Story beats the machine
Why do two-thirds of Premier League fans want City to win the league ahead of Arsenal? A: Cityitis. People will always root for the human over the efficient, and that is what the winners of the race for fans will have front of mind.
After the League Cup Final - or Rumbelows/Littlewoods/Coca-Cola as you choose - The Athletic published a survey showing a majority of fans at 11 of the other 18 clubs wanted City to win the league. Allowing for The Athletic’s audience tending towards ‘extremely online’, to have two-thirds of fans favouring the club with unlimited riches that has dominated football for a decade, is pretty striking.
Survey results from The Athletic: Question - Who fans want to see win the league
Isn’t sport about unpredictability and competition?In a league skewed by a flood of international money that has moved community institutions into investment assets, you want to see the upstart win out. Or not. What does this say about fans?
After such a stretch without a title, Arsenal have gone to the data; increase potential to win, close the margin of error. Organise and control, all perfectly logical. In doing so they also close the margin for human condition. Enter Manchester City. They too want control, but even at its peak theirs had inherent fallibility, a lunatic fringe in its playing staff, and a fanbase for whom the ridiculous is as familiar a companion as the sublime. And that’s something you can wrap your arms around, in a way that clinical practice doesn’t allow.
Illustration of Mikel Arteta as a lego figure, from David Squires
In the past I’ve referred to this behaviour as ‘people will buy an achievement, but they’ll subscribe to a feeling’. It’s what drives repeat and habitual activity, that forms the bedrock of your club as a going concern. It’s not an easy line to walk, as you want your team to be successful, for the athletes and coaches who pour themselves into it to be rewarded, and for the fans to have something tangible to shout about.
Taking the time to find out why people care about your club is a heavy but necessary task. It also means letting go of the reins, and allowing fans, old and new, to own things more. Fans often latch onto parts of the culture which the club, with its focus on the pitch, may miss or would prefer to keep under wraps. Run with them, celebrate the creases, the stumbles, the imperfections, make them part of the story of making your club human and relatable.
In the race for perfection, it’s easy to lose sight of the human side, which is where the deeper bonds that feed habits form, and make sure your audience sticks with you, emotionally and financially through thick, thin and even thinner.