If you’re a sports fan, the way you engage with your favorite team goes well beyond those precious minutes when they’re on the field. You’ll debate friends and family about big games, you’ll follow players on social media, and you’ll probably wear replica jerseys and official merch of all kinds when you’re out and about. So in this context, it’s not that surprising to find fans regularly arguing the toss over who’s a GOAT, which season was the best, and which goal or touchdown deserves the most plaudits.
Even so, our desire to make rankings has definitely intensified in recent years. So, what’s behind this trend, and is it a problem or just part and parcel of being a sports fan?
Validating Emotional Opinions
Different teams and players click with different people, and often there’s no especially rational reason for it. We just get a feeling for greatness at a gut level, and that’s all there is to it. The problem comes when attempting to justify this stance to others who might not share the same opinion.
Ranking is a way of lending credence to assertions that someone is a GOAT, supporting an emotional opinion with objective stats on career achievements.
Making Future Predictions on Past Outcomes
Another catalyst for the rise of ranking culture is our desire to scour the history books and use what we find to predict what’ll happen in upcoming games. Now that fans can use a platform for sports betting to wager on their favorite team, there’s a monetary incentive to predict scorelines accurately ahead of time. And while our choices might be emotional, as mentioned, ranking gives the illusion of control.
Preserving the Past
Sports function as a living history book. Unlike standard entertainment, where old movies or albums remain frozen in time, sports history is constantly being challenged by the present.
Older fans use rankings to defend the legacy of the icons they grew up watching, ensuring that players like Pelé, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Jerry Rice aren't erased by the hyper-athleticism of the modern era. Conversely, younger fans use rankings to assert the dominance of the present. The exercise keeps historical figures relevant, enabling a continuous dialogue between generations that might not otherwise have common ground.
The Impact of Media Encouragement
Arguably, the biggest reason sports fans are so ranking-focused today stems from media trends, where pundits and personalities across TV channels and social media platforms regularly stir up debate to generate views and engagement. Placing a controversial player at number four instead of number two in a list of all-timers means a media outlet can generate millions of impressions, thousands of angry comments, and hours of programming out of thin air.
Social media, in particular, is known for its debate-centric model for earning clicks and gaining followers. Now that algorithms determine what content rises to the surface, it’s in the interest of media outlets to encourage ranking activities.
Put simply, sports fans love ranking because it makes use of past glories to contextualize what’s happening in the present. Seeing greatness on the field of play today means more when it’s juxtaposed with the difference-makers of bygone eras.
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