Loving the underdog
In an essay she wrote for The Atlantic last week about how much she hates Tom Brady, Philadelphia native and proud Eagles fan Adrienne LaFrance cited academic studies to show why people prefer the underdog in any competition and offer weak support for the expected winner.
Brady is the legendary quarterback of the New England Patriots and there is little doubt he is the greatest football player of all time at that position. On Sunday, he was playing in his eighth Super Bowl, having already won five championships. The 40-year-old Brady and his teammates were favourites to win again over the underdog Eagles, a team that had never won the Super Bowl before.
As a result, only a few people with clear ties to Massachusetts were the only ones upset that the Eagles won 41-33.
As the research shows, everyone loves it when David beats Goliath, which is why that story is one of the most memorable biblical tales.
The reason, the academics found, comes down to investment and payoff.
Cheering for the favourite is a highrisk, low-reward endeavour. Rooting for Canada at the Olympics in hockey or curling is the right thing to do for patriotic reasons but it’s not easy. The favourite is expected to win, meaning that the disappointment when Canada loses is greater than the excitement when we capture gold in those sports.
Conversely, that’s why rooting for the underdog is so much more fun, a low-risk but high-reward investment. The underdog is supposed to lose so the disappointment isn’t great when it happens but a surprising victory brings such deep joy.
That’s also why underdogs go out of their way to portray themselves as underdogs while the favourites pump lots of air into the underdog’s tires before the big game.
The preference for the underdog isn’t just a sports thing, of course.
On Saturday night, Andrew Wilkinson was elected as the new leader of the B.C. Liberals. The only time he ever led in voting was on the fifth and final ballot. He was third for the first three ballots and crept up to second on the fourth ballot before winning. Meanwhile, Dianne Watts, long considered the front runner in the leadership race, won every ballot except the one that mattered.
The jubilation by Wilkinson supporters was only matched by the dismay of those yearning for Watts to win.
Christy Clark got to experience that underdog winner thrill twice, first when she won the leadership over favourite Kevin Falcon and again when she won the 2013 election over Adrian Dix’s NDP. If she had won another majority last year, it wouldn’t have been nearly as sweet or memorable as those previous victories. Like all favourites dealt that unexpected, crushing loss to a lesser opponent, she’ll be haunted by her 2017 defeat for the rest of her life.
Sadly, there are more than a few American voters who chose Donald Trump both to win the Republican nomination and then the presidency, because he was the underdog, the antiestablishment candidate doing battle against more traditional politicians.
That’s why it should be no surprise that Trump continues to take a me-against-the-world stance that excites his supporters. How ironic that the man who speaks so cruelly of the losers in the world and boasts of his own greatness insists on being the maligned underdog, even from behind his desk in the Oval Office.
As in politics and sports, the research also shows that people (and Trump) are fickle in their definitions of both favourite and underdogs. When the favourite is losing the big game, the larger the deficit means the more people will suddenly back the pre-game favourite.
The best example of that was in last year’s Super Bowl, when the Patriots and Brady were down 25 points at the start of the fourth quarter against the Atlanta Falcons. The miraculous comeback and victory in overtime was applauded by many who started the game cheering for Atlanta and it overshadowed the fact that New England was supposed to win in the first place.
Turns out Brady has been both favourite and underdog throughout his incredible career. All five of his Super Bowl victories involved a fourth-quarter comeback and he nearly did it for the sixth time Sunday.
Starting Friday, Canadians will become glued to their TVs to watch the Winter Olympics. As usual, they will cheer for athletes in maple leaf red and then for every competitor not wearing USA on their jersey. That’s not just patriotism or dislike of Americans that call themselves world champions for winning the National Football League title.
The best part of being Canadian is not being American and — except for curling and hockey — always being the underdog.