[JohnnyV13]

I've put a lot of thought into this question.

Tribalism, vicarious success, ties to friends and family, and nostalgia are all good reasons, but one I haven't seen mentioned is that it's one of the few ways to help us relate to others in increasingly fractured society.

As many have mentioned in this thread earlier, humans are social animals. In hunting gathering societies, everyone pretty much knew all of the basic skills of the tribe and made our "living" the same way. We fundamentally understood the people around us.

But, farming brought in food surplus and economic specialization. 10,000 or so years later, we often have little understanding of the lives of even close family members or our neighbors.

Sports is one safe way to connect to others in a world where it can be difficult to make those connections.

I live in Tucson, AZ. By wearing Chiefs gear, I've gotten in any number of bar, restaurant, or even grocery store conversations with strangers. I immediately have a way to relate to them and "feel them out".

Certainly there are other ways to do this in our society. Many use popular culture touchstones like music or movie fandom for a similar purpose. Religion is a common way some people use to connect, but it is a treacherous one due to the passionately exclusionary opinions they tend to engender in followers.

But, because sports doesn't really matter in our lives, they are a safe ice breaker that allows us to "feel out" someone without revealing highly personal information. By seeing how they respond to highly emotional, but fundamentally meaningless events, we can find out a little bit about who they are. Sports are one of the few things that holds a highly divided society together. Our politics have become so fractured, we can't even all go to a freaking Star Wars movie without the themes pissing many people off.

That's why Colin Kaepernick was so toxic to the fundamental appeal of the league. He was undermining its primary social benefit.