Is Philly Sports Fatigue A Thing?
There has been an interesting phenomenon going on around the Philadelphia sports scene as of late. I believe it’s called “winning”. Despite neither the Phillies nor the Union bringing home a championship, and the Eagles surrendering their undefeated season on Monday night, the last month or so of Philly sports has been incredibly successful in the win/loss column. Hot take here, but it’s actually been really fun to watch the teams we root for play really well and win more than they lose; they should choose to do this more often! The winning is not the only thing that’s been of interest as of late, though. Philadelphia is a rabid sports fan base, but do even the wildest fans on the planet experience fan fatigue? Well, some people have begun to develop the opinion that crowds at recent games haven’t been as raucous as normal. Are fans really out of juice from a great Philly sports run?
It’s not the craziest theory in the world when you look back on what’s been going on around the city over the past month. The Phillies playoff run started with their Wild Card Series in St. Louis on October 7th. Including that contest, they went on to play 17 games in 29 days, which is not a lot by baseball standards, but is a heck of an emotional investment when all 17 of those are high stress playoff games. It would be like if the Eagles played an entire season in a month. That would be exhausting. On top of that, the Eagles were actually playing during that time frame, and playing well. Not only have the Eagles gone 4-1 since the Phillies’ playoff run started, but 3 of the 5 games have been in primetime with a SNF matchup with Dallas, Thursday vs. Houston, and this week’s Monday Night game against Washington. Add on to that the Sixers’ opener, the Flyers’ opener, and a Union MLS Cup game, and it’s been a busy stretch for everyone involved.
The good news is that this looks like something we may have to get used to for the foreseeable future. The Eagles are still the top team in football record wise, the Phillies are just entering their championship window, the Sixers are yearly contenders, the Union are a soccer power house, and the Flyers… we’re moving on. The point is, these teams look poised to be good for a while, and that means a lot of big, primetime games in the near future. Does that mean that we’re going to get into a mindset as fans that the games don’t feel as big? I’d imagine that’s a possibility. Too much of any good thing can make that thing seem routine. Billionaires don’t get excited over a fancy dinner because every dinner they have is fancy. Well, maybe this is just the nature of being in a really good spot sports-wise in this city, but we need to fight against complacency. Whether it’s true or not that the fan support at games has been a little bit diminished recently because of fatigue of numerous big games, we need to continue to be the best fan base in all of sports. I know each and every Philadelphia fan has it in them.
