Mike Schur

who teaches at Murray State.

He's been studying fandom in all its forms for a very long time.

And he said something that is so obviously empirically true, but that I had never articulated, which was like, if sports were just like fun and distracting and entertaining...

Okay, yeah, people would be kind of into it, but there's a billion or more sports fans in the world of all different kinds.

And he said, the way he put it was, if that's true, then this thing, fandom, has to be meeting basic psychological and emotional needs.

Like there are needs that we have as a species that are being met by this phenomenon.

And when you stop thinking of it as like, oh, yeah, I like baseball.

And you start thinking of it as this is meeting a basic emotional need that I have in one way or another.

You start to understand why I, Mike, will cry at any video of a dramatic last second buzzer beater NBA shot in which there's a crowd pop.

Any video where you're in the back row and it gets quiet, the ball's in the air, you can't even see it because the video's too small, and then suddenly the entire crowd erupts, I have the instinct to cry every time I watch one of those.

And the same is true of walk-off homers.

If I see a video of Joe Carter's walk-off homer in the World Series, if I see Jackie Robinson stealing home,

And safe by a millimeter.

I feel tears well up in my eyes.

And that is not, and that's when it's not even my team or a big moment or whatever.

And then you add on to that.

Now I have an 18-year-old son.

I share those moments with my son.

We went to game two of the NBA finals in 24 and saw the Celtics win.

I cried on the plane on the way.