, who has written a book on this topic, people

sort of blur the lines between themselves and whatever team they’re rooting for. This blurring

allows to believe that they’re a critical part of the team and that their actions can somehow affect

the outcome of a game, essentially forming an extension of their own identity. This is why,

according to psychologist Shirley Wang, you have such ideas as the “lucky” piece of

paraphernalia. They saw that “their” team won when they wore a certain hat backwards, and then

they come to associate wearing their hat backwards with their team winning. This association

also is the reason for so many objects bearing the logo of some sports team, also called “swag”, a

general term for t-shirts, hats, and whatever other wearable, branded merchandise you can come

up with. The purpose of this swag is to show off one’s affinity with whatever team one chooses

to associate with, and apparently to begin arguments when you wear an opposing team’s branded

apparel into a home game. This swag also comes in handy when the team you associate with

wins, as it marks you as a fan to other fans who are overjoyed that their team won, which

because of the association in their minds, feels like they themselves actually won something,

although nothing of the sort actually occurred. This is why you’ll see a random stranger hugging

another random stranger wearing the same apparel, because they’re so overjoyed and they wish

to share this joy with other members of the same group.

Now I can hear you saying “what does all of this psychology nonsense have to do with

why more people will go to see slam dunks and less to go see poetry slams?” The answer is quite
a bit, actually. If you examine the psychology above you’ll notice that pretty much none of it

occurs when it comes to academic events. After thinking about it, I realized that there were

logical reasons that it didn’t apply. Sporting events happen on a regular basis and the teams exist

outside of any one person, meaning that you could replace the Niner’s football team with a team

of completely different people and it would still be, conceptually at least, the Niner’s football

team. But with virtually all academic events, this is not possible, usually because these events

feature multiple single people facing off against each other or a very small group where any

replacement is very evident. This means that association is possible with the football team, but is

a lot more difficult to do with a talent show. Finally, college sports, thanks to recruiting and

various scholarships, usually do have athletes that are pretty good. When it comes to a poetry

slam, the quality can vary quite a bit.

After a bit more thinking I realized that psychology can’t explain the whole thing, we’re

talking about an absolutely massive difference. Then after giving it a good think, I had an

interesting thought, could school culture influence things? Unfortunately, this is one of those

things that require a well-funded researcher to figure out. Figuring this out would require serious

time and money to figure out because although it is possible to find out what the culture is on

campus, most academic events tend to keep track of attendance internally, probably just to have

an idea of who’s there in case something happens. Unfortunately, they don’t publish these

numbers publically, so there’s really no way to get the data I require with the resources I have

available. However one can draw a few conclusions from the data at hand. We can use UNC

Charlotte and extrapolate data from there. Now then, from what I’ve experienced at UNCC the

overarching sports culture is remarkably low. Although there is a sports fandom it is neither very

big nor very rabid. Speaking from personal experience one can wear a opposing team’s apparel
and not get yelled at, although you will get some funny looks. However, based on descriptions of

other schools, this would not fly there. So there is a very real possibility that UNCC is a rather

glaring exception, possibly because there are many amateur (aka intramural) sports people can

join in if they just enjoy the game but aren’t good enough to make a normal team, which cuts

down on the number of fans who exist because they wish could do something similar. However,

there are a few conclusions that one can draw from various things. First off one can determine

how much a school emphasizes sports based upon how easy it is to find their sports section. If

you have to search for a bit, perhaps you’ve found a school that places less emphasis on sports.

Also, it is possible to find some academic events, especially if they’re school-sponsored.

However most academic events tend to be sponsored and organized by the students. Also, if a

school advertises its academic events, one might wish to be very careful, as it may be because

they’re trying to change their image of being a school where very little schooling happens.

Finally, one of the best things to do is just follow the money. Schools do have budgets which you

can sometimes find if you search enough. This allows you to see where they’re putting all that

sweet cash. If they’re putting it towards sporting arenas and coaches, perhaps you’ve found a

school that emphasizes sports. Using this and a couple of other things such as the long-running

Academic Tournament Bracket from the magazine Inside Higher Ed, unsurprisingly, your Ivy

league schools seem to be great at balancing academics and sports. Most of the smaller schools

that avoid high-level sports also tend to do well. The big midwestern schools tend not to do as

well.

In conclusion, we’ve seen reasons why college sports are less popular than academic

sports, hopefully sparking a conversation that will help research this unspoken of topic.

However, I would like to leave with a question. Is the fandom of college sports really all that
much greater than the video game in the real world or does it just look that way due to observer

bias? It’s entirely possible that more people in real life would like to go home and boot up their

console rather than go home and watch a football game.

After discussing mine conclusions, it might be useful to note some limitations and

baseline assumptions that were necessary for this paper. This will hopefully address some

questions as to where I am drawing certain conclusions from. The biggest thing to note is that as

of this writing, I am a college sophomore writing about a topic which has no previous research

backing it up. This means that not only do I lack relevant research papers , but I also lack the

time and resources to study this question in the most proper manner. Some may say that this

makes me unqualified to comment on it, but in an arena where nobody is talking about this

question, even an amateur's thoughts are somewhat valid. What this means for you, dear reader,

is that not all of this may not be as valid in the future. Although every attempt was made to keep

my conclusions as valid as possible, and I did attempt to check everything, there is the real

possibility that something slipped by me. Now then, it might also be useful to know a couple of

things about what I mean when I talk about “the average sports fan” and “the average nerd”. I

would like to note that the academic literature on the demographic data for sports fans is rather

lacking. The best resource possible was a research paper done by Carrie Cummings on the

demographics of the viewership of the 2016 Rio Olympic games. This study indicated that the

viewer was likely to be male, caucasian, and part of the middle to upper class. After attending a

few sporting events, these conclusions seem to be mostly valid. The demographics of those that

enjoy more academic events (those which I have dubbed “nerds” for the purposes of this paper)

are a lot more muddy. For this, I had virtually no other option but to rely on observation, as

searching for “demographics of nerds” yields some generally unhelpful results. After quite a bit
of observation, I concluded that your typical nerd in this paper is either caucasian or asian, and

has a very slight tilt towards being male. The last assumption I’m making is that attending a

video game party is as equally valid a form of entertainment as going to a sports game.
 Citations:

Bauer-Wolf, Jeremy. "Academic Tournament Bracket, 2018 (Women's Edition)." Which

Team Would Win the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament If Academics Ruled? Inside Higher
Ed, 14 Mar. 2018. Web. 26 Mar. 2018.

Cummings, Carrie. “Reaching Rio: Sports Fans Watching the Olympics Are Mostly
Men and Love cognac.(DATA POINTS).” ADWEEK 57.23 (2016): 14. Print.

Earnheardt, Adam C. "Exploring Fandom and Motives for Viewing Televised Sports." Sports
Mania: Essays on Fandom and the Media in the 21st Century. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. 158-
71. Print.

Simons, Eric. "The Psychology of Why Sports Fans See Their Teams as Extensions of
Themselves." The Washington Post. WP Company, 30 Jan. 2015. Web. 26 Mar. 2018.

Wang, Shirley. "Sports Complex: The Science Behind Fanatic Behavior." Association for
Psychological Science. Association for Psychological Science, May 2006. Web. 26 Mar. 2018.