HOW WATCHING SPORTS MAKES US HAPPIER, HEALTHIER, AND MORE UNDERSTANDING

From Best Selling Author Larry Olmsted


THE BOOK

The Book

Fans, How Watching Sports Makes Us Happier, Healthier and More Understanding is a new hardcover release from Algonquin.

READ EXCERPT

The world of Spectator Sports is comprised of fans and athletes, and the fans account for far more than 99% of the total. Yet while there are thousands of books about sports, surprisingly little has been written about sports fans. This is a book about Sports Fans.

Fans at bar from Larry Olmsted Fans Sports Book
Fans Sports Book by Larry Olmsted
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"A Must-Read Book For Every Sports Fan."


Nearly 200 million Americans and billions of people worldwide describe or identity themselves as sports fans. Avid fans invest hours each week and years over the course of their lives following the teams or athletes they care about, often traveling or spending significant sums of money to do so. What effect does this have on us?

“For tens of millions of Americans. . . Sport had become a national obsession, a new cultural currency, a kind of social cement binding a diverse society together. Instead of work, family, or religion, increasingly large numbers of Americans were choosing sport as the focus of their lives."


-Randy Roberts and James Olson, Winning is the Only Thing: Sports in America Since 1945

What does being a fan say about us? What does a world full of sports fans do to society as a whole?

These are the questions Fans addresses, and if you are a fan – or know a fan – there is some very good news. It turns out that sports fandom is an overwhelmingly positive thing. As individuals it makes us happier to the point where fans enjoy demonstrably better mental health, and this happiness leads to everything from better interpersonal relationships to better school and job performance and a better quality of life. Physically, fans tend to be healthier. Some fans have used their passion for sports to battle cancer and illnesses, while others have used fandom to overcome psychological trauma.


As a society, sports fandom has played a positive role and significantly contributed to the Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, and LGBTQ Rights movements, and increasingly plays a positive role in civic engagement, politics, minority representation and on a global scale even contributes to international relations, diplomacy, the spread of democratic ideals and the march towards world peace. Fast growing Fantasy Sports, enjoyed by nearly 60 million people in the U.S. and Canada alone, is literally changing the way fans think and perceive tribalism and rivalry in a way that is good for all of us. Sports fandom has been shown – over and over again - to have a profound impact on healing communities after both natural disaster and terrorist attacks.


New York Fan, Twin Towers, Larry Olmsted Fans Book

"That game was the moment when we went from being citizens full of rage and sorrow and anger to being fans again, when it was okay to clap again, and to laugh and smile.”


-a sports fan recalling the first baseball game played in New York City after 9/11

In short, being a sports fan is a bigger deal than most of us thought, and it also operates differently from other types of passionate fandom, such as movies, music or books. 


Fans relies on the most recent research from psychologists, scientists, sociologists and medicine for cutting edge data, but also takes a more personal approach, looking to historians, philosophers, pundits, politicians and of course fans themselves. In Fans, readers will meet those whose lives were improved, changed or even saved by their love of sports, travel to cities, countries and regions changed markedly for the better through sports fandom, and learn the science behind it that makes all this possible. 


Fans is a fun and fast paced ride into the world of sports fans, and it is a must-read for any fan of any sport - and the perfect gift for anyone who is a fan.


Advance Praise for Fans:

How Watching Sports Makes us Happier, Healthier and More Understanding

“Fun and fascinating. Fans is Exhibit A, showing that our sports obsession is good for our health!” 


-
Andrew Blauner, editor of Coach: 25 Writers Reflect on People Who Made a Difference




“A Must-Read For Any Sports Fan!

Olmsted’s Book Put Me In The Stands, Wearing My Jersey And Cheering – For Myself!

It Turns Out Being A Rabid Fan Is Good For My Health.”


-Bestselling author and award-winning radio host 
Michael Patrick Shiels



“Read if you want an entertaining look at the ways being a sports fan enhances lives.”


-
NetGalley.com, Leading Book Review Site For Professional Librarians



“Olmsted probes deep into the minds and machinations of the devoted sports fan and, in the process, opens a window into a psychologically compelling world of passion and purpose.”


-
Harvey Araton, author of Our Last Season



“Sports fanatics rejoice! FANS illustrates how a passion for sports also provides community and hope. The book shows how sports act as a cultural currency, a global language, and a source of healing, and it displays recent groundbreaking studies into the effects of sports fandom.”


SILive.com



  • “Fun and fascinating. Fans is Exhibit A, showing that our sports obsession is good for our health!” 


    -Andrew Blauner, editor of Coach: 25 Writers Reflect on People Who Made a Difference

  • “A Must-Read For Any Sports Fan!

    Olmsted’s Book Put Me In The Stands, Wearing My Jersey And Cheering – For Myself!

    It Turns Out Being A Rabid Fan Is Good For My Health.”


    -Bestselling author and award-winning radio host Michael Patrick Shiels

  • “Read if you want an entertaining look at the ways being a sports fan enhances lives.”


    -NetGalley.com, Leading Book Review Site For Professional Librarians

  • “Olmsted probes deep into the minds and machinations of the devoted sports fan and, in the process, opens a window into a psychologically compelling world of passion and purpose.”


    -Harvey Araton, author of Our Last Season

  • “Sports fanatics rejoice! FANS illustrates how a passion for sports also provides community and hope. The book shows how sports act as a cultural currency, a global language, and a source of healing, and it displays recent groundbreaking studies into the effects of sports fandom.”


    SILive.com

Great Fan Quotes

“Sometimes it’s not enough just to change laws. You’ve got to change hearts. And sports has a way sometimes of changing hearts in a way that politics or business doesn’t.”


-President Barack Obama

“Are you a fan? It is altogether to be hoped, for your psychic health and well-being, that you are.”


-A.A. Brill, MD,
“The Why of the Fan”


“We want to live in a world that has a sense of

humanity . . . Sport might not solve every problem, it’s not

a panacea, but can sport play that role, can it build a

stronger humanity? In my view, unquestionably yes."


—Sir John Key, former Prime Minister of New Zealand

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