Analyzing Basketball Fans
Men can be fanatical about the games that they watch and play. Basketball enthusiasts will want to have their own hoops at home, dribble basketballs along the corridors and hit the sofa hard when his favorite team is on the tube. The admiration can very quickly turn to idolatry.
Sports fans are a merchandiser’s dream. More often than not, they tend to patronize their sports’ memorabilia as well as personal paraphernalia. Most likely, a college student on a basketball scholarship who loves the Chicago Bulls will have a Chicago Bulls shirt, jersey, cap and keychain. He may even have sports cufflinks or basketball cufflinks for more formal occasions.
Grown men probably will not mind exchanging their company issued silver cufflinks for something more reflective of their nature and passions. Make no mistake about it – sports fans do become passionate about their team and their team’s performance. This is normal. What is no longer normal or acceptable behavior is when passion turns to obsession for specific persons. News reports feature obsessive fans arrested every now and then and the story is never pretty.
It must be interesting to delve further into the psyche of those who have developed deep passion for sports in general. In contrast, it is easy enough to see what the fans admire about certain talented basketball players like Kobe Bryant or the legendary Michael Jordan. All basketball players aspire to imbibe talent such as theirs. It is one of the dream jobs after all – playing for a living rather than stuck in the office on a cloudy day wearing these constrictive silver cufflinks.