The Fan Preference Question
Last year, I posed a pretty interesting question to readers that I had heard on a generic sports radio station while driving, essentially wondering what type of team fans would prefer to root for or call their own. Only two choices were given and we got a slew of fantastic responses. The question, ultimately, is whether you would prefer to root for a team that would consistently win between 83-93 games over an eight-year stretch, making the playoffs quite a bit but never winning a championship, or a team that would win 1-2 championships in that same timespan but stink in the other 6-7 seasons, winning 72 or fewer games?
Really, this boils down to how much emphasis we place on both the regular season and the playoffs. Your fair weather fan or Average Joe is unlikely to care much about the regular season, making his answer obvious, but the more dedicated fans will often view 140+ games in a season. Heck, I know I’ve watched 95% of the Phillies games since 1999 and a slightly lower percentage the few post-strike seasons prior. It is very difficult to watch that many games for a crappy team while simultaneously staying interested. I know I sure struggled when the Phillies were throwing out Mike Grace, Carlton Loewer and Garret Stephenson.
My perspective on this question has shifted since a year ago, given the World Series title won by the Phillies last season. Back then, I was unsure of my answer, leaning towards the championship side strictly because I was yet to experience a championship in any sport. Having experienced it, though, without suggesting in any way that the feeling was less than great, I am now leaning towards the regular season team. I really do feel that watching a team with a .550+ winning percentage on a nightly basis, given how much I dedicate to the sport, would be my preference. The regular season lasts six months. The playoffs last about three weeks.
As important as those October games are, I love the grind of a regular season and being able to watch, and enjoy, games each night. If my team lost all the time, I fear that, even with my level of dedication, I might tune into other channels as the 6th and 7th innings rolled around. Then again, Braves fans can attest to the fact that winning all the time but failing in the playoffs can grow tiresome, which throws another wrench into these gears. Regardless, I’ll pose the question once more: do you care more about the regular season or the post-season? And would you prefer a team that wins 2 championships but goes 72-90 or worse in the other six seasons, or one that averages, say, 86-76 over that stretch, making the playoffs most of the seasons but never winning it all?
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I grew up a Phillies fan and remain a Phils fan first and foremost, but I just generally like to watch good baseball. So for me it’s always been the 83-93 win team I want to see. I want to see a team like the current iteration of the Phillies that can be down 3 runs in the 7th and not be out of the game (those post strike phillies teams had a frustrating habit of falling behind and never catching up).
I think I’d have to lean on the championship side, particularly if, despite being poor in between WS’s there would be room for optimism. Think the Marlins rather than something like the Pirates on off years.
I’d rather watch a winning team. Sure, the lack of titles would be frustrating, but you can see “There’s always next year, we’ll make the playoffs.” You have hope the entire season, even if you aren’t the best team in the league.
As a Giants’ fan, a 72 win team is awful. It’s hard to watch, and at some point you become almost unwilling to watch 140 games, no matter how much you care. The Giants were so bad last year, I wanted to throw things through the computer by the third inning. With the exception of Lincecum starts, the games were all TERRIBLE. But yet in 2002, we were awesome. I’d much rather be rooting for a team that played like the Yankees since 2001.
I guess it’s a grass is greener thing… if you’re losing, you want to win even if it means no title, but if you’re winning without a title, you need that extra step, the winning of the championship.
Same data set for me as for Eric, and the same conclusion. Before the Phillies won it, I would have traded five or ten dismal years for a World Frickin’ Championsip. But with that one in the vault, I think I’d be miserable watch the kind of poor baseball that leads to 70 win seasons. So, I’ll take the 1996-2005 Braves over the Marlins of the same period.
Perhaps the Mets fan’s perspective is a little different, considering that I live in a two team city and the other team is The Yanks. Consistant winning in the regular season is only so satisfying, especially when your team is built to win now. I’m a diehard, watch nearly every game fan and I’m tired of seeing decent teams fall short of a championship year after year. You can take 88 – 92 wins for 7 years for one a damn ring! It’s easier to resign your team to an early offseason then to witness epic failure one a regular basis.
A lousy team is hard to watch though as the last posters said – I’ve pretty much lost interest in basketball thanks to Jim Dolan’s mismanagement of The Knicks. I still say give me one magical year.
I know a few Marlins fans and they’re happy campers. There’s only one kind of winning that matters. However the question is flawed. Think of a poker tournament. You can’t come in first place without getting lucky. But if your skill always provides you opportunities to get lucky, you will cash in eventually. I’ll take the regular season team, and wait for the 8th season.
Exactly my thought when my friends and I discussed this. It’s really about percentages. Do you want to root for a team with a 1% chance of winning the title 8 years out of the decade and a 75% chance of winning 2 years in the decade? Or would you rather root for a team with a 20-40% chance of winning it all in each year of a decade? I’ll choose the consistent regular season winner, thank you very much.
I agree with you guys. You don’t really get the choice as posed.
A variation of the question would be:
Assume your franchise has very limited financial resources. Would you rather be a fan of a team that aimed at respectability each season (80-85 wins), making disaster years (90+ losses) but also playoff years (90+ wins) less likely?
Or a team that risked some 90+ loss years as it cycled and traded players in an attempt to make genuine runs at 90+ win seasons?
I had to think about it for a moment, but for me, I would definitely prefer my team to be consistently good than sporadically great. It isn’t about the championships for me, but about the stretch run and looking at the division standings every night as soon as the games are done.
And obviously, I don’t consider this a crystal ball thing – if my team makes the playoffs every year, then those playoffs are exciting every year. When you don’t make the playoffs, there is no hope. I don’t want to watch bad baseball for seven years just for the eighth year, because I actually watch the games during those seven years.
What Nate said. I’d want the satisfaction of a good season and the excitement of being in the hunt year after year.
Another thought experiment: Does your answer change depending on whether you have a crystal ball? And the follow up: Is there a point in watching sports if you *do* have a crystal ball? Is a championship season like a timeless classic that you can watch over and over, or a whodunit that’s spoiled if you know the ending? How about a poor season? Or would it be more of a Groundhog Day thing, dreary knowing how it goes until you shift your perspective and see every flashed sign, every step out of the batter’s box, every throw over to first as itself a timeless classic?
As a Cubs fan, my answer should be obvious. I have loved the last two regular seasons.However, when I think of 2007 and 2008, I immediately think of the two sweeps at the hands of the D-Backs and Dodgers. I have great memories of the regular season (Edmonds two HR’s in one inning, insane comeback against the Rockies, Aramis Ramirez walk-off HR against the Brewers in 07). I would trade every single one of those moments for a title. I would live through eight more 2006 seasons if the Cubs were to win the World Series this year.
What about a team that’s routinely in the 83-93 range, yet never making the playoffs in spite of having a good team?
Blue Jays wins, since ’98: 88, 84, 83, 80, 78, 86, 67, 80, 87, 83, 86, and a pro-rated 88 wins in 2009. That’s a decade of good results with a couple hiccoughs, and it’s been dreadful waiting for that playoff berth.
I think the 83-93 win range would probably have to be 88-98 for the AL East.
I just want to see the team develop it’s own core of players. I love seeing the prospects develop through the system.
I’m a Jays fan also – and I think JW hit on it. It’s not really the number of wins or winning percentage, it’s more the teams around you that helps shape the outlook. It’s tough rooting for an 85-win team and knowing that if you really turn it on and bust your hump and stay reasonably heathy and everything breaks just right and you magically win 92 games…you’re still a 3rd place team. it’s depressing to know that your own team’s shortcomings and slip-ups are maginified (think BJ Ryan’s contract, or Wells’) because you can’t paper over them with 34 other expensive free agent signings a year, a la the Yankees and Yankees Jr. (Sawx)
Anyone wanna rotate into the AL East for us? Detroit? Anybody? Bueller?
Well try being an Orioles fan. Then you can sit through a decade of complete ineptness, 65, 70, 75-win seasons and years of Deivi Cruz and Sidney Ponson and Jay Payton. Then swallow hard and accept another 3, 4, 5+ years of rebuilding and fixing the organization and getting back to respectability.
And after all that, you’re the Blue Jays.
As a Braves fan since the 1989 season, when I can first remember watching a game and comprehending what was going on, I would agree with you. Having a consistently great team every season is more enjoyable than if the Braves were to suddenly win a World Series title this year through the wild card, and then slip back into their recent mediocrity. The playoffs are often a crap shoot, and believe me, it is preferable to have a team that is worth watching for 162 games rather than one worth watching for 19
I’m a Braves fan too and have the same sentiments. It’s really fun to watch a winning team so I’d take what we have been given. Plus we get to watch “our guys” from within the organization get to play for years. Although it would be nice to have a second or third WS win.
I’m with you Eric, that title last year changes things. I think I would consistently want a winning team, like we’ve had since 01.
I am a Nats fan, and have watched all or part of nearly every game this season. To me, its how the players play that is the most fun. I would rather watch a small-mid market team that is going all out on every play, constantly battling, and still losing than watch a bunch of billionaires who loaf about and still win (the Yankees). So I guess I am on the side of the occasional World Series team.
I’m a Yankees fan, so I know I’ll get no sympathy, but it’s frustrating seeing a team with so much talent on paper, and tickets costing so much because of that talent, and the team falling flat on its face for the better part of the decade. They won in 2000, lost a tough WS in 01, 2002 was an omen of things to come, and then IMHO most people considered the 03 ALCS better than a WS victory. Since that disgusting 04 LCS, it’s just been one embarrassing one and done after another.
Like I said, I know I’ll get no sympathy, since most teams would kill for such constant success, so I probably don’t deserve any.
But it’s frustrating how much money it costs to go to a Yankee game because of the “premium talent” and they don’t have anything to show for it this decade. It’s especially infuriating ince up until 2007 or so, said “premium talent” wasn’t like a Mark Teixeira or a CC Sabathia. It was Javier Vasquez, Kevin Brown, Carl Pavano, worst FIP in his career Randy Johnson, depending on the year a very bad Jason Giambi and a whole cast of past their prime losers that George demanded we get. At least, say, Astros fans can see a game for like $10 in good seats. $50 won’t get you upper deck seats on Stubhub for New Yankee Stadium.
LOL, you’re right to assume no sympathy… the Yankees are like both scenarios. They always have a ton of wins and win a ton of World Series’. However, all the Yankee fans I’ve met put a HUGE premium on the World Series, and it probably stems from Steinbrenner. Most of the Yankee fans I know would put more of an emphasis on winning it all – not once every seven years, but EVERY YEAR. Probably why I love seeing the Yankees lose so much.
Well, thanks for the very mature reply, Gee. REALLY appreciated it.
haha… relax guy
Another Braves fan here…I would much rather my team being relevant through early October every year rather than through all of October for only one year.
Well…what do we know and don’t know?
Do we know that your team is going to suck it for four years and then win a title? Be ungodly bad for another four and win another title?
If we know that, take the titles.
If you know that your team is never going to win a title, why watch? At all? Fine, they swept a series from some random team in mid-May. What pleasure does that bring?
Baseball’s explicitly about an ever-so-gradual build-up to some unknown ending. Take out the unknown and it becomes merely masturbation.
Who wants to watch the perpetually good yet not great by choice (that is if you know what happens in October)?
I really can’t even see an argument for the joy of statistics in a baseball world where the one team you really follow will never win a title. It would become something akin to accounting.
Left arm for a Cubs championship!
Honestly, until the Cubs win a WS, I’m happy overpaying, mortaging the future, whatever it takes to just win one.
After that day happens, I’ll wonder why I made such a big deal about it and be content rooting for them to be ‘very good’ year in and year out (which seems to be the prevailing opinion of Phillies fans). However, until that happens, I am firmly in the camp of amazing occasionally and crappy a lot.
Actually, one of the fun parts of those spectacularly bad years are the memories made of how laughably bad they were and who was on the roster. For instance, those ’06 Cubs had Juan Mateo in the rotation (Juan Mateo!) and Todd Walker hitting cleanup. That was a funny season.
Economics probably play a role too. Since the Cubs are a have, it makes a failure to make the playoffs or to win in them slightly easier to swallow, since they can just overpay the next winter for a group of free agents. However, if I’m the Brewers, I can imagine ’07 and ’08 have been extra hard to swallow since they have so much less fiscal flexibility.
I’m an A’s fan. I’ve seen both (I grew up in the ’80′s, became a fan with bad mid-80′s teams and loved the great teams at the end of the decade. Then, I watched them be awful for several years before going through a consistent period of goodness (and a couple of great seasons that went nowhere in the playoffs). Right now they seem entrenched in a new era of inferiority.
I’ll cheat: both experiences — of having a team that is sporadically great and a regularly good team that doesn’t win championships — are positive. However, the Warriors (basketball) are just depressing (as I imagine are the Pirates). So, either situation is fine by me.
I’ll cheat again based on some above comments: Bad teams have cheaper tickets. I’d have never been to an NBA game if the Warriors weren’t so consistently awful that their tickets got really cheap several years ago. Likewise, I have tended to go to more A’s games in bad years than in good years. So, for those of you who are tired of your Orioles or your Royals, at least you can afford the games and don’t have to fight for good seats.
Pretty simple.
In baseball, the regular season. As long as it seems like your team is in it, and has a chance, every August-September-October is an exciting time.
But in other sports, such as basketball, where draft picks actually impact the next season much more, I prefer seasons of poor play, then a bunch of good draft picks, then good years.
Very interesting question…
Well, I’m an Arizona Diamondbacks fan who lives in Georgia. I didn’t grow up in Arizona & move to Georgia. I just simply liked the Arizona Diamondbacks when they were made a team in 1998. I’m also an Atlanta Braves fan, obviously.. But, I count my main team as the D’Backs.
Which means, that I don’t really get to watch the D’Backs that much, except when they play the Braves. I do watch the Braves sometimes, but, not all the time & really… I guess I don’t have the patience to sit through (usually) 3 hour ballgames.
There has to be something to a game to REALLY spark my interest in spending my time watching it. Not because I’m not a huge baseball fan, I am. I love baseball, I love stats, I love watching certain players play the game, but, I love excitement. Excitement is what draws me.
The All-Star game is always big for me.. I’ll watch the entire thing. Why? Because it’s exciting. It’s fun to see the big names out there playing. It’s EXCITING to see the really good players from all the teams. The All-Star game is different from any other game. It makes me watch it & watch every last second of it & not even think about anything else.
In conclusion: My answer would be the great regular season team that makes the playoffs often, but never wins the championship. Why? Because there’s PLENTY of EXCITEMENT in that. There’s the excitement of your favorite team being really good year after year, there’s the excitement of watching your team in the playoffs alot, there’s the excitement of always feeling like you have a shot at the championship, there’s the excitement to watching their games because you always get the feeling that you could be watching a championship team.
Actually winning a championship? For a fan, it’s exciting right afterward, but then, next season comes & then nobody really cares who won last year, it’s all about the current season, unless you’re debating about the best teams of all-time based on all the seasons or something. It’s a quick rush, but then if you’re team isn’t very good next year, it’s short lived. The excitement SLOOOOOWWWLLY & painfully dies.
I’ll cop out and say mostly the 86ish-win team but without the letdown-free repetition. I’d much rather have months of seemingly meaningful regular season games year-in-year-out than an 11-game pep rally followed by five years in purgatory. That said, too much consistency is a drag, so I’d like to see either a rebuilding year or an epic disappointment roughly twice per decade, with perhaps another .500 year or two, just to make sure I can still savor the good times.
I come from the perspective of the rare Chicago Both fan (raised Cubs but have leaned evermore Sox-ward since the beginning of the decade), so both have been fairly compliant to (or have arguably formed) my preferences since the onset of my cognizant years (early ’90s). One lesson I learned from the ’05 Sox title is that–even with a bandwagon-resistant franchise such as the White Sox–the annoyance of the playoff-time hysteria is enough to sap most of the added joy that comes with winning the World Series over simply winning a division title. Heaven help us when the Cubs’ time finally comes.
Also, the MLB playoffs are a farce.
Championship. It’s all about the rings.
As a Pirate fan, I would take either and be happy.
Jeff. Keep your hopes alive.
2 WS wins every 8 years in exchange for garbage the other 6? That is an easy call to take that over 8 years of very good performance. Starting from 0, such a team would beat the Yankee’s WS total in a century.
Such choices, however, don’t actually exist. The reality of the 2 WS team in 8 seasons is the Marlins. A team built like that can’t sustain the championships over the long haul. So, if the question is “would you rather be a Marlin’s Fan or a Braves fan? The Answer is still easy. The Braves. But only because we can’t actually have 2 WS wins every 8 years, whereas you can build a team that wins regularly and just unlucky enough to never win the WS.
I think the essential problem with this question is the finiteness of the two outcomes. If I knew that for the next 7 years my favorite team will do well every year but never win a championship then I would lose all interest in watching. At the same time with the Marlins-esque team, after seeing the first 20 or so games of the season you would know whether or not this will be the year, and again viewing the games becomes marginalized. I think a better question would be:
Which would you rather be a fan of: a team with an 80% chance of making the playoffs and a 15% chance of winning the WS (once in the playoffs), or a team with a 30% chance of making the playoffs and a 70-80% chance of winning the WS (once in the playoffs).
In that situation I would definitely take the 80% team. I enjoy the regular season, and I regularly watch 150+ games a season. However, knowing in advance for the next 7 seasons that my team would not win a WS ruins it for me.
Of course, this sort of probability manipulation is impossible in any sort of practical sense. The franchise whose playoff appearances are coupled with an 80% chance to win the World Series is a fictional creation.
The Marlins have so far parlayed their only playoff appearances into championships, but that doesn’t change the fact that the next time they get in, the odds that one of the other seven teams will win will be much larger than the odds that the Marlins will win.
So we’re talking about playoff results that were in no way predestined, much less linked to some seven-year futility / breakout pattern. We know that playoff teams of relatively equal footing will have relatively equal odds of winning the World Series, regardless of their journey to get there. And since (I assume) we’re all realists here, I don’t see why anyone would–in a prescriptive sense–opt for the bust-bust-bust-bust-boom team.
As a Braves fan, I really enjoyed (and now miss) the long run of regular season success. Sure, the October failures are quite agonizing but it’s fun to have that hope of winning it all at the beginning of October.
Of course, if you say that there is NO chance of winning it all, that’s a different story. But if it’s having a team of regular season overachievers over a stretch of time vs. having a great team for only years, I’ll take the consistency. In other word, I prefer the fate of the Braves from 06-05 (2 WS appearance, 0 championships) over the fate of the Marlins (2 championships).
Cardinals fans have always enjoyed good baseball and it never hurts watching Pujols. Having gone from a dominate team in 2004 (swept in WS) to a team that limped into the playoffs in 2006 (and won WS), I think many baseball fans would like a competitive team since you never know what will happen come playoff time. It may take winning at least one WS to gain this perspective though.
Why does everyone keep thinking the Braves are like the Buffalo Bills? The Braves actually won a title in ’95. I realize, given 14 appearances and the 8-team playoff system for all but 3 of them, they should be expected to win 2 titles, but every comment makes it seem like they never won one. Considering what the last 3 seasons have been, I’d much rather see consistent winning.
I agree; the Braves are also a stark contrast to Eric’s postulated “steady” team. During their run of division titles in 14 of 15 years, the Braves averaged 98 wins (pro-rating ’94 and ’95 to 162 games).
Let me revise, since this has veered off into more of a semantics discussion than actual opinions.
Forget the hindsight. The question is really would you rather be a fan of a team that would win 83-93 games or so each season for 8 yrs, making the playoffs in many of those seasons, with a chance to win the world series, or a team that would that go 70-92 in 6 of those seasons while going something like 96-66 in the other two, steamrolling their way through the playoffs.
All this asks, at its root, is whether or not you would prefer a team with good success in the regular season, like the Braves or the As, or success in the playoffs without much in the regular season, like the Marlins. Forget money or any other characteristics – do you like the 3-week playoff success or the chance to watch your team win 56-60 percent of the time over the course of 6 months.
Without question I prefer the 83-93 win, consistent team, with my answer driven primarily by the timeframe of eight years…8 yrs is a blink of the eye in fan years. The consistent team says to me that they have a method to stay competitive and the WS will come eventually. For me the breakeven point would be about 25 to 30 yrs. I would probably prefer a two time WS winner with lots of bad seasons in between, over a 25-30 yr consistent winner with no championships.
In the short-term you take the consistent winning team but the problem is as the years stack up you start to lean towards getting the championship.
A question I always thought would be interesting pose to fans is would you like an above average team that kept a pretty consistent roster or a great team that had a lot of new faces every year. For me it is just about the cap on their heads but it seems a lot of people really like to identify with the players. This might hurt the desire for the 2 champ scenario.
Regular season, always. It’s the ongoing tension of success against failure, possibility against improbability.
In the playoffs, I can always pick a temporary allegiance, but my true joy is the year long soap opera of the local team.
Nobody here mentioned the Marlins as the perfect example. 2 World Series Titles and mostly misery the rest of the time and more importantly, no fan base whatsoever to speak of. I think this is enough evidence that ENTERTAINMENT trumps CHAMPIONSHIPS, although they are closely linked.
Pre 2004 I’d have gone for the championship, post, I’ll take the winning seasons.
I think you need a championship during the fan’s lifetime for the winning seasons to be more important. I grew up watching the handful of RedSox games covered in Alabama in the 70′s and 80′ (no cable), and by the 90′s I’d mostly given up and rarely watched regular season RedSox games. The unending collapses were just too much.
Then came 2004 and the comeback against the Yankees, and after that the series win was actually an anticlimax and somehow the series seems less important and the regular season more important. 162 games is much better than at most 19 games at judging a team.
But if they’d lost to the Cards in 2004 and to the Rockies in 2007 would I still feel that way? I think it takes one win.