By Anthony Strait, OTSL Floor Director
LeBron James announced he was returning to Cleveland and the Cavaliers. The fans of Cleveland rejoiced while many of the Heat faithful showed their displeasure. But wait…wasn’t it just four years ago that Cleveland fans burned LeBron’s Cavs jersey while Miami threw a well-criticized pep rally? How about the heat Carmelo Anthony received for re-signing with the Knicks for essentially a raise; wouldn’t we all want a bump in pay in our regular jobs? Of course the sports fan feels that titles should trump money or the idea of not wanting to uproot a family. Knicks fans who celebrated his re-signing were also the ones saying “don’t let the door hit you on the way out of New York” just a week earlier. Meanwhile Bulls fans who wanted him now say their team is better off without “Me-lo” despite the fact that Chicago was in dire need of a scorer after their lack of offense showed in the playoffs. The same people who bashed LeBron for leaving for Miami are the ones bashing Melo for staying in an obvious rebuilding situation. Not one of those fans however would leave any money on the table let alone $54 million.
Flip-flopping isn’t just confined to Basketball of course. In baseball we all hate cheaters now and forever; guys like Clemens, Bonds, McGwire and Sosa should never be allowed in the Hall of Fame for their allege involvement in PED use. Alex Rodriguez is the worst thing to happen to the sport because he is a cheater. If we all hate cheaters then what was Nelson Cruz doing not only playing in this year’s All-Star game but starting as the American League Designated Hitter after serving a 50-game suspension for performance enhancing drug use? How come the very Milwaukee Brewers fans who want A-Rod banned cheer for Ryan Braun who served 81 games and got an innocent man fired? For all the drama surrounding Ray Rice it won’t stop fans from drafting him on to their fantasy league teams or Ravens fans supporting “their” guy. Heck by next month the firestorm will all be forgotten as the NFL regular season starts. The very fan that bashes ESPN and its coverage of news stories more than likely has their cable box programmed to the channel upon powering on the device.
In a world where social media allows us more access to our favorite superstar, today’s sports fan have become more fickle and passionate than ever before. Meanwhile today’s athlete is under more scrutiny than ever before while being asked to turn the other cheek when fans become abusive in any way imaginable. Can you imagine what Michael Jordan would have gone through if Twitter were around to put his bad games and off-court issues under a microscope? How about what the social media reaction would have been to Magic Johnson’s announcement that he was HIV positive twenty-three years ago? One could only think what an anonymous online troll would say about Muhammad Ali’s refusal to be drafted into the United States Army almost fifty years ago. The advent of Twitter, Instagram and Facebook allows fans to voice their opinions no matter how valid or invalid they are.
What it has also exposed is how we, the 21st century sports fan, have become clueless hypocrites within our very own desire to have our favorite teams win year after year.
How else would you explain the many people who troll LeBron James’ Instagram account only to leave hateful comments while saying he will never be better than Michael Jordan himself? No one ever thinks about how many of those fans have actually seen MJ play in his heyday without some YouTube highlight reel or NBATV rebroadcasting a game over twenty years old. The very Yankees fans who call for Joe Girardi to be fired never face the truth that he is perhaps doing as good a job as possible with an old, injury-prone roster on possible last legs. We want athletes to take pay cuts and think about championships when we would never take an hourly pay cut in our typical 9-to-5 jobs nor become the “company man” for the good of the team. As much as we hate certain personalities, we wish they were on our team. Melo and Russell Westbrook are scrutinized while Kevin Durant is held with such high regard. The truth is they have the same amount of titles – ZERO – as the very fans who root or loath two of the game’s finest. Joe Torre and Tony LaRussa were inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame last weekend despite having well-known players on their rosters that used PEDs. You don’t see anyone putting an asterisk next to their accomplishments.
Today’s fans troll ESPN articles just to leave a “who cares?” comment not realizing they obviously cared enough to click on the article to voice their opinion in the first place. Click on any ESPN or even Yahoo sports article and read the many comments under those stories. For every ten there may be one or two with some actual sports knowledge. The rest border between bizarre to racist due to the anonymous identities these users take on without revealing their true selves. Today’s fans go on Twitter and bash athletes and teams only to ask for a follow five minutes later should any of them actually get a reply. We demand to trade players that fall out of favor yet we expect athletes to show loyalty towards a particular team but more importantly the same group of fans who want to play fantasy General Manager. We complain about all the coverage a story is receiving not knowing we are the ones who are making it a bigger story with our reactions alone. We also go on Twitter to pretend to care about issues that we never pay any attention to as long as it provides a chance to vent. To fans, we are always right even when we are flat out wrong. There is a saying that if teams ever actually listened to their fans, eventually they will be sitting with them in the cheap seats. Too bad we can’t rationalize a team or player’s decision to not take it as a personal insult on us as if we personally knew them.
Today’s sport fan also switches teams and allegiances when it fits them. Gone are the days of having just one favorite team. Nowadays fans have several to choose from when the time is right like during a winning streak or when a team stands out as a contender. Do you know any New Jersey/Brooklyn Nets fans prior to 2012? How about Yankees fans before 1996? Lakers fans and Celtics fans or those who called themselves fans since 2008 were virtually extinct last season as two storied franchises suffer bad seasons. The New York Giants finished 7-9 in 2013, meanwhile when they won the Super Bowl in 2011 the bandwagon blew a few flat tires due to overcrowding. What today’s sports fans have done is take away the spotlight from the actual true fans who cheered no matter how good or bad their favorite team performed. Gone in all the trolling that is done is that we are closer to the games now more than ever before. Where athletes across the board can actually communicate with the fan bases that support their cause. Without question the 21st century fan at times come off as spoiled, irrational and defiant to reality more and more.
As technology advances and the 24-hour news cycle goes on with the hottest story of the moment the one thing will never cease is that the sports fans will cheer, boo, support or loathe without an explanation other than its our paying birthright. Today’s sports fan takes it to a whole different level due to social media. The 21st century sports fan will only continue to change their minds at every turn, change allegiance after every win or loss and insult an athlete just because we choose who is likeable and who is not. We will continue to come up with unrealistic trade scenarios without any knowledge on how the salary cap or team budget works because we can’t help ourselves. The hypocrisy of today’s common sports fan will only grow as we fight more and more to have the moon and the stars. The typical envy we have because these star players make all this money, that somehow they are above being human and think the way we want them to will linger.
This new generation of sports fan is as passionate as ever before but at the same time giving the term “fan” a black eye. There is a reason the term “fan” comes from the word fanatic.
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