What Fictionalists Get Wrong About the Value of Winning

Abstract

The sheer number of fans who watch sports and cheer on their favorite teams is astonishing. What is further eye opening is the typical passionate fervor with which fans watch them, often acting like their very lives depend upon whether the teams they root for come out on top. The wide following that sports attract and the passionate responses of sports fans are puzzling to many because the outcomes of games rarely if ever have any appreciable bearing on the rest of the lives of the fans. Philosophers like Kendall Walton think that what they call this “puzzle of sport” can be explained roughly in the same way that what they call the “puzzle of fiction” can be explained. For just as enthusiasts of fictional films, stories, and plays are able to get emotionally caught up in characters that do not exist and made-up stories about them simply by make-believing that they exist and that their stories are real, so sports fans are able to get emotionally caught up in game outcomes simply by make-believing that winning is much more important and valuable than they know it really is. I reject this make-believe account and argue instead that what lies behind fans’ emotional fixations on game outcomes is that winning is a valuable end in its own right because it represents a significant human achievement. If I am right about this, then there is no puzzle of sports fandom that needs solving in fictionalist or other fanciful theoretical terms.