If you are planning on attending a sporting event anytime soon, stay for the whole game. Sporting events are long, get over it. If you are planning to go to a sporting event, whether it is a Red Sox, Bruins or NECC game of any sort, plan ahead. Make the necessary arrangements and mental preparations you need in order to stay for the entire event.
People come up with a million reasons not to stay the whole time, but why go if you are just going to skip the end; it is the best part!
Consider this, you see a trailer for the new Avengers movie and freak out. This is the movie you have been waiting to see since the first Avengers movie ended and now it is almost here. You go online and order tickets to the midnight premiere months in advance. Then, once you are there, you realize you still have work the next day and need to sleep at some point. As a result, you decide to leave halfway through and end up missing the best part of the movie you have been waiting years to see. Does that make sense? The answer is NO! If you make the conscious decision to attend an event such as, in this case, a movie or a sporting event then you must understand the consequences.
Some may say, “I leave early to skip the traffic.” This is a misjudgment because there are at least a thousand other fans in the ball park with the same mindset that take off at the same time creating the traffic everyone is trying to avoid.
Others will submit that they need to get up early for class or work the next day; too bad! As stated before, you must attend these events preparing for the consequences. If you have class or work the next morning be prepared to be exhausted throughout the day. Grab an extra cup of coffee, energy drink, or just call out sick, but do not leave the game early.
Instead, grab a few beers and some friends and watch it at someone’s house. That way, when you decide you need rest for the following day, you can go to bed and DVR the end of the game so you don’t miss what everyone is talking about the next day around the water cooler.
WEEI reported a situation recently that radio personality Howard Stern attended a basketball game at Madison Square Garden where the New York Knicks hosted the Brooklyn Nets. He understood that he needed to get up at 4:30 AM but insisted on going to the game. Then, when he left his court-side seats at the end of the third quarter in a close game, he was called out by the TNT commentator, Stan Van Gundy, on live television. Stern was offended and lashed out at Van Gundy on his radio show.
Any number of fans would love to see that game from those seats, don’t waste the tickets by leaving early. You have already spent a fortune on travel expenses and the tickets themselves, but what is the point if you don’t appreciate the full value of the event.
Let’s say the opponent is not the greatest and maybe someone gave you the tickets just to unload them because of the opponent, this doesn’t mean the game couldn’t potentially be an instant classic regardless of who is playing. It happens all the time where one of the top teams gets taken down by the underdog.
One day, years later, when you look back at the game everyone still remembers, you can say you were there and you experienced it in person, unless you slip out three-quarters of the way in. I’d also argue, if you don’t care about the game because of the opponent then you shouldn’t go in the first place.
One of the biggest reasons fans leave a game early is because they assume the game is over based on the score and time remaining. There are many examples of this being false. Just this past year on October 13 the New Orleans Saints were playing the New England Patriots in Foxboro, MA and had the ball with a four point lead and under four minutes remaining in the game. A large number of fans left the stadium thinking the game was lost and immediately regretted the decision because with no time left on the clock Tom Brady threw a touchdown pass to give them the win.
On the same day, the Red Sox faced a similar situation when they were down late in the ball game but turned it around. As the Patriots did, the Red Sox came up clutch and walked off with the win thanks to a home run, courtesy of David Ortiz. The examples go on and on, but the point is if you leave a game before the final out whistle or buzzer then you are a fool.
On a final note, yes I understand athletes get paid millions of dollars to play a game but they still put in hard work day-in, day-out to put on a good show for you; show some respect. By leaving early you belittle their efforts as a professional. That’s like leaving the dentist half-way through a cleaning because you’re not a fan of his/her jokes.
Sporting events are supposed to be a fun experience, one that allows you to escape from your everyday life and, by leaving early, you are depriving yourself of that extra time to deny reality and see an amazing event.
If you plan on leaving before the end of a game then don’t bother showing up to begin with. The effort to get there is no longer worth it and therefore you should save your money for something you feel is worth your time.
