Title Town

I have been a Boston sports fan my entire life.  Growing up, my television was always tuned to whichever game was being played, depending on the season of course.  Even if I didn’t quite understand the rules of the sport, I sat down with my dad and watched the Red Sox, Bruins, Celtics, and Patriots consistently fall short of championship titles.  The 90’s was not exactly the best decade to be a Boston sports fan but the teams still had their loyal fan base regardless.

There was always the hope that somehow one of the teams would have a great season and miraculously win a title.  That dream finally came true in 2002 when the Patriots beat the Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI.  All of a sudden people were wearing Patriots attire and talking about how the Patriots were the best team in the entire sport of football.  My grandparents have been season ticket holders for the past thirty years, and after that win it got even more expensive for them to purchase their tickets.  The waiting list for season ticket holders is still unbelievably long today.

That initial victory was followed up by quite a few others for Boston sports teams in the 21^st century.  The Patriots went on to win two more back to back Super Bowls in 2004 and 2005.  The Red Sox “Reversed the Curse” in 2004 with a World Series Title and then again in 2007.  The Celtics also won a championship in 2008 and most recently the Bruins won the Stanley Cup in 2011.  This amazing streak of victories earned Boston the nickname of Title Town as well as thousands of bandwagon followers.

I’ll admit that I am way more interested in the Patriots and Red Sox than I am in the Celtics or Bruins, but these recent championships have displayed the notion of preferential attachment very outwardly.  Once the teams started winning, they gained more followers and the numbers just grew exponentially from there.  People who never had an interest in the sports before, were drawn to watching the games because it was something that everyone else was doing.  It’s easy to become a fan when your team is winning and everyone around you is routing for them, but it takes an initial victory to make that popularity happen.