Research

For love or money? The unrequited passion of the sports fan

The passion of fans for their teams is the stuff of family lore and Hollywood scripts, and it's that emotional charge that makes the business of sports distinct. What other business can claim that its customers are in love with its product? But television revenues, high ticket prices and a myriad of entertainment choices are changing the economics of the industry. Is the romance cooling for fans, and if so, what does it mean for sports? Experts from the W. P. Carey School of Business faculty weigh in.

2007-01-03

Love conquers all, right? Many marriage ceremonies define ideal love: "It does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly." Sports fans may be witlessly in "love" with the hometown team, but the character of their emotion is a far cry from the ideal. Bragging rights, arrogance and "acts unbecoming" are at the core of the enduring love affair we have for our field warriors, one that dates back to hunter-gatherer days in primitive times.

Ask any sports aficionado what drives this ancient, often unrequited, love, and they will tell you it is propelled by a primal need to win and boost self-esteem — passions as basic as the beauty of a bunt single, bounce pass, or quarterback sneak. All things equal, observed the late Isaac Asimov, a prolific writer and keen spectator of life, "you root for your own sex, your own culture, and your own locality.

And what you want to prove is that you are better than the other person. Whomever you root for represents you, and when he or she wins, you win!" The charged and sometimes murky environment resulting from the emotions that fans feel creates challenges for the business of sports. Make no mistake — no matter how much love is lavished or lost, sports is a business as well as a passion.

The psychology of a fan

"Sports is an affected release from our real lives and the stress and strain of what we do at work, at school and elsewhere," says Ray Artigue, the former senior vice president of the Phoenix Suns, who is now a professor of practice and executive director of the W. P. Carey MBA Sports Business Program.

"It is one of those archetypical events in life, like a faith experience or a religious event, a highly emotive, unconscious response where we push off our normal, rational selves," adds Michael Mokwa, chairman of the W. P. Carey School's marketing department and academic advisor to the sports business program. "It's a deep personal craving for connectivity."

"Sports feeds our collective need to belong," says Amy Ostrom, associate professor of marketing at the W. P. Carey School of Business. Viewed through this prism, the irrational, dysfunctional zeal of sports fans starts to make sense. "The self is at stake here," writes Robert Cialdini, the Regents' Professor of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University and Distinguished Professor of Marketing in the W. P. Carey School.

"That's why hometown crowds are so adoring, and more tellingly, so grateful toward those who are regularly responsible for home team victories. That is why the same crowds are so ferocious in their treatment of players, coaches and officials implicated in athletic failures."

Pity former Brooklyn Dodger Ralph Branca, an All-Star pitcher and 20-game winner, who will always be remembered in defeat for one infamous pitch in a 1951 playoff game to the cross-town rival New York Giants. "The shot heard round the world" came from the bat of Bobby Thompson, a walk-off home run that gave the Giants the National League pennant.

How about hobbled Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner who let a lazy grounder roll through his legs, and gift-wrapped the 1986 World Series to the New York Mets. And what about the 1980 New Orleans "Aints," whose putrid records in past seasons prompted mortified fans to cover their faces with paper bags. What a difference a season makes, as the Saints head to the playoffs this year, and hundreds of fans turned out at 10:30 pm on a misty Christmas Eve to greet them after a win!

Sports obsession, Cialdini says, "is not about rationality; it's about raw association." And that's as gut as it gets. Winning is an adrenalin shot of prestige and esteem, notes Cialdini, author of "Influence: Science And Practice", which has sold more than a million copies. "It gets back to our deep-seated need to feel successful, to bask in reflective glory."

But is all this basking "true love" between fans and the object of their affections — a college or a professional sport's franchise — or are the teams just looking to spend a night with their fans? Pinch yourself, if you're a major university or a sports franchise owner. What other business or institution in the past could claim that its customers were agog in love, and all they had to do in general marketing terms was shower, shave and show up for the date?

Indications, however, are that the romance, at least at the professional level, is heading for trouble, as franchises continue to move, star players are regularly traded, and many teams balk at returning an emotional commitment to their supporters, and when they finally do, it's usually too little, too late.

You don't send me flowers anymore, gripe many fans on the heels of losing seasons. Meanwhile, single-game ticket prices, parking and food for a family of four approach the cost of two nights in the Bahamas, and stadiums and arenas across the country fill up with the affluent and the corporate types. It's no surprise that cracks — large fissures in places — are forming around the base of this time-honored love relationship.

The media is offering viewers more sports and entertainment options, and fan loyalty in some parts of the country is heading the way of the junk ball Eephus pitch — a delivery that doesn't rely on the pivoting foot. There is no grounding here any more.

Falling out of love?

Take the hint, fans are falling out of love! Count the empty seats at Florida Marlin, Kansas City Royal, or even LA Dodger games, to note a few, or at NBA and hockey arenas coast to coast. There were more fans at a local high school game than the normally-packed Wachovia Center the night former Philadelphia 76er star Allen Iverson fled to the Denver Nuggets.

"Let's say there are a lot of small cracks," notes marketing department chairman Mokwa. "Sports franchises need to be sensitive to that. We don't have a big schism yet, but we have a lot of foundation cracks. The fan-franchise relationship today is a marriage in need of work. Franchises need to pay attention to this, or these cracks could become large."

"Are fans really falling out of love?" ponders professor of practice and former Suns vice president Artigue. "Maybe temporarily," he notes. "But it's not likely to stay that way long." Artigue says that sports franchises are "working overtime in cultivating meaningful relationships with fans, through an array of sophisticated added-value, fan loyalty programs — many of them borrowed from the airline, hospitality and hotel industries."

For example, he says, season ticket holders now earn "loyalty points" for attending games — points that can be redeemed in a variety of ways — and loyal fans are also offered greater access to the players at special events. Franchises, he adds, are also assembling affordable family ticket packages.

"There will always be room for individuals and families. Franchises have gotten creative with family nights, church nights or scout nights, packaging a hot dog and a coke with a game ticket. You may sit in a different location than a corporate attendee and you may attend fewer games, but there's always room for you."

Fan appreciation and affection is genuine, insists W. P. Carey marketing professor James Ward, who has studied customer loyalty in a range of services and products. "It's not smoke and mirrors. I think teams, in general, do love their fans, their ticket holders. It's a two-way relationship, one that encourages loyalty on both sides of the equation." In simple emotional and business terms, he adds, they need each other.

New economic model

But do they? Rob Stearns, professor of practice at the W. P. Carey School and chairman and chief executive officer of Quepasa Corporation in Phoenix, gives an emphatic "no," and offers a more skeptical perception of professional sports, one that is starting to take hold with many observers.

"The economics of sports has changed," he says. "Owners do not covet their fans as they once did. The reason is that they no longer require their stadiums to be filled to make money. They make their profits today from splits in the media pie that are handed out to the owners through their respective leagues. It's much more important that the league does well, than any individual owner."

While Stearns concedes that empty seats concern owners cosmetically, he notes, "It bothers them only at the margins. As a practical matter they would rather have a fan in a seat than not, but the reality is that most owners would make money playing in front of an empty stadium. I'm not making a statement for better or for worse; I'm just saying the way it is now. The media has altered how the sports business is conducted.

The owners court a generic fan. For instance, as long as the NFL has 'x' millions of viewers on any given Sunday, whether you are an owner in Tennessee or in Jacksonville, you don't care [about the home crowd], so long as the collective revenue is flowing in."

Sports today has become an "entertainment spectacle," says Stearns, and fans are tuning in and out at will, depending on the wide menu of options before them. "The owners know that most people attend sporting events or watch them on television because they are a spectacle — that's the reason for all the music, fireworks, lightshows, the dancing mascots and cheerleaders," he says.

"It's a circus. Why is that? It's because fans now have tremendous choices in how they want to spend their time. You can flip on a television — in some cases a 52-inch, high definition flat screen in surround sound that offers a better view than most seats — and instantly have a choice of 42 different sporting events 24 hours a day, seven days a week!"

There will always be exceptions to the rule, he says, noting teams in more traditional markets like Boston, Chicago and New York will continue attracting loyal sellout crowds — as even franchises like the Phoenix Suns and Arizona Diamondbacks will when they are winning — but ask him if the love affair between fans and franchises will persist and he replies without hesitation, "I think what you have is: Let's be friends."

When the spark is gone: just friends?

"Five years from now, you'll have some avid, hardcore fans in places, but most ticket holders will be the corporate or well-heeled purchasers, then you'll have other people who will attend once or twice a season on the rationale that when the circus is in town, you go to the circus," he says. "And television coverage will continue to be a total vanilla experience, with more violence, no character to the presentation, and every announcer with the last name of Buck."

The games are commodities, he adds, around which advertising is sold. Sounds like the Kevin Costner futuristic movie, "Waterworld." "It is, to some extent," says Stearns. "In spite of lip service to the contrary, sports owners believe that fans want to see increased violence, whether it be in football, basketball, baseball, hockey or NASCAR. And it's becoming more vulgar, more bump and grind.

Fans, in the end, crave the wildest, craziest experience; they want traditional sports to push the bounds of entertainment for the sheer excitement of it. And that's reflective of the demography sports owners are going after nationally." Not only has a myriad of media options eroded the local fan base, but free agency also has taken a bite out of fan loyalty, as franchises struggle to build a team identity, moving away from promoting individual players, as Robert Kraft as done successfully with the New England Patriots.

"Many of us years ago, for example, rooted for the New York Yankees because Mickey Mantle was on the team," says Stearns, who was raised in Westchester County, outside the Bronx. "If Mantle were a free agent and left for Detroit, we probably would have started rooting for the Tigers."

As for professional athletes today, there is universal agreement that they play harder, train harder, and are more competitive than the Mickey Mantles and Whitey Fords of decades ago. Perhaps there are fewer role models only because the media reports on a marquee player's every move off the field, as opposed to the furtive antics of the 1960s, 70s and 80s.

But staying competitive in a sports world where owners like George Steinbrenner spit gold coins every day is a taxing challenge for everyone, particularly in smaller media markets. "To be successful," says Mowka, "you still have to put a competitive team on the field."

"The pressure to do this is tremendous; it drives up other operating costs," says Ward, in a comment that underscores Stearns's appraisal of the state of sports. Artigue agrees in part with Stearns' blunt assessments, but notes that it is "unreasonable to suggest that an owner doesn't care about winning a championship or keeping the fan base happy. "In the end winning cures all ills. It's the best business strategy, and the perfect antidote to a strained relationship."

Bottom Line:

• Sports fans are the most loving, hateful, emotional, irrational, insecure and obsessive brood in the world. And yes, most of us have been there and done that, responding a collective need to belong.
• We adore our sports teams and players, unconditionally at times, as if they were members of our immediate family. But are you feeling loved today?
• Experts say the fan-franchise relationship is a one-way love affair, with many teams in it solely for the money.
• Fans now seem to be wising up, experimenting with multiple sports partners, and taking their pocketbooks elsewhere. The match-making media is making it all possible, serving an array of entertainment options 24/7.
• Finance Professor Rob Stearns says that owners don't care if they play before empty stadiums. The cha-ching of lucrative television revenues, he says, is driving profit, and business today is more a spectacle than a sporting event, with fireworks, lightshows, dancing mascots and dangling cheerleaders.
• Look for more violence in sports in the future because that's what fans seem to want.

Management Marketing Faculty Sports Business