After I attended a Washington Wizards open apply at D.C.’s Capital One Area earlier this month, the main focus was extra on spectator leisure than Rocky-style exercises. The season opener was per week away, and the gamers ran drills at half velocity and engaged in foolish abilities competitions for followers, together with a basketball model of Join 4. However as a lifelong Wiz devotee, I used to be having an awestruck, love-you-man second. Right here I used to be posing for a photo with Phil freakin Chenier. Franchise royalty. My childhood idol. Again within the Seventies, when Chenier was draining jumpers and sporting a Richard Pryor mustache, the crew routinely chased titles. As of late? Not a lot.
Being an NBA fan who loves the Wizards is slightly like being a foodie who adores turnips: It simply doesn’t make sense. Because the 2000–01 season, solely the Knicks and Timberwolves have lost more games. The franchise final superior past the second spherical of the playoffs in 1979 (again once they have been referred to as the Bullets), they usually’ve missed the playoffs 16 of the previous 25 years. We followers have endured 40-plus years of frustration and disappointment, primarily from the everyday points—dangerous protection, dangerous draft picks, dangerous trades—however generally from … weirder ones: One All-Star participant was charged with a gun felony involving a teammate, and one other was as soon as suspended with out pay for being chubby. It’s all #SoWizards, to make use of a Twitter hashtag.
And but, I made it out to the open apply with a number of hundred followers on a Tuesday night time, sporting a Wizards T-shirt and feeling the faint, irrational heat of preseason hope. Anybody can root for a winner. That’s simple. Final season, the NFL groups with the top-selling merchandise have been the Cowboys, 49ers, Patriots, Steelers, and Chiefs. Every crew completed with a profitable report. In Philadelphia, the at the moment undefeated Eagles and the World Sequence–certain Phillies have generated a 20 p.c or extra improve in enterprise for native eating places, sports activities bars, and memorabilia shops.
However rooting for the middling Wizards takes guts at greatest and is downright masochism at worst. Nonetheless, regardless that the crew is extra more likely to convey me agony than elation, I can’t fathom supporting some other franchise. The identical is definitely true of my fellow Wizards followers—and plenty of followers of different perennial losers (hey, the Detroit Lions in some way nonetheless have followers). So why can we keep hooked?
My Wizards fandom started within the D.C. suburbs within the ’70s, once I was a Bullets-crazed child devouring field scores on the sports activities web page, taking pictures jumpers on a yard grime court docket, and pretending to be Chenier. I used to be 12 when the Bullets paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue to have fun their solely title, and the next 44 years have introduced a number of dangerous recollections: Final season, the Wizards in some way blew a 35-point lead in opposition to the L.A. Clippers. The worst half? I wasn’t stunned.
Current ache ought to really feel stronger than childhood pleasure, I'd assume—even for followers like me, whose help was handed down geographically. However these deep, die-hard roots can affect our grownup conduct. “Early studying is extremely highly effective and laborious to erase,” Chris Crandall, a psychology professor on the College of Kansas who has studied fan allegiance, informed me. The crew’s success 50 years in the past could have boosted my childhood loyalty, Crandall defined, and their subsequent failures didn't take away it. A brand new angle (“Wow, these guys stink”) basically “lays over the outdated one, however the outdated one remains to be there,” Crandall mentioned. “And it’s very troublesome to eliminate it.”
I’m at the very least sufficiently old to recollect the crew’s lone championship. The highest reminiscence for Wizards followers of their 30s might be John Wall’s dramatic game-winning three-pointer in Sport 6 of the Japanese Convention semifinals. The Wizards, after all, then misplaced Sport 7. However one cause followers stick round is the perverse delight they've of their fandom, Edward Hirt, a professor on the College of Indiana who has studied sports-fan psychology, informed me. Rooting for the Lakers or the Dallas Cowboys is like sporting khakis: You hardly stand out in a crowd. Loving the Wizards offers me a defiant sense of individuality. “Do you wish to be like everyone else, or do you wish to be completely different?” Hirt mentioned. “The reply is neither. We wish to be slightly little bit of each. We like feeling like we belong, however we don’t wish to be seen as a clone of everyone else, both.”
Supporting a loser satisfies each of these needs. I can commune with fellow followers at a sports activities bar or recreation, however once I stroll by way of an airport, even in D.C., I’m usually the one man sporting a Wizards cap. And truthfully, I like that. My Wiz fandom, Andrew Billings, a sports-media professor on the College of Alabama, informed me, sends a message to the world: “How loyal am I? I root for the Washington Wizards.” (Which, let’s be actual, could be a fantastic T-shirt). In a 2015 examine of scholars from seven universities, soccer followers have been 55 p.c much less more likely to put on crew attire following a defeat in contrast with a win. However those that do are making an announcement: I’m not a fair-weather fan; I’m devoted and reliable.
These noble qualities clarify why followers of awful groups despise fair-weather followers, Hirt added. Bandwagon followers skip the struggling however embrace the glory. If the Wizards in some way reached the NBA Finals this 12 months, I’d be each thrilled and infuriated by the mobs of rapturous followers at downtown watch events. The place have been these bandwagon yahoos in 2001, when the crew completed 19–63?
However possibly profitable issues lower than we expect—even for die-hard followers who react to every loss with a primal scream. In a single 2019 examine, followers of a school soccer crew felt a two-day rise in vanity after a victory. However vanity ranges didn’t drop considerably amongst dropping followers. One of many causes: Even when your crew loses, you'll be able to elevate your vanity just by commiserating with buddies, Billings, a co-author, mentioned.
Sure, struggling sucks, however struggling collectively has some upsides. It may be a social glue that intensifies bonds with the crew and fellow followers. “Going by way of this hardship along with your sports activities crew makes you more likely to stay with them,” Omri Gillath, a psychology professor on the College of Kansas, informed me. Followers don’t simply indulge in mirrored glory, or BIRG, as psychologists name it; in addition they BIRF—indulge in mirrored failure. “It’s about having a group of people who perceive you and like the identical factor that you just do,” Gillath mentioned.
Final season, a pal and I attended the Wizards’ residence finale, they usually acquired shellacked by the equally awful Knicks. However my pal and I loved laughs over pregame beers. We made sarcastic feedback because the Wiz turned a ten–0 lead right into a 22-point deficit. I purchased an end-of-the-season discounted T-shirt on the crew retailer. Listening to Knicks followers hoot about their victory was annoying, however we had enjoyable. And we bonded.
However rooting for a dropping crew could also be a dying phenomenon. Sports activities betting and streaming have made sports activities extra solitary and fewer tied to the place you reside—undercutting a number of the causes followers endure their god-awful groups. “Geographic loyalty is especially highly effective for older generations, partly as a result of they weren’t practically as cellular with their jobs or their careers as youthful persons are,” Billings mentioned. “I stay in Alabama. If I wished to be a Golden State Warriors fan, I may entry all 82 of their regular-season video games in a method that was not doable for older generations once they constructed their fandom.” Youthful followers may be extra more likely to observe a single participant than a selected crew, Billings believes.
Let’s be clear: Profitable is method higher than dropping. A 2013 examine discovered that on the Monday after NFL video games, followers of dropping groups have been extra more likely to eat saturated fat and sugars in contrast with followers of profitable groups. However I really imagine—and possibly that is loser discuss—that my many years of Wizards fandom have made me a greater human. I've well-developed coping abilities. My buddies and I are like Statler and Waldorf, the crusty hecklers on The Muppet Present: We handle head-smacking losses with well-timed quips. I don’t get too elated after a victory—though victories imply extra once they’re uncommon—or too down after a defeat. Hell, possibly it’s even made me extra empathetic to individuals’s challenges. In any case, most of us in life can relate extra just like the continually struggling Wizards than the trophy-hoisting Warriors.
Despite the fact that I do know higher, I’m optimistic this season gained’t be a #SoWizards 12 months. Possibly the crew will jell. Possibly the younger gamers will develop. Possibly the veterans will keep wholesome. Or, , possibly not. A struggling sports activities franchise, I’ve determined, is like your fool brother or jackass uncle. Regardless of all their apparent flaws, you continue to love them. And so I’ll cherish disco-era Bullets recollections, have fun the sudden victories, cling to silly hope, and brace myself for the worst. In the event that they miss the playoffs—once more—properly, there’s at all times subsequent 12 months.