Everybody Scores

There’s an episode of “Sex and the City” where Samantha (the blonde vixen played by Kim Cattrall) is dating a New York Knicks super fan, who only “scores” when they do. Samantha becomes as obsessed with the Knicks as he is, knowing her chances of getting any action from her man depend on their victory.

A particular scene shows Samantha sitting at her boyfriend’s apartment, celebrating a Knicks win in the final game of their season. As the buzzer sounds, she leans over to him for a passionate kiss, only to be brushed away.

“Not now babe,” he says. “The Mets are playing Chicago, and now that basketball’s over I can give ‘em my full attention…man have they been playing lousy ball this year!”

In comes the narrator: “The idea of lasting through another sexless season was more than Samantha could take. And so, she forfeited the game.”

Today’s sports media is no stranger to the super fans of American athletics. Whether it’s topless frat boys painted with one letter per body, or Cubs fans bawling after a loss. Fans do more than invest their time and money - they invest significant emotion.

I can tell you this from personal experience. The first time I ever heard the F-bomb was from my father, jumping out of his old blue recliner and screaming it at the television after a Tennessee football fumble. This was the first of thousands of football-induced F-bombs to come.

But, is screaming yourself hoarse and enduring heartbreak during a losing season really worth it? It’s no hyperbole to say that a single fan’s emotional investment will have literally no effect on the outcome of a game. One fan in one household screaming at a television isn’t going to complete a pass or make a basket.

So why do we do it? Why do we invest so much of ourselves in whether our favorite team wins or loses? It’s simple: because when we sit down to watch our favorite sport, it’s a chunk of time out of the day where the outcome is completely dependent on someone else. There’s no pressure on the fans, no real consequence from a game lost, because that’s all it really is – a game.

So continue on, crazed fanatics. Get out your foam fingers and make your witty posters. Pay ridiculous amounts of money to watch your favorite team score in HD on your new flat screen, because really, the only person winning (hopefully) is yourself.