I don’t know… I think you might be surprised how loyal and enthusiastic football (and other sports teams) fans are in their local regions. Look at college football, for instance.

A rough season for many teams. Here’s to looking next year!

Apropos of Dr. Grohol’s interesting piece:

It’s Not “Only a Game”

Ronald Pies MD

I am neither an athlete nor a big sports fan, but I know a bit about humiliation on the playing field. In high school, I actually managed to score a touchdown for the opposite team, by running the football across the wrong goal line. In twenty-five years, the coach had never witnessed this. In my nightmares, I can still see my teammates’ horror-struck faces. And so, in the wake of the Patriots’ traumatic loss in the Superbowl, I can feel a little of Patriot Nation’s pain.

The conventional and mainly useless anodyne for the fans of losing teams is, “It’s only a game.” The correct response—ideally, instead of slugging the well-meaning philosopher—is, “No, actually it’s not only a game. It’s part of me, lying face down on that football field.”

Sports physiologists and psychologists have known for some time that high-stakes games have profound physical and emotional effects on fans. David Edwards and colleagues at Emory University have shown that varsity soccer games can increase levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, and the sex hormone, testosterone, in both men and women. (Some might wonder if “testosterone poisoning” is part of the problem, when soccer fans become rowdy and violent). And a recent German study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that viewing a stressful soccer match more than doubles the risk of an “acute cardiovascular event”, including heart attacks and angina. There is no reason to suppose that American-style football is free of such risks, as some Patriots fans might confirm.

But there is a psychological piece of the puzzle, too. We all know that sports fans form strong emotional bonds to their favorite teams. But this form of “identification” can be a blessing or a curse, as Patriots (and Red Sox) fans well know. Research in the 1970s by psychologist Robert Cialdini showed that college students were more likely to use the pronoun “we” after the home team had won than when their team had lost. Cialdini’s work formed the basis for later research by psychologist Christian End, of Xavier University, on two phenomena called BIRG and CORF. BIRG–”basking in reflected glory”—is what many sports fans do when their team wins: the hats, T-shirts and painted faces all advertise the person’s identification with the winning team. The flip-side is CORF–”cutting off reflected failure,” or distancing oneself from a team that is losing. We often see CORF in the “fair-weather” fans who start talking about their team as “they”, rather than “we”, as the team begins to flame out. According to End, each of these unconscious strategies is a way of maintaining our self-esteem. Put another way, when Tom Brady completes that winning touchdown pass, Patriots fans raise their arms in triumph. When Brady gets sacked, there is a part of every fan that feels the body-blow. In the aftermath of the Patriot’s stunning Super Bowl loss, it’s not surprising that many Patriot fans find themselves face down in the dirt, emotionally speaking.

How long do these traumatic effects last? There seems to be very little solid research on this issue. My reading of sports websites suggests that for many lifelong fans, traumatic memories of “losing the big one” reverberate for years, or even decades. (Even a sports wimp like me can still remember the ball rolling through Bill Buckner’s legs, in the 1986 World Series). What can we do to avoid going into an emotional tailspin, after a major loss by the home team? How can we help our patients who may be so affected? If you can believe that “it’s only a game,” good for you. But most die-hard sports fans will not be helped by such counsel.

Sports psychologist Dr. Alan Goldberg suggests a different road to recovery. He argues on his website that, “The most successful people in and out of sports do two things differently than everyone else. First, they are more willing to take risks and therefore fail more frequently. Second, they use their failures in a positive way as a source of motivation and feedback to improve.” You can bet that, in time, the Patriots will do exactly that—honing their game for the next season by using their Super Bowl loss as a beneficial kick in the pants. Fans are left to recuperate in more indirect ways—maybe by becoming even better fans. For example, after a few understandable days of licking their wounds and crying in their beer, Patriots fans might consider supporting the New England Patriots Charitable Foundation. According to the Patriots’ website, the primary goal of the Foundation is “…to support programs that aid the youth and families of the New England region by assisting charities that foster cultural diversity, education, family and health.” That sounds like a no-lose proposition to me, and it is better than moping around the house over what might have been. In short, it’s not only a game–it’s an opportunity for some personal growth.