The main message of Larry Olmsted’s informative “Fans: How Watching Sports Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Understanding” is that sports fandom is good for you. People who support a sports team are on balance less depressed, less lonely, less angry, less tense, more extroverted and more satisfied with their social lives. And this mental buoyancy is by no means the end of it. As Mr. Olmsted explains, fans are also smarter, richer, more educated and physically more active. By the end of the book I was starting to feel sorry for all the poor saps who can’t see the point of sport. How do they live?
Mr. Olmsted, a journalist and the author of “Real Food/Fake Food,” has plenty of scientific references to back up his claims. Still, as he is aware, it is not always clear which is the cause and which is the effect. Are the benefits due to the fandom, or the other way around? It isn’t hard to see how rooting for a team might raise your spirits—it enrolls you in a ready-made community and keeps you entertained through the long winter evenings. But in other cases the story is less straightforward.
