It’s easy to fall into a trap after years of working in sports (or any industry). It’s just difficult to see things from an objective point of view, taking on the perspective of the ‘normal’ fan or consumer.
That’s why I love peppering friends, family, and, heck, complete strangers with questions about their experience as sports fans. Avoiding an insular point of view is critical to effectively understand the fan experience — the motivations, challenges, and opportunities. And that’s why each year when my Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast hits a milestone (12 years this year!), I’ve had friends and family members appear on the pod to ask about their relationship to sports and experience as a fan. I learned from my brother, an avid fantasy player and diehard San Diego Padres fan, my mom, a non-sports fan who became one of the biggest Anaheim Ducks fans you’ll meet, and, this year, my brother-in-law, Richard Schulman.
Rich grew up a sports fan, cheering on the Los Angeles Dodgers and Lakers. He became a big fan of Cal during his undergrad experience in Berkeley. For years, he’s always been aware of the sports zeitgeist, tuning into the biggest events and having enough knowledge to carry on a conversation about the sports news of the day or debate the biggest topics. Today, he’s a father of four, working (quite successfully!) in real estate, challenged for time to follow sports, but a season ticket holder for Angel City FC, because he’s raising girls who love to play soccer (and go to ACFC games with their friends).
I came away from my interview with Rich with a ton of insight about what it’s like to be a time-strapped father trying to balance keeping up with sports while keeping up with his kids, who adopted a team that didn’t exist when he was growing up, because it’s fun to do with his daughters. Here are some key lessons and takeaways:
Time is the Limiting Factor for Fandom
The days are still 24 hours as one starts to build a family, but the days are necessarily more managed and time feels more crunched. Rich can recall days in the past when he’d settle in to watch a day of sports or attend a game not knowing what time the game would end, but now such uncertainty is downright daunting. That’s part of the appeal for Angel City games (and Savannah Bananas games), he explained.
“Now I’m constrained on time. Like, I took my seven year-old to a Savannah Bananas game. I’m sure you’re familiar with them; and the same with soccer, it’s like you get there and you sit down and exactly two hours later you’re walking to the car.
“I can take my kids to an Angel City game, which is the women’s pro team in LA, it’s like on a schedule. It’s like 7:00 game; I like to go early with the kids, we can walk around; but I can leave my house at 6:00, I can sit down at 6:30, the game starts at 7:00, the game is over by 8:45, I’m home by 9:30. It’s a pretty tight time. And the kids like it…
“So sports now has to fit into a box. Like, I can watch playoffs. But you know, I used to watch college football Saturday all day, and I could just watch a random three-hour football game. You can’t do that anymore.”
Takeaway:
We’ve already seen Major League Baseball, in particular, take proactive steps to limit the duration of its games, introducing a clock to the sport that had been distinct by its lack of a countdown time function. Recognize that parents, in particular, are balancing mealtimes, naptimes, and school nights. Part of the appeal of sports is the escape, leaving worries and clock watching aside, but that’s often not realistic for busy parents (and many adults, in general). While we can’t build in assurances, we can be more proactive about helping fans fit in their sports, whether that’s providing average duration and end times, recognizing some fans won’t stay or watch the full game (in person or at home), and helping them still be fans and have enjoyable, stress-free experiences nonetheless.
Following Sports Closely Ain’t Easy
There are days when there’s an exciting buzzer beater or an unreal comeback, and it feels like everyone has to be aware of this, right? But the reality you are the minority if you’re refreshing the Twitter feed every few minutes or locked into notifications for Adam Schefter and Shams reports, and planning your weekends around sports. There are certain transcendent news stories that break through for Rich, however; I offered the Luka Doncic trade, as an example. And while Rich rarely finds time to sit down and watch most of ant game, the playoffs, especially when they involve his team, can be an exception to the rule.
“For something big like [the Luka Doncic trade], like that’ll show up on the regular news or my social feed will pop because I have friends who care more than me about it…But now it’s crazy that people would even think about spending that much time watching.
“You know, when the playoffs come around, I’ll get interested. I watched most of the Dodgers playoff games last year. Except, of course, the game they won the World Series, I was at soccer with the kids and they went down 5-0. I’m like, Well, I guess we’re not watching that game. We’ll just watch tomorrow’s game. And then on the drive home, they tied the game. But I watched the whole game one with the kids with the Freddie Freeman Grand Slam, so they all saw that.”
Takeaway:
When I worked on the team side, I often reminded myself that, as unlikely as it seems, some fans really were learning about big news for the first time from the team’s social posts or emails or text alerts. Don’t take for granted the median fan of the team is as informed as the top 1-5% who engage with every post and have their fandom listed in their IG bio. But do recognize, too, that less-engaged fans often still have avid, informed fangelists in their social circles or friend groups that are on top of things. They’re the ones pinging the group chat or whose posts make it to the Facebook feed of their friends and family; help those vocal fans be the messenger.
Sports are Social and Season Tickets are about Convenience as much as Benefits
There are lot of reasons fans decide to become season ticket holders across any professional or collegiate sport. Just as there are myriad reasons fans enjoy attending games. For Rich, going to Angel City games was not necessarily because his daughters, avid soccer players themselves, wanted to see professional soccer; it was a social outing with friends. For young kids, and by proxy their parents, sports are an early social vehicle (along with school, of course). Friendships are formed through playing sports, and attending sports events are great, novel ‘play dates,’ where friends can have new experiences and make memories together.
In addition, make special note of the difference Rich saw in the way his girls responded to Angel City (NWSL) and LAFC (MLS). It’s great that we tend to see both little girls AND little boys enjoy women’s sports, and interesting (and powerful) for little girls to be awestruck by seeing women as superstars, competing in front of big crowds at the highest level.
The decision to invest in season tickets ties together a lot of the aforementioned ideas in this piece — predictability, social, and convenience.
“We had gone to some LAFC games, me and the girls. We had friends that had tickets, so we would occasionally go with them on their tickets or buy tickets near them, and they liked it. I mean, it was neat for them. It was really interesting when Angel City came around, the same friend and another friend got season tickets and we thought, Oh, we’re not going to go to all the games, and then we went and the girls had a much better reaction to girls playing soccer than boys playing soccer, which to me, maybe it sounds obvious; I was surprised just because, like, I didn’t really ever think about it. We had pretty good seats. It’s a small stadium, it’s a nice, intimate venue, but you’re still like 100 feet away from a player. And if they do a throw in right underneath your seats; like, I can throw a baseball probably to the players that are closest to us.
“But [my daughters] really responded. So then we ended up getting [season tickets]…“There’s only like 10 or 12 home games, so it makes sense, once you start going to them. You can have your tickets that you want to have…We like to have the same seats, next to friends. The seats are good, it’s reliable, I don’t have to worry about going online. You know, Ticketmaster is still a poor experience to buy tickets. So it’s just nice to see, Okay. I have my tickets, I don’t have to think about it.”
Takeaway:
For many fans, sports events are a third place. It’s where you see or spend time with friends, sometimes it’s the only place you see certain friends. How can we better integrate this behavior into sports? Could purchasing tickets (especially directly from the team) be negineered to make it easy to be paired with another buyer or could we rethink what ‘group sales’ means when it’s 2-3 families instead of a company, church, or youth team? And while season ticket membership benefits are great (I spoje with Rich about some cool experiences on the field his girls get to have because of season ticket member or group sales benefits), don’t overlook the little things — the convenience, the reduction of stress, the reliability.
[Still thinking about the remark about the ‘different response’ his girls had to watching women play, too]
Accessibility is an Underrated Aspect for Kids Becoming Fans
Sports fandom has evolved in the last couple of decades, and many fans tend to follow athletes as much as teams. But, especially for kids at that vital age range (~ 8-11 years old, give or take), there is a greater correlation between proximity and their favorite players. There’s still a bit of magic for little kids to meet any professional athlete, they’re demigods even if kids don’t know their names. And while fans may follow stars like Messi or Ohtani or LeBron wherever they go, for little kids, it’s the star players they’re able to see IRL that have a higher likelihood of capturing their young hearts. With all that in mind, it’s worthwhile to note what Rich says about the flux nature of the Angel City roster and how that affects the propensity for the kdis to get to know players by name and, in turn, want to follow them (and the team) more avidly on and off the pitch.
“[The girls] don’t follow it like I used to follow sports, but they know the best players, like the main starting players. Angel City seems to have a constantly changing roster of players, so it’s been a little challenging to attach. But like, you know, let’s say Alyssa Thompson is their best or most notable player, like when we met her at the stadium after the game, they go down and try to get autographs, they’re really excited. Hannah recognized her and her sister at the mall, and we tracked down Alyssa Thompson at the mall…“But they probably couldn’t tell you 11 players on the team and we don’t really follow — like, Angel City has not been successful at winning soccer games. So we haven’t really been following their games that we don’t go to…
“[His daughters] get excited even when they meet [any] player. You know, they got an autograph last week at the game, and we don’t know who the person is. I have a picture of her, I have to figure out who it was. But she was excited, it was a former player who signed her jersey. So sometimes, if they go down to the field, they’ll get a signature from some of the other team, like the backup goalie from their team, but they’re still excited.”
Takeaway:
There’s not much we can do about the dynamic nature of rosters these days (incidentally, Rich also lamented his Cal fandom diminishing as the program’s top football players annually enter the transfer portal). The issue is a big one in sports — the dilution of unconditional love for a team, exacerbated by closer ties to individual players, the majority of whom won’t be on the team for their entire careers. But the good news is that because of that smaller world for young kids, when they’re at the age that their lifelong fandom can form, they’re more likely to latch onto the local team and its players. Make it easy for young fans to fall in love with the team, every last one of them. One of the best parts of women’s sports, especially, is before and after each game, a lot of the athletes (including the superstars) make time for kids, giving them lifelong memories and special moments that can form powerful connections. Give more kids more opportunities to make lifelong memories that involve the team, stories that’ll be etched in stone and in their hearts and minds for life.
A Couple More Quick Quotes
I wanted to include these additional quotes, but without extensive analysis.
The first represents the challenge of trying to balance sports participation for four kids. At a time when sports specialization is increasingly prevalent, and increasingly questioned, Rich’s girls have primarily stuck to soccer. Parents drive a lot of early exposure to sports and recreational participation, and it’s not easy when the kids and their social and sports and other obligations start to pile up. But also take note of another theme from my interview with Rich, how soccer has become a fulcrum for friendships. Specialization and playing club soccer and tournaments isn’t about just about playing more soccer, it’s spending more time with their friends.
“I don’t know how people do it with multiple sports. I mean, I know it’s probably better for the kids overall. It’s probably better for their sports. But at some point you have to say you gotta play soccer year round if you want to advance in soccer. Like, it’d be neat if you also had time to be like a swimmer and a volleyball player, but with four kids, it’s just not going to happen….It’s not really challenging because, you know, they are invited to play on an all star team and they get excited for that, and they generally tend to become friends with the other all stars. So it’s like you want to do more soccer with your friends? Of course.”
Rich has taken his kids to a handful of different sports events over the years, so we talked about the experience of being a parent and taking a young kid (or group of kids) to a game. What’s the right age to start taking them, how the kids experience it, and what their particular experience with Angel City is like.
“Probably around 6 or 7 [is the right age to start taking kids to games]. I mean, Leah will watch a whole game, but last game we went to, they wanted to go buy candy, and I’m like, there’s 20 minutes left in the game, you’re not going to go buy candy. You know, wander the stadium and go buy candy and miss the whole game. So you know, something like that…
“[Angel City] has a lot of stuff going on before the game, which is nice. The food options have dwindled as attendance has trailed off. They always have a local musical thing happening. They have some celebrity fans they highlight, which is neat. But they should focus on putting out a winning product on the field and that will kind of solve [things].”
Thank you again to my brother-in-law, Rich, for being a great dad to my nieces and nephew, and for helping us celebrate 12 years of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast by offering his experiences and opinions as a fan and father!
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