Doubtless, you think that your favorite sports team is the absolute best in the world. Unfortunately, you may run into confusion when talking to people who support other teams, as they are just as confident that their team is the excellent one. 

In reality, there are a lot of components that go into why you feel how you do about your favorite team, and it doesn’t all have to do with how skilled the team is.

Die Hard Fans

The home-field advantage is a real thing for a team, largely because of the support and positive energy of local fans. The propensity of fans to support their local team is built into how we do sports. Most of the time, we think of this as a good thing, loyalty between fans and their team and good-natured competition between teams. However, sometimes fan loyalty can be taken to extremes.

A prime example of this is the scandal with the Patriots and Tom Brady in which there were accusations made of tampering with the football, specifically deflating it. Tom Brady and Patriot fans thought this was a ridiculous joke, while non-supporters of the team thought it was extremely serious. Fans have gone into extremely intense debates about this issue.

Even more extreme are examples of players committing very serious criminal actions and still being defended by their fans. Ray Rice beat his future wife on video, but it didn’t stop Baltimore fans from backing him.

This goes much further than the NFL. Practically all sports see fan bases with die-hard support despite strong evidence that something very negative has occurred. Why? The answer has to do with the affiliation that we feel with our sports team and our desire to support them no matter what. It is truly a demonstration of loyalty, whether or not the consequences are positive.

The home-field advantage can have negative effects on your capacity to predict the success of a given team. You may be able to strategically analyze teams that you don’t feel a particular affiliation for, but when it comes to your favorite team, you may think that they are much better than they are. If you’ll be betting on your guesses, this could be a serious problem. 

How to be a Die-hard Fan But See Your Team Clearly

If you want to pick a team to support, you can pick whatever team you like. Die-hard fans of teams that have been losing for years still love supporting their team no matter what. However, if you want to pick a team to bet on, picking a sports team needs to go further than your personal love for a given team.

Here are a few things that you can do to make sure that your favorite team doesn’t end up being your route to failed guesses about who will win and lose. By keeping an open mind, you can continue to support your favorite team while making wise decisions about placing bets.

Follow the Data

When it comes to sports teams, the data is your golden ticket to making successful guesses about who will win. It is generally inconceivable for an individual to collect enough data to make guesses about a national team winning. However, if you rely on professional data collection and forecast along with your own information collection, you dramatically increase your potential for making a very well informed bet that is likely to pay off.

Diversify

It could be very exciting to put most of your pot into one team or game, but if you want the best chances of success, it is wise to diversify. Especially right now, when things are so erratic due to COVID, making predictions can be even more difficult. 

Sufficient diversification into different teams that are likely to win for different reasons makes you more likely to win out overall. If you want to be serious about picking the winning team, invest in a couple of teams that you think have a very high probability of success.

Support Your Team With Underdog Bets

You don’t have to give up supporting your team entirely with your bet. If you want to feel the thrill of hoping your team will win without making big sacrifices if they lose, take advantage of the odds against them. 

Bet an amount that you can afford to lose on your favorite team when they are not forecast to win. You’ll be able to feel a lot of excitement as you watch your team plays and root them on with sincere enthusiasm, but if they lose you won’t take a huge hit.

 Be Honest About How Good Your Favorite Team Is

You don’t have to tell anybody that you have reservations about how well your favorite team will do. Support your team with all of your heart and bet a little bit on them with an underdog bet, but if you want to make money betting on sports, it’s best to leave your favorites out of it. 

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