Off-Topic Forum

An interesting thought crossed my mind a few moments ago, as I was watching the Timberwolves get blown out by 25 points, and I wondered what other people thought of it, as well. Does your team or favorite player's success- or lack thereof- change your level of enjoyment of the sport, and the hobby of sports cards?

For me, I can honestly say it doesn't really affect it at all. My NBA team has been mismanged and run into the ground for years, the few random years where we did have success is the abnormality, not the norm. My favorite NHL team was mathmatically eliminated from the playoffs last week. (My NBA team - the Nets - were mathmatically eliminated from the playoffs circa 2012, when they traded their future away for two past their prime superstars who both played less than two years with the team and are both now retired and broadcasting). The Rangers are my favorite NHL team, and it was not a good season for them. NASCAR was much the same way- my favorite driver has not had much success over the past 12 years, And while my love of the sport is down significantly, it's due to the rule changes implemented for the sake of rule changes- not my driver's lack of success and now absence, as he retired. (Dale Earnhardt Jr.) The T-Wolves have always been in my top 5 favorite teams, by the way, although never #1...I just "took to" that team when I discovered the sport, for some reason.

My love for the NBA and NHL- the sports themselves- is all-consuming. There's almost no time when I'm awake when they aren't present. Either watching/listening, or when there's nothing I havn't seen on and something else is on my TV, I'm working on something card related. The impending end of the season has me in quite a dour mood. I'm the only sports fan I know who prefers the regular season to the playoffs, which I generally don't enjoy anywhere near as much as the regular season. NASCAR used to have that all-consuming aspect to it, but it doesn't anymore. That's probably a topic better left for a different thread.

Even though my favorite teams don't fare particularly well, I still watch every single game I can...regardless of who's playing. For the NBA, I have a bit of stratification of the teams. After  more than 20 years watching I've got it pretty much figured out who I want to win each game. For the NHL, most of the time I don't care who wins, as long as I get to watch. But I can tell that it's only a matter of time before the teams there are ranked as well, although it's always a fluid thing, it can and will change based on who's playing for the teams currently and how a win or loss would affect the standings.

Interestingly, my #2 favorites are having a lot of success right now. The Vegas Golden Knights are breaking pretty much every record for expansion teams in history, Martin Truex Jr. won last year's Cup title, and the Warriors- currently my #2 NBA team due to the fact that 4 of my 5 favorite active players are on the team- has won two of the last three championships and another this year would surprise no one save James Harden and Daryl Morey.

I have no idea what I'm going to do for the next few months when there are no games on. It's what I build every day around- at least FXX has a few hours of Simpsons (almost) every night, and the Olympic Channel will get much more viewing than it gets now.

Success of my favorites doesn't take away my will to watch when they are not doing well. I guess it also helps that I root for more than one team or driver in my favorite sports. If the Carolina Panthers have a crappy season, I still watch every single game they play. Even when they became the first team in NFL history to lose 15 straight regular season games in 2001, I watched every single one of them. Luckily, the Lions lost 16 straight to go 0-16 a few years later to bump the Panthers off the top of that list. Plus the Panthers went to the Super Bowl 2 years after that horrible season. I also watched every single game of the 2010 season when they went 2-14. At least that led to them getting Cam Newton in the draft in 2011. I also root for the Packers and Patriots in the NFL and have since before the Panthers existed. The only time I root against either of those 2 teams is when they are playing the Panthers OR if it will benefit the Panthers by one of those teams losing.

I still watch every single major NASCAR race too. I don't just mean the Cup Series either. I watch all of the Xfinity Series races and all of the Truck Series races too. I cheer for several drivers, but mostly those that are now in the Cup Series. Just because 7x Champion Jimmie Johnson had a bad year in 2017 (ONLY winning 3 races and finishing outside the top 5 for the 2nd time!), it didn't make the Chase for the Championship any less interesting for me. I have to say that I really like a lot of the changes that NASCAR has made the past few years. Adding Stages to the races really changed things for the good in all 3 of those Series and it led to much more interesting races for the most part.

For baseball, I root for the STL Cardinals and the Indians and Red Sox. Not so much for those last two anymore b/c all the players I rooted for are gone or retired and my local team isn't affiliated with the Indians anymore. I can't possibly watch every STL game b/c they just don't air in my area much, but I will watch them when I can get them. That's mostly just when they play the Cubs, Braves or Nationals. A lot of games against the Pirates have been on TV here over the past few years though and I watched those too.

I DVR ALL Panthers games and all of the NASCAR races (even if I'm going to watch it live), but the rest of my sports are mostly watched only if it's live at that time. I can't DVR everything I want to watch b/c I'd need a much bigger capacity DVR or several of them.

My last sport that I stick to hard is NCAA football and basketball. I mostly only care about Duke games during the season, but will watch nearly anything with an NC or ACC team involved. {How about Notre Dame knocking off UCONN in the NCAA Womens BKB Tournament?!} I don't really DVR much of those games (unless it's DUKE/UNC or an ACC or NCAA Tourney game that I'm not home when it starts). When it comes to the NCAA tourney, I watch a lot of games, but not all of them. I mean it's not really possible to watch all of every game until they get to the Final Four. I can't wait to see how the Championship game turns out tonight. It could be a blowout or it could be a fantastically close game all night.

I guess I could have shortened this whole reply by saying: No, my team's success or failure doesn't change how much interest I have in any given sport. I watched more of each of the 2015, '16, '17 MLB WS games than I did of the 2013 WS games when the Cardinals played the Red Sox. What does that say?

I think it says that those 3 years had much more interesting match-ups.

I always say my favorite sport is baseball, but my favorite sports team is the Dallas Cowboys.  I lived through 1988-1989 with the Cowboys (4-28) but it wasn't their performance that affected my collecting.  I was just done collecting at that point in my life.  I'm an admin over at the baseballreference.com wiki, so my love of baseball is as strong as ever, and my collecting is back now too.

How good or bad my team is has no bearing on my collecting. They could be the worst (they were last year) in the league and I will still follow them and collect their cards. At least Topps, Bowman and Stadium Club base cards. All the other cards after 2011, inserts/autos/game used, I have no interest in.

The only two sports I am a fan of is basketball and baseball.  As you know, I am a Phoenix Suns fan.  It’s getting very difficult to watch them get destroyed every night.  When Booker doesn’t play,  it’s honestly not even very entertaining to watch anymore. I still watch every game, but maybe it just means I’m a masochist.  Honestly, anyone not named Devin Booker or Josh Jackson and sometimes TJ Warren should be just told to go home.  

The good thing though is that the Diamondbacks are one of the best teams in baseball right now.  Soo, basically it’s like the Suns season is over right now.  If both the Suns and the Dbacks are playing, I’m going to watch the Dbacks before I watch the Suns get blown out by 25 again. 

The sucesses or failures of my Red Sox does not affect my collecting in the least. when the team is bad (which has not been too often in recent years) I kind of hope some of the bandwagon fans fall off so, I can have less competion to pick up the cards I need! I still watch/listen to as many games as I can win or lose.

Scott

It has no effect on my collecting at all. Interesting topic though...

I'm a Phillies fan and I collect Phillies. If I allowed their performance on the field to affect my enjoyment of collecting (or watching), my TV and my 10 binders would be outside, in a firepit, smoldering. Actually, it would be more apropos if they were thrown in a dumpster and set ablaze.

My fave team's performance doesn't effect my collecting. Well not much but my love of the Washington Nationals means that getting a Bryce Harper RC from the 2012 Topps Archives supershortprint #241 is right up there with being able to win over $1 Million in the lottery without ever buying a ticket. Other than that as I said the performance doesn't effect my collecting. 

As a fan of most DC sports there are the Cardiac Redskins, although now-days I don't get as built-up emotionally during games as I did back in the real cardiac days of the 1980s and before. There is also the always the bridesmaid but never the bride Capitals.In their 44 year history they have made the playoffs approx. 30 times with at a minimum 20 of those "one and done" series. Oh yeah back in 1997/98 they made it to the dance but they lost to the Red Wings. 

This question reminds me of those collectors who only collect the current members of their team. When a player gets traded away they understandably stop cold turkey on that player. I can understand that, but some of them will purge their collection completely of the player, that kind of collecting I'll never understand.

My sports card collecting and the watching / cheering for certain teams in different sports are kept totally separate. If they were not, I would no longer be collecting.