While you’re on the couch stuffing your face with wings and beer, the team is on the field actually playing. If you’re not receiving a check from the organization, even as a trainer or waterboy, you have no right saying “we” when referring to the team, no matter how much you cheer and care for it.
It is a mass delusion that people identify themselves as part of a team of which they are simply not a member of. Screaming at a television while wearing your “lucky” team jersey has no impact on a game’s outcome.
No matter how many pompoms you buy, you’re still not on the team. Did you run sprints at 5 a.m.? Did you practice until you couldn’t run anymore? Were you on the field, on the sidelines or even in the locker room?
Although the athletes on the team need fans for support and motivation, contributing your time, money and effort to the team, that still doesn’t mean that you’re part of it. Buying their merchandise doesn’t make you part of the team the same way that buying groceries from the store doesn’t make you a part of it.
This doesn’t just go for when a team wins. So often do we hear phrases like “We really need to find a better rebounder,” and “how do you think we’re going to do on Sunday?”
This argument can be applied to anyone or anything in the entertainment industry. Your favorite artists or band wouldn’t exist without fans, yet nobody ever leaves a concert and says, “We played a great show” unless they’re in the band, and no one reads a book and says, “We really killed that opening chapter.” Have you ever watched a movie where you felt emotionally involved with the characters and said, “Wow, I can’t believe we triumphed over evil again?” While you might hear people saying “that’s my song,” “that’s my show,” it doesn’t make it any more theirs than their favorite team is. There’s no reason sports should be the exception to the rule.
It’s unacceptable when people try to cash in on the achievement of others. The team could have easily won against the other team without their cheers. They may have supported their team with their yelling, but it doesn’t accomplish a thing. It was through the team’s hard work and countless practices and hardships that the team won. Fans have no right to declare the success and achievement, or even failure, of their favorite team as their own.
Ask the players; you’re not on the team. There was a time when more people used to play sports instead of just watching them. Every town had tons of teams that would play games on any given weekend; when the teams were actually made up of people from your city or town, maybe “we” was more valid. Up until the Industrial Revolution, when most people lived and died within a 20 mile radius of the town, “we” was more valid. But today, we are a nation of fat sports watchers.
If you don’t play for, or you are not an employee of, the team, then “we” is not the pronoun you’re looking for; “they” is the word you want.
If you want be technical about it, unless you own a small percentage of the team in stocks, then you shouldn’t refer to them as “we.” College teams present the most interesting dilemma. If you’re a student at a university, and you somehow help fund the team through your student fees — I’ll freely say that “we” is appropriate in this situation. But if you’ve never even attended the school, then there’s no “we” about it.
The same goes for professional teams, especially if you’re not even from the same city, or country, even. Some make-believe soccer fan in North America cannot refer to Blackpool F.C. as “we,” when don’t have anything to do with the little English city by the sea.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being deeply in love with your favorite team. There is nothing wrong with finding faith and belief in forces beyond your reach. If we didn’t believe in things that are not of us, there would be no religion and no space travel. But no matter how much love and faith and belief you might have in something, you don’t necessarily become part of it. You can put all your hopes in the stars, but that doesn’t make you a constellation.
