Introducing...The Sports Fans' Happiness Index Tracker

We’ve all been there. You were looking forward to a weekend,  you’ve possibly even seen some friends, had a fun time; but then a few sports results go the wrong way and all of sudden you’re a bit miserable. If it’s a big, important event, or a match against a rival, then you might even be angry and upset. You get a bit snappy with people and despite the nice weather or the good company, your weekend is still not all it should be. Before too long someone who doesn’t quite understand why you’ve got such a cob on says the four words that make you seethe: “it’s only a game”. Well, yes, in the grand scheme of things it is. Nothing truly earth-shattering or life-threatening has occurred, but you know you still feel bad and probably wish you didn’t. You also know that some days you’ll be buzzing and euphoric when the wins roll in, but just how much do some things matter and how happy (or sad) should you be after the weekend’s fixtures are complete?

For a while I had been thinking about quantifying the impact of sports results on my mood so I decided to do something to do just that. In my view, there’s almost nothing that isn’t made better by a spreadsheet, and this project had ‘spreadsheet’ written all over it.

The concept is (relatively) simple: I identify all the teams (and in some cases, individuals) that I have a vested interest in when it comes to sport and give them a value out of 10 depending on how much I care. This is the fan factor. I identify all the potential competitions that they could participate in, and score them out of 10 as well; because we all know that some events and tournaments mean more than others. Each week I list eight of my chosen allegiances who have been in action, select the competition, log the result (win, draw, lose) and then state whether the match was a derby/rivalry or if it was a match of special significance e.g. key in a relegation battle, securing a title or keeping a winning streak etc etc. These two factors can have an impact on how you feel about any given result.

However, it’s not just about the teams I like. I recognise that sometimes the difference between a bad weekend and a terrible one can be the results of rivals; so there’s scope for two rivals’ results to be logged. If they lose, my score goes up.

The combination of allegiances, competition, result, derby/rivalry, special significance and rival’s results then create a score which quantifies my mood and gives me my ‘Happiness Index’. Depending on what score I get, I receive a message describing how I should be feeling in the ‘Mood Box’.

I built this gizmo a while ago and have now been logging results for a year. Each week my happiness Index is charted on a line graph which shows the peaks and troughs of being a sports fan.

So what allegiances have I got in my tracker, and how do I rate them? The following is probably not 100% exhaustive, but pretty much covers all those that I can claim to have any impact on mood at any given time.

And the tournaments I have identified for these, and their (importance factor) are as follows:

The combination of result with these two levels of factor (fan and competition importance) coupled with the same calculation (but inverse obviously so losses score heavier) for the two rivals gives the final Happiness Index.

This last weekend (1/2 April 2017) saw several of my allegiances in action. The ones I’ve tracked are, in no particular order:

Wellington Hurricanes (Super Rugby) bt Queensland Reds

Wigan Warriors (Superleague) lost to Leeds Rhinos

Philadelphia Flyers (NHL) lost to New Jersey Devils

Tottenham Hotspur (Premier League) bt Burnley

Essendon Bombers (AFL) bt Brisbane Lions

Maidstone United (National League) bt Barrow

Milan (Serie A) drew with Pescara

St George/Illawarra Dragons (NRL) bt Wests Tigers

In summary these results delivered the following:

The rivals I selected to counterbalance and revel in their misfortune are:

Arsenal (rival to Tottenham) drew with Manchester City

St Helens (rival to Wigan) lost to Salford

So, what was the overall impact on my mood when all of these results were considered? Well according to my Sports Fans’ Happiness Index Tracker I should be pretty pleased with myself this Monday:

This certainly doesn’t represent a high-point in my sports related mood, but there were still some things worth celebrating.

I’m going to try and keep a track for the coming year and report on whether the tracker really is a true reflection of how I feel after the weekend, or whether I’ve managed to rise above the disappointment or sink lower into an abyss. That said, I haven’t written anything on here for 6 years (and I still haven’t finished my BLSU Darts retrospective – plenty to say on that), so perhaps this might be the beginning and end of the experiment. We shall see!