It is time we discuss what numerous sports fans love to hate: Bandwagon fans. It appears that people feel a certain sense of pride for supporting a team through a long number of years when the team was awful and then became good. I understand this notion. Growing up as a kid, now 20 years old, I was an all-around WA St. sports fan and suffered through years of agony: being a fan of the Seattle Mariners (*sigh*…why was I cursed with following this team?...), the Seattle Supersonics (WHY DID THEY HAVE TO MOVE AWAY?!...TO OKLAHOMA CITY OF ALL PLACES?!), and the Seattle Seahawks (SUPER BOWL XL WAS RIGGED DAMMIT! *slams fist into table*).

I did not follow Hockey as Seattle does not even have a major-league Hockey team and I never did like Soccer, though it was exciting to see the Sounders actually win something. I also took quite an interest in college teams, mainly the Washington Huskies and Washington State Cougars, in football and basketball…and while the Huskies in football are good now (even reaching the playoffs this year), I’ll never forget 2008 when they went 0-12, the Cougars went 1-11 and the Cougars only win was in the Apple Cup vs. the winless Huskies (coincidentally, 2008 was just a bad year for WA St. sports in general: the Seahawks were a mediocre 4-12, the Mariners 61-101, and the Sonics moved away that year). Likewise, the Husky’s and Cougar’s basketball programs then and now are stuck in a vicious cycle in mediocrity—Gonzaga is consistently good though so there’s that at least.

But boy did it feel good when one of my teams actually started winning! I still vividly remember the year the Seahawks won Superbowl XLVIII in 2013 and I could not have been happier to experience what a championship season felt like. What slightly irked me I’ll admit was indeed seeing so many people suddenly pronounce the Seahawks as their all-time favorite team—I can vouch for the stigma that, based on the RIDICULOUS amount of people suddenly wearing Seahawks’ merchandise and the fandom growing so much online, that there are indeed many bandwagon fans. I do not want to totally mislead readers though: the Seattle Seahawks’ attendance at games, has held consistently through thick and thin. For instance, from 2008-2016, the Seahawks did not have an average attendance less than 65,000. https://www.statista.com/statistics/249667/average-home-attendance-of-the-seattle-seahawks/. Hovering between 65,000-70,000.

However, I would like to pose a question: Who honestly cares, how “real” of a fan someone is? If someone wants to be a fan of the Seattle Seahawks (or any team for that matter) whether they were fans from the inception of the franchise, or if they just became fans yesterday…who are we to judge? If so many people want to support the Seahawks then I have that many more people to talk sports with about a team I am passionate about, and in fact I have found that having so many people to talk football with has enhanced my interest in the sport.

In addition, when a team starts winning, it is common sense that their fan base will grow. This holds true for other teams, in any sport: Cubs, Warriors, Panthers, Cowboys, etc. It’s a common fact: winning puts fans in the seats, and drives up revenue for the franchise! Not to mention that accusing new fans of being bandwagoners is the most hipster argument ever. "I was a fan before they were good, anyone who likes them now is a poser.” Here’s a possible suggestion for those with that attitude: what if the team that they are now interested in was their first real experience with the sport? If someone did not grow up watching, or playing, basketball and then one day watched the Warriors and became a fan…is not that good for the sport? Heck, one of these days, Seattle may get a Hockey team—and let’s say hypothetically I was a casual fan and then some odd number of years later they won a championship and I became a much bigger fan of them. Am I by that logic some scum bandwagon fan? It’s perfectly natural to feel more passionate about and talk more about your team when they’re winning. Once more, winning increases popularity for a team and the reality for people who are not major fans of a sport to begin with is, sitting through years of mediocrity can turn them away for long periods of time. However, sometimes all it takes is one amazing season for fans to get incredibly hooked onto a team. There's no reason to find problems with that. It does not make sense to hate people who have realized that Russel Wilson is Houdini with a football. Celebrate their discovery with them.

Watching the Seahawks can give you an anxiety attack but is also really fun! You can't prevent people from watching a successful team and scold people because they have not endured a losing season. In reflecting I am happy for bandwagoners: We can watch the game together. We have a similar interest so let's bond over it. The Seahawks are fun to watch, let’s watch them together. I refuse to act like the way others root is going to devalue my fan hood over the years. As if the Super Bowl the Seahawks won is illegitimate because there's someone next to me, cheering just as hard, who may not quite have the knowledge of the team’s history that I do. Worrying about the way other people root and cheer is frankly very insecure, pointless behavior. I don't care about the reason why someone likes the Seahawks. What matters is that we are both fans of the same team. In my opinion, while many bandwagon fans will jump off the Seahawk’s bandwagon when they are no longer good, many more will continue to be fans of the team through thick and thin. Like me, they will appreciate the current winning ways of the team and will be humbled by the inevitable downfall of the franchise (which happens with EVERY team).

Here's what bandwagon fans will find out: They will DEFINITELY experience pain. Whatever the "real" fans went through in the past, it's coming for these new fans in the future. The Seahawks not running the ball at the 1 yard line in SuperBowl XLIX? Oof…that hurt. A season-ending injury for Earl Thomas? A player getting ridiculously overpaid? A trade going awry? And when the Seahawks go back into turmoil the fans will be fuming in anger at them like I do with the Mariners (okay…maybe not THAT far, that’s a cruel fate for anybody). The bandwagon fans will have their characters built up. Perhaps no other season will ever be as good as that one magical season, but now they're invested even more, so they're rooting even more fiercely.

The bandwagon fans will soon learn that the odds are against a championship run for every team, no matter how good the team may be. Maybe they’ll be like me when I watched in horror as I realized Tavaris Jackson was the Starting Quarterback at one point, and perhaps they’ll rage like me if they see their quarterback throw a bullet off the receiver’s hands five yards away—which is then promptly intercepted by the defense and returned for a touchdown. Perhaps they’ll watch in shell-shocked disappointment like I did when the Seahawks would constantly get blown out. The new fans will soak up all of those debilitating feelings, knowing what it's like to root for a team that makes incredibly stressed out to even think about, making them feel as though watching them is a waste of time. But when their team finally wins a championship again…it’ll perhaps be even sweeter than the first one. It will take an x amount of years…sometimes a fan will be lucky to experience a repeat or even more rare a 3-peat—or sometimes they are unlucky enough to be Cub’s fans, desperately waiting 108 years to finally win a championship. The fans have no control over how good their teams will be but now they are fans for life. And that in my opinion, is one of the true beauties of the sports, the unpredictability and the range of emotions, and the passion you exhibit while watching is what makes watching worth it and what makes it fun.