"The Evolution of the Hipster Sports Fan"
Friday evening I found myself in Chapel Hill, North Carolina at a dingy concert hall within minutes of the UNC campus. The hole in the wall setting and artsy band playing brought out all of the young, creative hipsters decked out in their tight jeans, Chuck Taylor's, scarfs, and non-prescription glasses. Despite a crowded scene, parking wasn't an issue, as it seemed like all of these college seniors just rode their skateboards to the concert instead of supporting the villains at BP and every other capitalist warlord that might profit from them if they actually drove a vehicle.
Slightly uninterested in the music, I escaped to the back of the bar and found refuge near the only television in the establishment, as Duke was in a tough ACC tournament semifinal against a pesky Virginia Tech, a team that had upset then #1 Duke last month. Nearing the end of the game, Duke guard Nolan Smith jammed his toe into the shoe of a VT defender while passing out to an open Kyle Singler. Smith fell to the ground and stayed there for several minutes as the team trainer and Coach K tended to the ACC Player of the Year.
While Smith's fate for the remainder of the game, the ACC tournament finals and the rest of March Madness was in limbo, several hipsters came up to me and asked what was happening. I explained the scenario and what not. I was glued to the television set, contemplating the implications an injury to Smith might have on Duke's ability to get Seth Curry open for threes off of picks, Singler's offensive approach, Duke's half court defense and overall chance at making a serious push for back-to-back NCAA Championships...especially considering they've already lost Kyrie Irving earlier in the year.
On the contrary, the hipsters, who clearly had little to no interest in a Duke-VT ACC semifinal game, conversed only about what this injury might do to their March Madness bracket/office pool. It didn't seem like either one could explain the pros and cons of a 1-3-1 zone defense, when to full court press and when not to, or even who made the Final Four last year. Instead they just wanted to know how this might affect their chances of winning an upcoming pool..
These hipsters are a new face in the 21st century sports fan cheering section. Years ago, sports fans consisted mostly of overweight meat-heads who played some level of sports themselves and grew intensely loyal to certain teams, based on either geography, family history, or personal connection. The team's win-loss column and league standings was all that mattered. In the last 10-15 years, as the internet and fantasy sports have become insanely popular, a whole new breed of sports fans have been created.
A hipster is typically someone who wears clothes from the children's section of the local Goodwill store, has never bench pressed his own weight, let along any amount of weight, and spent more time at the record store than the sports card shop as a kid. Solid on the bass guitar and more interested in poetry than the NBA lottery, a hipster never really made many AAU basketball teams, earned a varsity letter for terrorizing opponents on the football field or batted .445 with an aluminum bat in high school. Due to this particular teenage existence, hipsters tended to align themselves against those jocks with the cheerleader girlfriends in the hallways. You didn't even see them in the stands cheering on their teams at the district finals. Instead, some even grew bitter towards the jock scene.
Years ago hipsters used to only come to the sports bars once every four years to jump on the soccer bandwagon, wrap themselves in national flags and cheer for a bunch of foreign teams during the World Cup. Now they're ages 25-40 and sports is their thing. Sports is no longer just for the grizzled nutcases who eat buffalo wings and drink cheap beers by the handfuls in a living room surrounded by buddies doing the exact same thing. With the creation of fantasy football and all of the other fantasy leagues one can join online, sports following and the entire community of sports fans has changed entirely.
No longer is it about cheering for your hometown team or your alma mater no matter their state of success. Now a large portion of sports fans don't even own a jersey for their local NFL team, but follow every single game online...researching who to trade for who before kick-off the following Sunday. Sports following has turned much more analytical with the creation of fantasy sports. Fans concern themselves less with the fact their team is 8-6 and might miss the playoffs, but rather what running back in the league can get them enough points to jump ahead in their own league standings.
This is not entirely a bad thing. The more interest in sports, the better. Good to see so many people that might have otherwise never cared about March Madness, spring training, or the NFL season now hitting up ESPN.com during their free time. They might not know how sweet it was to watch Walter Payton cut through defenses, but nowadays they surely appreciate it when Jay Cutler throws four TDs for their team...which isn't even the Chicago Bears.
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