By Alli Schieber, Editor-in-Chief
Motivation.
This is one of the main characteristics of an athlete but, what helps motivate athletes the most?
If you ask an athlete at any level, they will probably say the fans in some form, whether that be a family member or friend that always shows up to their game or a stranger that is inspired by them and supports them fans help athletes want to stay motivated and keep working hard to perform well for them.
Without fans everyone’s favorite sports teams will likely not exist.
Showing up for a game no matter what level of support is important for fans to show their support. For professional sports it could be distracting to play in a stadium with thousands of fans cheering against you. However, even with the fans cheering against you players still love the energy they bring and how loud it gets.
The Athletic’s beat writers did an anonymous poll where they asked 84 NFL players what the best stadium to play in is. The Kansas City Chiefs, Arrowhead Stadium had 17.9% of the vote which was the highest amount. This could be surprising to some as Arrowhead holds the record for being the loudest stadium. Which shows that the loud atmosphere effects both the home and away teams.
While it is important for fans to show up in person to support sports teams with social media today it is also important for fans to engage that way. Social media helps fans to be engaged in different ways, one way that fans seem to love is sports social media coordinators posting videos of the players asking fun, silly questions. This can be questions like what your favorite song by certain artist or it could be something like which coach would win a 40-yard dash.
This helps fans feel more connected to the team by seeing them answer questions that do not have anything to do with their sport.