[Rain Man]

I've wondered about this over the years as well.

I think there's a bit of tribalism involved. We've picked our group and stick with them. Sports is good at doing this with its geographical divisions and bright colors and logos.

I think some of it is tradition. When I think about the arc of my life, pretty much everything is different now than when I was eight years old, with two exceptions: my self-identity and my Chiefs affiliation remained unchanged. Literally everything else is different.

I think too that sports are highly visible, but this type of connection happens elsewhere in life. I have friends who are really, really into dog shows. I see references to people who follow soap operas religiously for 30 years. People pick their favorite acts and root for them on those singing contest shows. So it's not just sports that causes this, but sports has managed to do it in a highly visible way.

That said, I'm really excited about this game coming up, to the point where I've got adrenaline pumping two days beforehand. I think sports juices up the normal effects described above, in part due to the marketing elements but more because we as a species have 200,000 years of history of getting amped up before a physical confrontation. It used to be with mammoths and giant cave ermines and stuff, and now it's with neck-bearded Homo Erectus throwbacks. But it's the same phenomenon.