OT: Article: In sports, losing hurts more than winning feels good

[Unfriendly Ghost]

Analysis | British economists prove it: Sports destroy happiness

Sports make the world a sadder place. Seriously. We’ve got data.

Armed with 3 million responses to a happiness monitoring app, plus the locations and times of several years worth of British soccer matches, University of Sussex economists Peter Dolton and George MacKerron calculated that the happiness that fans feel when their team wins is outweighed – by a factor of two – by the sadness that strikes when their team loses.

Pretty interesting stuff. Sometimes I feel this way, in that every time the Wings do something to undercut the rebuild, I get way more irritated compared to the happiness I feel when they do something right.

But could this suggest that rebuilding on the fly is a better strategy to maximize long-term fan happiness? Sure, you never win, but winning doesn't do that much. It's only that losing hurts too much, so the minimization of loss is what really matters in the end. Was it better to be a Calgary fan than a Chicago fan over the last 15 years?

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[Bench]

Ehhh. I hang my hat on the 97/98, 2002, and 2008 Cups. Those wins have so many great memories with friends and family. The buzz around town after the classic Colorado brawl. The Statue of Liberty fail. The Captain's slapshot goal against St. Louis. So many more I'm sure many of you are recalling now.

Chicago fans will have all that, too. Meanwhile Calgary fans get to remember that time they almost won in a Cinderella fashion. Almost.

 

[ricky0034]

personally what really gets to me isn't either one

winning feels good and losing feels bad but those feelings are easy to get over

but the directionless feeling where your team is probably going to make the Playoffs but will just lose in the first round in an ugly way and then not even get a decent draft pick to help improve? that's real despair right there

 

[Lampedampe]

It depends tbh, just go back a couple years and I remember taking losses pretty hard because I Went into most games expecting them to win, because they had to.

Nowadays it's just like going through the motions, a game just doesn't mean a lot sadly, so naturally a loss doesn't mean much. I still enjoy watching games, but I really miss the games where something was on the line.

 

[KJoe88]

Honestly. 2009 still hurts because I do feel like we were the better team by miles. But, that’s irrelevant. We lost.

That said, I won’t ever forget the feelings during those cup celebrations.

I’ll tell you what though - the series we lost against Chicago kind of stings. I actually thought we played well and lost to an unlucky bounce. I thought we outplayed Chicago and could’ve had the chance to play for the cup afterwards. That series stings more than the cup lost.

 

[Mlotek]

This is the kind of research that grabs headlines but is almost entirely meaningless.


BTW, its about the immediate feeling following the game, not the rose coloured recollection of years gone by. Ask any Wings fan about the 95 sweep and most casual fans won't have any idea what your on about. That has long been buried in the lore of the casual fan.

 

[Wingsfan 4 life]

Kinda hard to feel good after a win when you're in jail for hooliganism

 

[jkutswings]

This is the kind of research that grabs headlines but is almost entirely meaningless.

Correct. It's a phenomenon that isn't unique to sports at all:

Bad Memories Stick Better Than Good

 

[Nut Upstrom]

Kinda hard to feel good after a win when you're in jail for hooliganism

What?!

 

[Steve Yzerlland]

This is true. Wish I could have that Dan Cleary breakaway back in the 2009 SCF game 6 or that Lidstrom game 7 final secs shot back

 

[Cyborg Yzerberg]

I live in Philadelphia, and the feeling after the Eagles won the Super Bowl in this city brought an entire city together in a way I had never seen before. And the city is still celebrating it now months later.