What Rabid Sports Fans Won’t Tell You About Why They Root For Their Team Like It’s The End Of The World

Germany lost to England in the UEFA European Championship today.

I watched the game at The Boot, a soccer bar nearby. My son, who played Division I soccer and now lives in Germany was rooting for Deutschland. I hadn’t watched a soccer game in years, since so many weekends were pre-ruined (as my ex put it) by soccer when the kids were little. 

When the kids stopped playing soccer, I stopped watching.

It’s been a long time since I sat in a room packed with rabid fans sporting team jerseys. I’d forgotten the wave of emotion that courses through a crowd, and how electric this hyperfocused energy is. In the past, I struggled to understand why sports fans got so emotional about something so out of their control.

I finally got it: sports fandom is more than contemporary tribalism.

It’s socially sanctioned catharsis. Where else can people, men especially, express a full range of emotions in the company of strangers? It’s not just about belonging, of knowing who “we” are and who “they” are, or about community. 

It’s a place and time when we can let feelings sweep us away.

We can fully express our emotions, from jubilation to despair, from indignation to shame, from anger to pride with no one shushing us, telling us we’re over the top, or gaslighting us. 

We can allow ourselves to feel all the feels without inhibition, knowing we won’t be alone in our joy or sadness. A sports bar is the cheapest, easiest place to express our full humanity, in community, and without judgment. 

Henri Rousseau, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons