American Bandwagon

The Kansas City Royals and why many Americans identify with winning sports teams even if they did not know who they were last week..

 

 

"Once I had fame
I was full of pride
Well, there were a lot of friends
Always by my side

But my luck ran dry
Now my friends begin to hide

Everybody loves a winner
Everybody loves a winner
When you lose, you lose alone."

 

U2

Achtung Baby (1991)

 

Like freshly made popcorn, I have seen Kansas City Royals hats "popping up" on people’s heads all over town and grown men frothing at the mouth and feverishly launching themselves on the trendy Kansas City Royals bandwagon quicker than jumping jack flash. 

 Now, don’t get me wrong, I like underdogs and I believe the Kansas City Royals deserve a lot of credit for making the Word Series after decades of losing and horrible teams.

Yet, recently I have noticed the “bandwagon phenomena,” that is a phrase I have coined to describe a pretty common tendency in many American sports enthusiasts to immediately become so called “fans” of a winning sports team. 

I have seen it for most of my life and it saddens me, because most of these people have not rooted for the Kansas City Royals before their run to the World Series and will drop them like yesterday’s trash if they lose to the Giants.

I wonder how many of these new Royals fair weather “fans” will pay attention to them next year?

I think we all have jumped on the bandwagon at one time or another but this is madness! People are spending their hard earned money on Kansas City Royals baseball caps and jeresy's even though they don't know where Kansas City is or that they were a major league team a month ago!

I believe this “bandwagon phenomena” betrays a tremendous weakness in American society and causes people to identify with winning sports teams as though this identification with a winner will somehow fill the tremendous void in their lives and authenticate their lonely existence. By identifying with a winner, they somehow feel they will be popular and be perceived by their peers as winners too.

It is a very sad trend in our culture and shows the bankruptcy and transient nature of American culture.

Just yesterday I heard a guy say that he would spend hundreds of dollars on a plane ticket and even more money on a World Series ticket is he perceives that the Royals have a shot at winning the championship because he craves the front runner...

I have a confession to make, I did not care about the Kansas City Royals before their recent run to the playoffs and while I think it is a novel thing to see them make the World Series this year, I don’t think I will care if they win or lose.

This sports bandwagon phenomena demonstrates the utter bankruptcy of the human heart and American soul.