Encore: The psychology of sports fans, with Daniel Wann, PhD

The most surprising finding in Daniel Wann’s four decades of studying sports fans is not that they get aggressive or superstitious—it’s that they keep coming back at all. As Wann puts it, “This has to be the only domain, the only voluntary activity where half the people know literally that they’re gonna be upset when this thing that they consume voluntarily is over.” Fans know their team has at least a 50-50 chance of losing, yet they return. The reason, Wann argues, is that fans have perfected coping strategies that would be remarkable in any other context.

Why people become fans: belonging and distinctiveness

Wann, a distinguished professor at Murray State University, explains that sports fandom helps people meet basic psychological needs. The most straightforward is belongingness. “If you reside in a local community and you follow the local team, it’s hard to feel lonely,” he says. Wearing a team cap in public invites strangers to connect. But fandom also satisfies the need to be unique. Fans often follow a mix of local teams and one distant, unusual team—a Boston fan might also support Manchester United—precisely because that outlier makes them feel different from everyone else.