Why I Love the Washington Nationals

An introspective research project

By Cole Sebastian
There are few things more important in this world to me than the Washington Nationals. I
am constantly thinking about the team and obsessing over them. I see the Nationals as an
extension of myself. The purpose of this research project is to find the psychological motivations
behind why I love the Nationals. This was done through a combination of self-psychoanalysis
and review of literature. Before I did any research, I wrote an essay on what I believed was the
motivation behind my love for the Nationals and hoped to corroborate my hypotheses through
research. Then I researched the psychological motivations behind sports fandom in general and
wrote a review of literature on the subject using skills I had learned in Research Methods. The
two essays culminate in my final presentation which seeks to reconcile my personal analysis and
my objective research into a deeper understanding of myself and my love for the Nationals.

What Ive gained from Nationals fandom

I peered down onto the field over my steaming hot chocolate. As my childhood idol steps
up to the plate I wrap the blanket tighter around my shivering shoulders. The 41,313 fans in the

stadium are completely silent as Jason Motte of the St. Louis Cardinals wizzes a strike past Ryan
Zimmerman. Its the bottom of the ninth with two outs and the Washington Nationals are down
9-7 in the final game of the first series of the 2012 postseason. Motte sets up his next pitch.
Zimmerman makes contact. Its a shallow pop-up to center field. The game is over before the
center fielder even reaches the ball.
I sobbed the entire ride home. I cried myself to sleep that night. I hung my head low for
the following week. I couldnt bear the pain of having a 98 wins worth of hope and build up end
with one fly ball. I invested all my emotional stock into one team and was hit hard by the crash.
Yet throughout all my sorrow, two words gave me hope: next season. There is always next
season.
The next season came and went with similar heartbreak. So did the season after that. And
the season after that. Every time, I entered with high hopes but ended the season devastated.
Even when the Nationals had a winning record, every season ends in a loss so every season ends
in heartbreak. Only one out of 30 teams ends the season with a win so there is only a one in 30
chance that the season will end happily. Yet I and millions of other baseball fans keep coming
back, season after season. It seems insane when you look at the numbers. We invest a substantial
chunk of our time and money on an emotional lottery that we have a .03 percent chance of
winning.
Baseball, and all sports fandom, is essentially emotional gambling. I repeatedly go all in,
lose everything, and then come back for more. Just like a gambling addict. But I know being a
Nationals fan isnt nearly as destructive as having a gambling addiction. The purpose of my
research project is to determine why I keep coming back and why I still enjoy being a fan even
when my team is losing. For now, I have a few theories of my own that I hope to confirm or deny
through my research.
1. A sense of belonging: Being a baseball fan gives me an instant connection with
anybody who shares my love of the Nationals or is knowledgeable about baseball in
general. When I am at a baseball game, I know that every single person there is my
friend. There is a strong sense of community because we are all there for the same reason.
No matter how different we are, we share an immortal bond. That feeling of community
is rivaled by few other elements of my life. However, that connection through baseball
may simply be a substitute for genuine friendship. I may rely on baseball to give me the

illusion of intimate connection when baseball is actual a conversation filler that replaces
empathic relations. On the other hand, baseball can be a necessary gateway between
strangerhood and friendship.
2. A need for purpose: Despite my fandom having absolutely no influence on the
outcome of any game or season, being a Nationals fan feels like I am being productive
and contributing to a greater cause. Going to games and pouring over statistics somehow
feels productive. I dont quite understand why I feel this way but I may trick myself into
subconsciously believing that my relationship with the Nationals is codependent. I feel as
if the team needs me as much as I need the team. This is obviously untrue but this feeling
is how I rationalize giving so much of my time to the Nationals.
3. The acquirement of knowledge: Knowledge is power. It seems that this proverb
is true in most things except sports fandom. No matter how much I know about the
Nationals, the power I have over them remains nonexistent. Yet I spend hours studying up
on bizarrely specific statistics simply for the sake of knowing more. Thinking about
baseball raises many questions and each time I am able to answer one of those questions I
get a buzz. Humans subconsciously equate knowledge with power and gaining that
meaningless knowledge can give me a false sense of power. Also, learning about baseball
and baseball players allows me to prepare for when I watch games. There is no feeling
that matches when I am able predict the outcome of a certain game or at bat based off of
knowledge that I had previously acquired.

The psychological motivations behind sport fandom

By Cole Sebastian

Introduction
It is easy to question the logic behind being a sport fan. It requires investing huge
amounts of time and effort on an outcome that is impossible for a fan to control. Sport fandom,
the act of being a sport fan, often leads to disappointment, sadness, or even depression. At its
heart, sport fandom is emotional gambling. Fandom is the wagering of emotional health on an
event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of gaining positive emotional feedback.
This is the same process as gambling but with the use of emotions instead of money. In any team
sport, every teams season will end in a loss except for one. Those chances are so low that the
motivations behind sports fandom must extend beyond the satisfaction of winning in order for so
many teams to have developed loyal followings. This research paper seeks to identify and
organize those motivations. The motivations behind sport fandom can be divided into three broad
categories: primordial instincts, promotion of self esteem, and a need to belong.

Primordial Instincts
The most apparent reason for sport fandom, sport participation, and the invention of
sports is the inherent human instincts of aggressiveness and competition (Brill, 1929). Early
humans, like all other animals, needed those basic instincts in order to survive. However, as
human civilization progressed the fight for survival became less immediate and the necessity of
survival instincts was subdued. But those instincts have remained among humans and constantly
fight to be expressed. Sports were invented to simulate aggressive and competitive environments
in order for civilized humans to satisfy their survival instincts. These sports were present in early
civilizations and large populations participated in them. As civilization progressed further,
societies shifted from mass participation in sports to specialization of athletic ability. Today, the
average person does not have the time or ability to participate in sports but many people gravitate
toward fanaticism over certain players or teams in order to experience the aggressive competition
vicariously (Brill, 1929).
A.A. Brill argues that the primary motivations of sport fandom are two instincts: the
aggressive component and the mastery impulse (1929, p.430). The aggressive component is
the need to confront or attack enemies. The mastery impulse is the need to compete with and feel
superior to others.

Sports fandom allows people to antagonize every rival team that their team plays. This
allows aggression to manifest itself in hostility towards a rival team or a rival teams fans. When
a fan associates their psychological well-being with the success of a team, every threat that that
team faces (i.e., each rival team that plays the fans team) becomes a threat to the fans health.
That threat to health will trigger the survival instincts within the fan that will be expressed
through increased loyalty to their own team and increased hostility towards their team's
opponents.
Once loyalty is established between a fan and their team, the teams success determines
the satisfaction of the fans mastery impulse. Team identification provides fans with a tangible
link between the teams success and their own success. This leads to a feeling of superiority over
losing teams. In the case of identification with the team as a whole, only winning can satisfy a
fans mastery impulse. However, the mastery impulse can be satisfied by feeling associated with
the players themselves. In the modern world, those with powerful minds are successful,
regardless of physical prowess. But humans animalistic instincts tend to place value in those
who exalt physical strength and athleticism (Brill, 1929, p.431). Those instincts lead to fans
identifying with great players simply because they instinctively desire to associate with those
with physical superiority. Fans can then feel superior by association.
Brill argues that being a sport fan satisfies the combative instincts even more effectively
than participation in sports, at least in the area of mastery impulse (1929). Success through
participating in a sport, according to Brill, does not inflate the participants ego as much as
success through being a fan of professional sports. The casual sports participant does not
compete on nearly the same level as professional athletes. A participants victories will seem
insignificant compared to the godlike displays of athleticism from professional sports. At the
same time, a participant's failures will feel personal and pathetic compared to the failures of a
professional team which fans can distance themselves from and blame on the players themselves.
The release of combative instincts through sport fandom can serve as catharsis for
otherwise dangerous tendencies, according to Brill (1929). He believes that without sports, many
people would satisfy their combative instincts violently in their daily life. Brill sees sports as a
safe and positive environment for the aggression and competition that is necessary in a persons
life. This theory appears to apply to real life situations however Brills argument is based solely
on anecdotal evidence and does not acknowledge the possibility of fights between fans of

opposing teams. Brill proposed many theories that laid the groundwork for much of sport
psychology research since.

Promotion of Self Esteem

As established in Brills theories of mastery impulse, a major motivation behind sport
fandom is the use of team identification to promote one's self esteem. It is apparent that
successful teams generally have a wider fanbase. This is a result of many fans going through a
constant back and forth between BIRGing (basking in reflected glory) and CORFing (cutting off
reflective failures) (Jacobson, 2003, pg. 8). BIRGing is the tendency of individuals to publicize
their connection with successful others, when they have not contributed to the others success.
(Jacobson, 2003, p.8). CORFing is the tendency of others to avoid being connected to
unsuccessful others. (Jacobson, 2003, p.8). The weaker a fans identification with a team, the
easier it is for them to switch back and forth between BIRGing and CORFing. Every time a team
wins, more fans BIRG and grow a stronger identification with the team. Every time a team loses,
more fans CORF and distance themselves from the team. Therefore, successful teams are far
more likely to attract new fans and maintain a loyal fan base. Professional sports allow people to
BIRG when they can and boost their self esteem and CORF when they must to prevent a drop in
self esteem. However, long time fans who see their team as an extension of themselves do not
have the ability to CORF and must rely on other methods to maintain self esteem throughout
loses. Loyal fans rely on defense mechanisms to keep spirits up while supporting a losing team
(Wann, 2006, p.89). These defense mechanisms include increasing hostility towards fans of rival
teams, placing blame of a teams failures on outside forces, and evaluating the teams past and
future with a favorable bias (Wann, 2006, p.89).
In a study from the journal Psychology and Marketing, researchers conducted a field
study in which they gave questionnaires to spectators at the hockey games of a successful team
and an unsuccessful team from the same metropolitan area (Fisher and Wakefield, 1998). The
questionnaire measured each spectators group identification and the prevalence of each of the
three motivations for group identification identified: domain interest, perceived group
performance, and group member attractiveness. Domain interest is each spectator's interest in the
sport itself (Fisher and Wakefield, 1998, p.27). Perceived group performance is how well each
spectator thinks the team is doing (Fisher and Wakefield, 1998, p.28). Group member

attractiveness is how much each spectator looks up to and idolizes the athletes on the team
(Fisher and Wakefield, 1998, p.29). The purpose of the study was to determine which factors
correlated most with strong team identification.
The study found that among the fans of the successful team, the teams performance had
the highest correlation with team identification (Fisher and Wakefield, 1998, p.35). This suggests
that fans of the successful team were motivated far more by the teams success than the players
on the team or love of the sport itself. The identification among the fans of the successful team is
most likely a result of BIRGing among those fans.
Unsurprisingly, the correlation between the teams perceived performance and team
identification was virtually nonexistent (Fisher and Wakefield, 1998, p.35). The highest
correlation with team identification for the unsuccessful teams fans was domain interest,
matching the correlation between performance and identification for the successful team (Fisher
and Wakefield, 1998, p.35). This suggests that fans of the unsuccessful team were motivated by
their love of hockey far more than their teams success. The correlation with group attractiveness
remained virtually the same for both the successful team and the unsuccessful team (Fisher and
Wakefield, 1998, p.35). This suggests that fans of losing teams can satisfy their mastery impulse
through idolization of athletes just as well as fans of winning teams.
Promotion of self esteem is a huge benefit to team identification in winning teams but is
not a requirement as many fans find ways to support a team despites its losses.

A Need to Belong
A major motivation for sport team identification that was overlooked by Fisher,
Wakefield, and Brill is the simple desire to belong to a community or group. Fisher and
Wakefield looked at factors that could lead to group identification without acknowledging the
basic human desire to have group to identify with. There are two main features of the need to
belong that many fans seek to satisfy through their fandom. The first is that individuals need
frequent (ideally pleasant) interpersonal contact with others. (Wann et al., 2012, p.27). The
second is that persons need to feel that their connections to others are stable, emotionally
involved, and likely to continue. (Wann et al., 2012, p.27). The community amongst fans of the
same teams gives fans an automatic bond with each other that may be used to satisfy the need to
belong.

Researchers attempted to measure team identification in relation to the need to belong by

surveying college students to determine each students need to belong and each students
identification with a certain sports team (Wann et al., 2012). The results revealed that there is a
strong correlation between the need to belong and identification with the local basketball team
(Wann et al., 2012, p.29). However, there was no correlation between the need to belong and
identification with a distant sports team or general sport fandom (domain interest) (Wann et al.,
2012, p.29). The study does not indicate the effectiveness of team identification in satisfying the
need to belong but it strongly supports the need to belong being a causal variable in team
identification.
The need to belong most likely causes many people to identify with a local team, but
there is no guarantee that team identification with satisfy the need to belong. Team
identifications effectiveness in that area was measured in a 2006 study done by Daniel Wann.
Wann attempted to find the correlation between sport team identification and psychological well
being by giving college students questionnaires that were designed to measure each students
identification with their universitys mens basketball team and each students psychological
well-being (2006). The results found that high levels of team identification positively correlates
with psychological well-being (Wann, 2006, p.86). However, Wann found no correlation between
psychological well-being and identification with a distant team or general sport fandom (Wann et
al., 1999; Wann et al., 2004). It is unclear if team identification is a causal variable to
psychological well-being, if psychological well-being is a causal variable to team identification,
or if the two operate with circular causation.
People are increasingly relying on sport fandom to satisfy their need to belong because
affiliations with others stemming from religious institutions, work-related organizations, and
relationships with extended family members all have shown reduced numbers in recent years.
(Wann, 2006, p.88). This may shift the source of belonging to team identification.

Bibliography
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