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Comment by loso | Hacker News Reader

Sometimes I see programmers, or people in the tech world in general, bash people who go crazy over sports teams. There will probably be more than a few condescending comments about the SuperBowl hype over the next two weeks. I see a post like this as no different. It's someone cheering for their favorite team.

I don't really care if people love a certain software/hardware product (even though its annoying when they bash other products to show that love). I just hate that this same community will bash sports fans for the same kind of devotion. For the most part both are harmless even though the devotion may be a little nutty.

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You beat me to it! I agree this read to me like "I rooted for the Patriots when they weren't good and now that they're good I'm glad I stuck with them!"

Don't get me wrong I love sports and have teams that I follow but I have to try to divorce myself from the team's performance (especially when they lose). I have to keep reminding myself that I don't have any skin in the game so I cannot influence the outcome.

With Apple love I suppose it's a little different since you can go all-in to their ecosystem and provide them with revenue.

I don't think the comparison is fair. I think a good analogy for sports is watching a weighted random number generator and then building a narrative around it (http://xkcd.com/904/). I don't this analogy works for competing businesses.

The difference between the best and worst teams in a professional league is usually minute. Thus, the outcomes of the super bowl or the world series are often more biased by chance than the intrinsic differences in ability between the opposing teams.

I would argue that, while there are still many random factors in the business "game", the vast differences in performance between the winners is losers is proof that some people truly know what they are doing (Apple is one example). Thus, admiration of Apple is probably more deserved than admiration of the New England Patriots.

The difference between the best and worst teams in a professional league is usually minute.

Yes, when you compare the entire market to the NFL's Fortune 32, of course football is going to appear more based on luck that skill. You're forgetting all about the skill it took for people to get drafted into those franchises. If we were to look just at the Fortune 50, buisness starts to have all the same properties you ascribe to professional sports leagues.

I assume that means you don't have a problem with people who bash both, then? That is: I don't follow sports, and I also don't really care what operating system you prefer. (Though I think the OS one is a bit more rational, since it has a direct impact on your life.)

I mean, I do understand getting excited about superior products. And I understand the validation of being proven right in the end.

But I think there are two things wrong with that storyline:

1. "The definition of an Apple fanboy is anyone who switched before you." When Apple was the underdog, the argument was, "oh, most people just don't get good quality and good design." Now it seems to have changed to "people get good quality and good design. Why don't you get that?"

2. Apple products now are different from Apple products even ten years ago. I went the DOS/Windows route because I was a gamer, and never really had a good reason to switch. The product design was better, but the kit really was significantly more expensive until recently. Apple of today constructs higher quality, better-designed products at lower price points than competitors so it's a different value proposition than it was in 2002.

Back to my point, though. Why the intense personal identification with a brand?

I think most of the complaints about sports fans has to do with the lack of thought one makes for being a fan of a particular team. Many seem to do so for childish reasons (the person likes the colors, mascot, or the city the team plays for) or because of something more annoying, one was raised that way. They never question if they support the vision of the team, or the management, or the coaches or players (most of whom never lived in the city for which they play). But hey, they are my city's team!

I certainly will not force my children to grow up liking a particular team/company just because I or my family likes them. I would hope that I would teach my children to appreciate a well played game (or well run company) and make the appropriate choice for mature reasons. I would also hope I would teach them that you do not need to have devotion in the face of mediocrity.

One has a choice in who one roots for and one should use proper reasoning when coming to that choice. Rooting for a particular team/company should not be a mindless activity.

Be a fan of excellence.

I have no evidence but from being a sports fan for over 25 years I find people become fans of teams for two reasons. Either they are from that city|state|region or they like a particular player on that team at the time.

Being a fan of a team from your region gives you another connection to your community. It is something you all have in common. I would not call that silly. A little overly emotional maybe but not silly. It is just like the programming communities that we all fall into. I think we have all read stories on HN about someone leaving a or joining a language based on the community. Community can be important to some people.

And being a fan of a player, thus becoming a fan of the team, probably falls into your line of thinking as far as "picking a team for a mature reason". You like how the player plays the game so you want to cheer for him. If that's how you pick a team then that is fine as well. Some sports fans hate this way of picking a team but I think it is legitimate.

But being a fan of a team from a particular community is silly when nothing about that team truly represents that community other than a management team that has money to recruit leadership and players. How many players and coaches on a team are actually from and grew up in the community for they are currently representing? It's even more ridiculous in baseball where a person could come from another country or soccer where they will spend their complete budget getting a poster boy from the UK.

I can understand picking a player and liking the team because of that player, but do most people then stop liking the team when that player is drafted to another team? Seems the norm is to like a team, and then if a particular player is on that team it's a bonus, otherwise they still like a player but ultimately root for the original team.

The difference being that being a sports fan is a completely passive activity. Being a Bears fan does not gain one any advantage over being a Packers fan or vice versa.

Go to Glasgow and see how "passive" your choice of sports team is :P

The difference is the rather important fact that sports teams, unlike most technology companies, accomplish absolutely nothing useful or productive other than to provide entertainment.

Entertainment has value

...est ist das Opium des Volkes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_of_the_people

http://www.wku.edu/teaching/db/quotes/byqaboutq.php

By that measure the movie, television and music industries also accomplish abosolutely nothing. ...oh, and also facebook and video games.

I wish I could accomplish so little. :-)

It's a bizarre stretch to compare sports to those important communication media.

Facebook connects people. Television can inform. Movies can inform.

Yes, video games are almost as useless, but at least the consumer is actively involved... I love sports when people play them. When they watch overpaid idiots play them and obsess about it? Not so much.

I can agree with you that in the overall scheme of things tech may be more important than sports. But I disagree when you say that it accomplishes nothing useful or productive.

As you said yourself it provides entertainment. Different forms of entertainment can inspire you while you work. Or entertainment can help you relax by taking your mind off of work. This is what sports do for some people. Others instead might watch a movie or listen to music. Inspiration, motivation and relaxation are very useful in the workflow process.

Businesses in cities with stadiums will be devastated to learn the soaring revenues on game day are imaginary. Athens (the one here in GA) will collapse once the illusion is uncovered. We also have the start of a thriving production industry, so they'll be hurt too. And I was looking forward to the next season of The Walking Dead...

Yes, millions of people direct their money towards sports... that doesn't prove they're useful. If only those 'soaring revenues' were directed towards something useful, like improving the lives of people who are lacking materially.

> The difference is the rather important fact that sports teams, unlike most technology companies, accomplish absolutely nothing useful or productive other than to provide entertainment.

I am not a sports guy or fan by any means but that is a very harsh judgment. Look at all the industries directly and indirectly connected to those sports teams, players and events and add to that all the news stations and news papers etc. and they all provide jobs and eventually pro-sports might even contribute to new medical treatments and therapies. And in the worst case, huge sports events like the superbowl or olympics usually bring tourism and infrastructure projects to wherever they are being held.

On top of that, "watching the game", especially in the stadium, actually does serve social and therapeutic means and needs - do not underestimate how much of an outlet it can be for some people.

By and large, any sort of entertainment is big, big, big business and in our IT world, what is facebook but entertainment? And most technology companies nowadays are mostly providing means to get access to some sort of entertainment.

On the same account, you could question art, music and fiction literature.

So, do not look down on "entertainment" because as they say, "all work and no play...."

Entertainment is fine. However, sports are vastly overemphasized at almost all levels of our society, to the detriment of more important goals.

The fact that companies (some of which you're probably a happy customer of) spend millions of dollars on sports advertising and sponsorships is evidence that they find value in them

They've found a way to reach mindless sports consumers... so what?

The similarity is that a sports fan buys a t-shirt and vicariously "wins" with "his" team / an $company fan buys a $product and vicariously "wins" with "his" $company.

There are lots of examples of $company:$product pairings, e.g. Apple/iDevice, Google/Android, Microsoft/Windows.

Also, before you cast the "provide entertainment" stone, you should look around you at how people are using tech company products. I would venture to guess that, outside of the workplace (and inside the workplace when workers can get away with it), entertainment is the #1 use of computer-based devices. Apps in the App Store, game consoles, computer games, YouTube, emailing LoLcats, browser-based games (Farmville - 100% wasted time) etc.

I'm not a fan of the vast amount of time people waste on anything.

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