Any fan of any sports team knows the heartbreak that comes along with the role of being a fan. Every sport has a season, and the fact of the matter is that only one team’s fans will be happy at the end of it. There is only one group of people who will have a smile at the end of the season as they watch the players of their team hold the championship trophy in the air. What happens to all the other team’s fans? Those other fans are left with their heart shattered on the floor as they go into another off-season with no championship title.
This is the beauty and the tragedy of sports. A franchise that can either bring so much joy or so much sorrow to the lives of their fans. In sports, there is a winner and there is a loser. However, after the playoffs there is only one winner and many losers. Many fans have to accept the inevitable downfall of their team as they watch the hopes of a title on a banner for that year vanish in front of their very eyes.
The cycle is the same for so many fans every season. The beginning of the season being filled with so much hope and promise, no one knowing what will happen in the upcoming weeks. Projections are made and teams are analyzed but part of the beauty of sports is no one knows for sure what the season will entail.
Then the season progresses and the playoffs get closer and closer. Time is invested in watching games and calculating what you think your team needs to do in order to reach that magic time of the post season. Sometimes all chance of a championship is lost during the season, resulting in those fans starting their heartbreak sooner. For many other fans, whose team made the post season, the heartbreak will come later. The tragedy of sports is that it contributes to more broken hearts than joyous exclamations, as the season comes to a close with only one winner.
An outsider may ask why people put themselves through this torture? Why do people get so invested into an industry when that industry crushes their heart more often than it fills it with happiness? What benefit is there for watching a team you invested so much time and knowledge into not reach the one and only goal of a championship?
The only answer that seems viable to these questions is that the excitement makes up for the misery. Yes, you may watch your team lose in overtime with a goal scored in game seven of the playoffs or watch your star player fall to the court with a season ending injury, but you also may watch one of your outfielders rob a batter of a home run with an amazing catch or watch as the football glides through the air with the receiver jumping over the defenders to make a catch in the end zone. Sports may provide a fan with the lows of the low, but it also provides a fan with the highs of the high.
Sports can be compared to real life in many aspects, as real life creates a person's highs and a person's lows. The difference with sports and real life is that a fan in sports is no more than a bystander. Yes, fans can map out every play and every tactic they think needs to be done for their team to win a game, but sports provides fans with something in their lives that is completely out of their hands, both a frustrating and gratifying feeling. This makes it exhilarating. This makes it nerve-racking. And yes, it also makes it heartbreaking.
