Here is the full transcript of AJ Maestas’ talk titled “How Sports Can Tackle The Loneliness Crisis” at TEDxChicago conference.
AJ Maestas, the Founder of Navigate, highlights the profound impact of sports fandom on combating loneliness and fostering a sense of community and belonging in his talk “How Sports Can Tackle The Loneliness Crisis.” He uses the enduring loyalty of Cleveland Browns fans as a testament to the deep connection and identity sports teams provide, despite the team’s lack of Super Bowl appearances.
Maestas shares personal anecdotes to illustrate how sports fandom has significantly shaped his life, offering solace during tough times and a sense of belonging in new environments. He emphasizes the role of sports in bridging societal divides, citing Nelson Mandela’s use of rugby to unite post-apartheid South Africa as a powerful example. Maestas also touches on the psychological effects of shared fandom, which can create instant bonds over common interests, transcending differences in politics, religion, or race.
Furthermore, he addresses the alarming increase in Americans reporting zero close friends, suggesting sports fandom as a vital antidote to this trend of isolation. Concluding his talk, Maestas encourages embracing sports fandom not just for the love of the game but as a means to connect with others, break down barriers, and counter the growing loneliness crisis.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
Can you guess what is worse than some of our most feared public health epidemics, including smoking, drinking, and obesity? I’m talking about the top of this chart right here. The answer is consuming depressing TED Talks. The real answer is a lack of social connection. And I think part of the solution is in sports fandom, or at least it was for me, if I can tell you a bit of my story.
I was born and raised in Fairbanks, Alaska, so my introduction to sports were things like fishing and mushing sled dogs, if you can believe that, and off-road vehicles. Notice the official Alaskan helmet I’m wearing. I also spent a lot of time here. This was far and away my favorite bar. I’m down there in the bottom right, if you can zoom in for a second, yeah. My father went on this long streak of unemployment and heavy drinking leading up to me entering school, so you could kind of say I was raised in bars.
So, I share this with you so you understand what produces someone like this. This is me in high school, and yeah, I am missing some teeth there. I still hadn’t figured out the helmet thing. Just one year removed from this accident and yet another incident to my face, I had a doctor tell me that my surgically repaired lip would likely slough off and die, but no big deal. Don’t worry.
You can just disguise it by growing a mustache.
I was 16 years old. I still can’t grow a mustache today. But don’t get me wrong. I had a good childhood, but I did long for something more, and I wasn’t prepared for what came next. I was also afraid that I might repeat my father’s pattern of addiction. So, I raced out of Fairbanks at the first opportunity and moved to Seattle. So now we’ve established I was raised in bars, I’m missing teeth, and I can’t grow a mustache.
So, can you imagine the culture shock when I moved to this giant and modern city? I felt so scared and small and foreign. There are only 13 people per square mile in the Fairbanks metro area, and in Seattle, there are 684 people per square mile. And yet, despite all these people around me, I felt alone. I was alone. I didn’t have a single friend in Seattle. And then I attended one of the greatest sporting events in Seattle history, an event that changed the course of my life, lead to a career in sports, and this stage right here with you today. The perpetually struggling Mariners were in the playoffs for the first time in franchise history, and just their luck, they had to play the 22-time world champion New York Yankees.
With the game on the line, with the season on the line, they found themselves down one in extra innings. For three hours, I’d been on this emotional rollercoaster, all in concert with 57,000 other people, and then this happened. “And the 0-1 pitch on the way to Edgar Martinez, one on the line, down the left field line, for a base hit. Here comes Joy. Here is Junior to Fairbanks. They’re going to wave him in. The throw to the plate will be late. The Mariners are going to play for the American League championship.” I don’t believe it. It just continues. For me, just weeks removed from my Alaskan childhood, it was a feeling I did not know existed. It was much more than the thrill of victory.
Finally, and almost instantly, I felt a part of this giant and impossible city.
I belonged. Do you know that feeling? I’ve spent my career researching it. Alongside a team of social scientists and quants, we study what is today and what can be in the future of sport and entertainment. As a part of that work, we’ve come to the conclusion that sports fandom is not about excitement or championships or an excuse to drink beer, although, no, it’s about belonging. It’s a means to an end, just as the Mariners did for me all those years ago. It’s a pathway to community and connection.
So why does this matter? A meta-analysis of 16 independent longitudinal studies shows that poor social relationships are associated with a 29% increase in the risk of heart disease and 32% chance risk of stroke. Even more disturbing, social isolation and chronic loneliness can increase your likelihood of developing dementia by 50%.
So, my loneliness started to fade with that Mariners game, but it was nothing compared to my collegiate experience at the University of Washington.
I had no business getting into this school. I genuinely think someone made a clerical error, really. I was outclassed socially, academically, financially. You know that kid that had to study every night till midnight to survive?
Yeah, that was me. That is the actual library. Cool library, right? But I can assure you, this is not where the cool kids were hanging out at night. The whole thing was like some sort of club or community where I didn’t belong, with one exception. We shared a passion. We were Husky fans. And that fandom was a kind of social equalizer that allowed me to connect with people from radically different backgrounds that went on to transform almost every part of my life and perspective.
There’s a memory from my junior year. It was Rivalry Week. So the Washington State Cougars were coming to town, and as the week went on, it started to feel like this matters too much, like why this has just got to be about more than sports. It started to feel like my hopes and dreams for the future were on the line, along with this university that was my bridge to a better future. You could feel it. This mattered to all of us, so you can probably guess what it was like when we lost. I’m not going to show you that video. It’s quite a thing to have your heart broken along with thousands of other people.
I sat there miserable as the Cougar fans stormed our field, hung from our goalposts.
I mean, look at that. I think we can all agree that is disgusting, right? But this is the beauty of sports. You heard me say we lost, right? Not they, we. I was devastated, but so was everyone else across campus. And for me, just starting to fit in, that felt kind of good. So I’ve had plenty of bittersweet moments like that since then, and make no mistake, sports can be brutal. Here in the United States, roughly half the teams in our favorite leagues don’t make the playoffs.
So for those fans, there’s ups and downs throughout the season, but mostly downs, and in the end, disappointments. Now, if you’re lucky enough that your team makes the playoffs, well, you’ve earned the privilege of being devastated when they lose. That’s 97% disappointment or devastation, folks. So for that little sliver of champions, they end the year on top of the world. But for the rest of us, this sucks, right? Amazingly, no.
To prove my point, I give you the Cleveland Browns. There have been 57 Super Bowls, and the Browns haven’t played in a single one of them. This should be a miserable fan base. And yet, when we survey their fans, 81% say it gives them a sense of belonging and connection. 90% said they wouldn’t switch a thing, even if you could magically give them the chance to go back and choose to be a fan of a different team, like the Pittsburgh Steelers, let’s say. Yeah, I hear that. You have to keep in mind, though, the Steelers, despite being a rival, have been to eight Super Bowls and won six of them. So Browns fans are some seriously loyal people, right?
Or they’re deranged. I don’t know. You tell me. Actually, don’t tell me. You’re probably Chicago Bears fans, and you know what they say about glass houses. Yeah. OK, one more. I cannot resist sharing. We asked them the open-ended question of what Browns fans would rather do than be a Steelers fan. Yeah. A lot of them want to eat something. Here are some of the answers.
Hey, it sounds crazy, but I get it.
I’ve spent my whole adult life trying to be more balanced through things like meditation, gratitude, and the practices of the Stoics. And then a Washington Huskies game comes on TV, and I devolve hundreds of thousands of years in a matter of seconds. I’m yelling at the TV. You’ve seen people do this before, right? The referee can hear me. Maybe you’re guilty of this yourself at some point. A true story. I have skipped wedding ceremonies, hidden in a broom closet. I have altered flights. I have destroyed vacations so that I could watch a game live and in real-time. I even married a Husky, and I wouldn’t want you to tell her this, but if she rooted for the wrong team, I don’t know.
I don’t know. It’s amazing but true that a simple T-shirt can completely change how you feel about someone. The godfather of influence research, Robert Cialdini, notes principles such as social proof, liking, and unity significantly impact our choices. So, for example, if you’re from the same part of the world as me and you wear the same colors as me and you root for the same club as me, well, then we’re going to be fast friends. And to wear those colors and to become a fan is to gain citizenship in this massive and passionate community instantly. We need these bonds. They help us bridge generational gaps, sometimes in our very own families. They help us to see past things that often divide us, like politics, religion, or race.
In South Africa, coming out of apartheid, Nelson Mandela went out of his way to embrace the national rugby team.
Not that surprising, but you have to remember at that time rugby was a sport for elite whites. The Springboks went on to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup, and in one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments, a divided country was united. On that day, they were one people, one nation, all proud South Africans. This goes beyond sports, of course.
This summer I went to a Taylor Swift concert. Her loyal Swifties showed up dressed head-to-toe as Taylor Swift. They sung at the top of their lungs to every song, every word. For one night, they weren’t rooting or cheering for or watching Taylor Swift. They were Taylor Swift. We need these reasons to gather, these rituals and traditions. In the video that will follow, I would like to invite you to come along with this kid for his experience as he fulfills a lifelong dream of attending a match at Anfield.
Now, you may notice he has a disease that has left him without his arms and legs, and the ritual to pay attention to here is that Liverpool fans, at the start of every match, pledge to one another that you will never walk alone. Is there any question how much that matters to him? We’d have to talk about religion to find rituals this powerful, and make no mistake, stadiums are cathedrals of another kind.
Now, I’d like to share seven studies with you from around the world to further emphasize this point, but I want you to like me, so no, no, no, yeah, just one. Here in the United States, over the last 30 years, Americans who identify as having zero close friends, that group has quadrupled. Think about that. Zero close friends. I mean, I get it, I’ve been there, if you recall, Seattle, I think we can all recognize something is wrong, and we are losing the ties that bind us.
Sports fandom offers a solution.
I challenge you to go to a game and not feel the community and connectedness. That’s the game. That’s the value. It’s also why adult men who claim to have never cried can be openly sad when their team loses a game. It’s a kind of communal, emotional support group. It’s also why sports fans bounce back so quickly and start looking toward the future, because sports is not a zero-sum game. Even the defeat, with all that disappointment and devastation, they are bonded by something bigger than themselves.
And on that rare occasion, when your team finishes in that little sliver of the pie reserved for champions, it’s one of the only societal constructs that can produce something. They didn’t win a war. That is not Mecca. They won a football tournament. If this stuff can work for a lonely kid from Alaska who was raised in bars, has missing teeth, and can’t grow a mustache, I know that this can work for you, too.
So, before I walk off the stage, what I’m asking you is that in these times of increasing division and isolation, pick a team, put on the right colors, and get out to a game. You will be granted instant membership in a supportive community. You will break down socioeconomic, political, and racial walls. You will connect to something transcendent. You will feel love. And you will belong. Thank you.