Sometime in the last couple of months, I decided that I loved Illinois Basketball. The best nights of my week are when I can chill with my friends and watch Dee Brown on one of his trademark fast breaks, awe at Luther Head’s 3-point shots and marvel at Deron Williams’ sharp playmaking. In fact, I want to be a basketball player myself; I’m going to start going to IMPE and shooting hoops because basketball is just that cool. But my favorite part is the end of the game, when Illinois wins; I feel like my hard labor as a fan has paid off. It’s even more fun than when I go to the Ice Arena every weekend to watch our hockey team slaughter some unsuspecting bunch of saps on skates by a 10-goal margin.

It reminds me of how I felt in the fall of ’03, when the Cubbies batted their way into the Major League Baseball playoffs. Their hot young pitching staff, backed up by skilled fielding and some major offense made them potential favorites to win the World Series. Despite my roots in the South Side of Chicago, October was a great month, when we got to watch the hometown Cubs win game after game and advance through the playoffs. Sammy Sosa hit home runs when we needed them, and Kerry Wood struck out the opposing team. It was great fun. Then the Cubs lost to the Florida Marlins. I’m not sure what they’ve been up to lately; I haven’t really paid attention for over a year now.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: this jerk is a fair-weather fan! He only likes teams because they win. Pardon my hedonistic habits of sports fanaticism, but I happen to like teams who make me feel good. And honestly, not much feels better than winning, save maybe for being ranked the best in the nation – like my favorite basketball team.

Judge me all you want, but I think my brand of loyalty is quite defensible. After all, what are spectator sports? Recreational entertainment. In one way or another, we’re paying for it. Why not maximize what we get out of it?

In other words, we fair-weather fans are simply the market at work. If a team puts out an inferior product for us to watch, we won’t buy it. Sports teams need the threat of financial collapse in order to keep them motivated. The results otherwise are pretty sad. Take the Chicago Blackhawks, owned by liquor magnate Bill Wirtz. For decades, this cheapskate has invested no money in putting a quality team on the ice, yet stupid fans (like me) still went to games, bought merchandise and had their hearts broken again and again. As an old school pragmatic industrialist, Wirtz wouldn’t spend a dime more than he had to on the team if the bottom line looked good. Of course, the fact that the NHL has all but cancelled its season has probably taken care of this problem for good.

Fair-weather fans, with their precious dollars, are critical in maintaining the quality of professional sports. The rules are similar for college ball, at least in my book. I couldn’t name for you four members of our football team no matter how hard I tried. Remember, you and I are paying for their college tuition and paying their coaches’ salaries. In return, we get school pride and entertainment. This is a pretty simple exchange, if you ask me. Our number one basketball team has made good on their end of the bargain and deserve all the praise and support we can lavish upon them. But our losers on the football team – and their now rightfully jobless coaching staff – should be run out of town. At the very least, I think we deserve a partial tuition refund for this season’s debacle; that would be good customer service.

Sports are nothing but entertainment. So in the name of mental well-being and quality sports, I’m going to go root for the Yankees.