Recently, I was accused of being addicted to sports. At first, my instinct was to deny that any such thing could be true. "I can't be addicted to sports," I told myself. Sports are merely a means of entertainment and source of fun for me. Additionally, I saw no problem with the choice of my favorite entertainment as it seemed innocent and harmless. Addiction is a word that we often associate with things that are detrimental to one's well being (i.e. drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc.). For this reason, I assumed sports were exempt from becoming an addiction. I decided that I would investigate the accusation made against me to determine if I really was addicted to sports. After some time of thinking and examining the way I spent my time on any given day, I came to the realization that being addicted to sports was certainly a possibility for me. Since then, I have come up with a handful of reasons accompanied by examples as to why sports are so addicting.

First, sports often produce story lines that are unmatched by any other form of entertainment. As kids, each of us was introduced to a variety of stories that had 'fairytale endings.' A story could be the best one that you'd ever heard, but if the ending wasn't fairytale-esque it quickly descended on our list of favorites. Sports provide those endings to stories that leave a good taste in our mouth and keep us eager to come back for more. Additionally, the stories that come from sports consistently entail elements that are too good to be made up or provide endings that could never be scripted. Take, for example, the Cleveland Cavaliers in last year's NBA Finals. The Cavaliers were staring defeat in the eyes in a best of 7 series as they found themselves down 3 games to 1 to the Golden State Warriors. Impressively, the Cavaliers won 3 straight games against a team that had looked nearly unbeatable to become the first team in NBA history to comeback from a 3-1 deficit completing a truly fairytale ending. Maybe basketball isn't your thing so let's look at another example. In the most recent Super Bowl, Super Bowl 51, the New England Patriots faced a 25 point deficit in the second half. Throughout the second half, the Patriots imposed their will on the game and came back to claim a 34-28 victory. On top of completing the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history, Tom Brady was handed the Super Bowl trophy by Commissioner Goodell, the same guy that had issued a 4 game suspension to Brady to begin the season. Who would've ever scripted a story line like that? Nobody! Sports provide fairytale endings that are unimaginable.

Next, our childhood dreams are able to be partially fulfilled as we live vicariously through others. At some point in time, most people played one sport or another and I would bet that they each dreamed of playing that sport professionally for a living at some point in time. As sports fans, we tend to latch on to players that mimic the way we used to play or have characteristics and skills that we wished we had. For this reason, we are able to relate to and associate with these certain athletes in a way that often makes it seem like the athlete's success is our own success. Russell Westbrook is a perfect example of this. Over the course of the last season, Westbrook has set a new record for triple doubles in an NBA regular season. Westbrook has gained a massive following due to his recent success, and I can't help but think that most of this following is due to the fact that so many people wanted to be a freakishly athletic, NBA all-star that set new records for the league. Sports allow use to live vicariously through others that live realities that we could only dream of.

Third, sports appeal to all emotions and thus all people can relate to the way sports make you feel. Sports provide intense happiness, bitter sadness, appealing excitement, and devastating agony. Sports instill a sense of hope, a feeling of nervousness, and many other emotions. Often times, sports take the fan on an emotional roller coaster as they experience high highs and low lows in the course of just a few minutes, hours, days, weeks, etc. No matter how wild the roller coaster of emotions is, sports have a way of connecting with all of us through emotion. This past season directly before the Big Ten Conference tournament, the University of Michigan Men's basketball team was on a plane to fly to D.C. when their plane slid off the runway into the grass. Luckily, nobody was hurt and the team was still able to participate in the tournament. Michigan was the 8th best team in the conference during the regular season, but went on a 4 game win streak in 4 days to win the conference tournament. Talk about an emotional roller coaster! Within the span of a week, the team had their plane crash before takeoff, rearranged travel plans, played a game in their practice uniforms, and won the conference tournament after 4 consecutive days of great basketball. Those are the kind of emotional roller coasters that sports provide, which leaves us wondering how wild the next roller coaster of emotion will be.

Finally, sports provide true underdog stories that captivate audiences and inspire the casual sports fan to root for teams that they wouldn't otherwise care about. This past baseball season, the Chicago Cubs were exactly that: an underdog. The franchise began the season with a 108-year drought since its last championship. However, the Cubs pieced together an impressive season and found themselves hoisting the championship trophy last fall. Another example is the Premier League soccer club Leicester City. When the season began, the odds of Leicester City winning the Premier League were 5,000 to 1. If you aren't familiar with the way the odds of winning work, let me put it into perspective for you. The odds of Leicester City winning the Premier League were just as likely as Barack Obama playing cricket for England or Elvis Presley being found alive. To say Leicester City was an underdog would be the understatement of the century. There was no way they were supposed to win the league. Throughout the season, the team picked up many fans that wouldn't have otherwise cared about the Premier League simply because they were such a huge underdog. These stories hit home for all of us because at some point in our lives we have been an underdog in a given situation. Through sports, we are able to root for teams that "aren't supposed to win" similar to the way each of us was at some point in our life.

Sports play an enormous role in modern-day American society. Sports produce stories that are too good to be scripted, allow our childhood dreams to unfold through the success of others, appeal to all emotions and thus all people, and provide underdog stories that entice the casual fan. Whether an addiction to sports is detrimental to one's well-being is still to be determined, but one thing is absolutely true: sports are addicting!