From a Pulitzer Prize–winning Sports Illustrated journalist comes a fascinating exploration of what it means to be a superfan, featuring personal profiles and cutting-edge psychology.
There are fans, and then there are fanatics. In this wondrously immersive look at American sports fandom, George Dohrmann travels the country to find out what makes a superfan. In Minnesota, he meets newly minted generals of the Viking World Order; in Oregon, he shares a few beers with a lone soccer fan who single-handedly amassed a cheering section 4,000-strong for the Portland Timbers; in Illinois, he talks with the parents of a five-year-old boy whose hatred of Tom Brady went viral on YouTube. Through these and other humanizing profiles, Dohrmann uses the latest thinking in sports psychology—some of it learned during an intense round of mini golf with a group of professors at the annual Sports Psychology Forum—to unravel what makes sports fans so obsessive.
