Alfred Archer is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Tilburg University in the Netherlands and is a fan of Partick Thistle, Willem II and Scotland. He is the author (with Benjamin Matheson) of Honouring and Admiring the Immoral: An Ethical Guide (2021). Jake Wojtowicz received his PhD on ethics and the philosophy of law from King’s College London in 2019. He lives with his wife Hannah and their pets, in Rochester, NY, and is adjusting to life as a Buffalo Bills fan. This summer, he is taking part in his biennial ritual of letting the England men’s football team bring him nothing but suffering. Together, they are the authors of Why It’s OK to Be a Sports Fan (2023). In this interview, we discuss Why It’s OK to Be a Sports Fan and the ethics of sports fandom.
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Greg: What inspired you to write a book justifying sports fandom?
Alfred and Jake: We started writing together during the pandemic. There was a spate of people saying things like “Well, this really puts into perspective what matters, the fact that football isn’t on TV really doesn’t compare to the deadly plague sweeping the world.”
Of course, we see the point here, but also sports really matter. We both found that something big was missing from our lives because we couldn’t (justifiably!) watch football anymore. If anything, for us, the pandemic highlighted how much sports do matter to us. So, we started to write a paper. We took aim at “fictionalists.” These philosophers think that winning doesn’t actually matter to fans, rather they make believe that it matters, a bit like how we might make believe that Romeo’s death matters when we’re watching Romeo and Juliet.
This seemed wrong to us. We argued that the communities that fans are part of are an important reason why victory matters, and this communal aspect also goes some way to explaining why sports matter more generally and why it was a bad (albeit justifiable!) thing that sports were on hold during COVID.
Alfred was asked if he would write a short book for a non-academic audience, and he asked Jake to join him—so we expanded the paper and took on some other issues around the ethics of fandom that we thought were important things for fans to think about. We were both excited about the idea of writing for a broader audience and thought this was a great opportunity to allow our own passion for sports fandom to play an important role in our arguments. Being able to make our own stories part of our book has been a really fun part of the writing process.
Greg: What does it take to be a good fan?
Alfred and Jake: In short, you have to be critical. Fans love their team, a bit like how they love their family, romantic partners or friends. You should support your friends, but if they do something terrible, you should criticise them, or even—at the limits—abandon them. But that doesn’t mean they don’t matter to you!
Likewise with fandom: you should love your team, but if your team does something awful, you might need to criticise or even abandon them.
Fandom also often has values involved. Interpersonal relationships might be a bit less political, but we might be fans of a team because of its playing style or its commitment to, say, Catalan Nationalism (see “The moral risks of fandom”). If the club moves away from these things, good fans should criticise the club because it is no longer what it was—it is no longer what they fell in love with.
Greg: How can being a sports fan contribute to living a good life?
Alfred and Jake: We think sports fandom can contribute to living a good life in four important ways. First, it is good fun and we should not underrate the importance of fun in living a good life! Second, and perhaps less obviously, fandom is also important for the role it can play in helping to build communities. Community plays a central role in how we understand fandom. Fans are not just connected to the players on the pitch but also (and perhaps more importantly) to their fellow fans. Fans identify with one another, write songs to sing together, celebrate the good times together, as well as suffering together through the darker times.
Third, being part of these communities can help fans develop a sense of their own identity and also to find meaning in their lives. Fandom can play an important role in helping fans understand who they are and their place in the world. Having a sense of one’s identity is important for a good life. Of course, fandom is not the only way to develop such a sense but we think that developing a sense of identity that is rooted in community is a challenge for many people in modern societies and that sports fandom can offer one way for people to do so.
Finally, we think that sports fandom can also be a way in which people can develop and display important moral virtues such as loyalty. Through sports fandom, people can learn the importance of sticking with a team and a fanbase through difficult times, and this is a virtue they may be able to take with them into the rest of their lives.
Greg: What are (or should be) the limits of fandom?
Alfred and Jake: We try not to be too prescriptive, since everyone’s fandom is a bit different. If you’re a new fan, or a not particularly committed fan, then you should be less tolerant of bad behaviour from your team. If you’ve watched three games and you find out your team has been bought out by a murderous regime, maybe you should just give up. But for lifelong, even multi-generation fans, giving up support is much less easy.
Some recent events like regimes buying teams, players being accused of sexual assault, or coaches (or fellow fans) being racist are all the sorts of things where we think critical fans at least need to stop and think. They shouldn’t just continue to cheer as usual and need to reflect on what their support conveys, and whether they are able to still support their team without condoning or endorsing violent acts.
Greg: What most surprised you as you were researching and writing this book?
Alfred and Jake: One thing that surprised us was just how much valuable research there is in other disciplines about the nature of sports fandom. We were both very familiar with the philosophical literature on sports fandom and vaguely aware that sociologists had studied this too, but we were impressed by how much careful and insightful work there is in the sociology, psychology, politics and cultural analysis of sports fandom. This really drove two things home to us. First, that studying sports fandom is an important academic task. Second, that properly engaging with the ethics of sports fandom means engaging with this work being done in other disciplines.
Another thing that surprised us in writing the book was just how much fun it would be to write a book for a non-academic audience. Including our own experiences as sports fans as part of the narrative of the book allowed us to reflect on the role that sports fandom played in our own lives, which we both found really interesting. A nice bonus was that it also meant that rewatching videos of our favourite sporting moments could genuinely be counted as academic research.
Check out Alfred and Jake’s book Why It’s OK to Be a Sports Fan for more on the ethics of sports fandom. And for more interviews like this one, visit The KineSophy Library.