It drives me crazy to see holier-than-thou media folks (cough Rucker) bashing fans for having unrealistic expectations (like, to take a random example, the 2013-14 basketball team being a top 25 team). It always struck me as a bit hypocritical, because the same people freaking out about high expectations are the ones who helped create them. There is now data on the subject (re: NFL season win totals): http://linemakers.sportingnews.com/...-2014-schedule-predictions-vegas-sports-books
Folks tend to live up to the demands/expectations of their jobs if they want to keep them. That's the only reason Rucker is still employed as a sportswriter.
Well Rucker is allegedly not rooting for anybody. But it's not the expectations that bother me (at least not that bother me most), it's the hypocrisy. He consistently tells fans in preseason that things aren't as bad as they think and that there's some real talent and the team can win games, and then later in the season, when the team is not winning games, he says the talent just isn't there, it's not the coaches fault, and fans who expected more are irrational. I imagine Rucker is not alone in this, he's just the most obvious example. This article suggests that people covering a team almost always overrate them in preseason. But if you're overrating a team, you really ought not censure fans for overrating the same team.
For the most part, expectations should be set in stone. The problem is that fans want to go back and say "well, so-and-so was better/worse than we thought, so..". If the football team only wins 4 I don't want to hear about how bad it is not-because of Butch and if they go bowling I don't want to hear how they should have done better because whatever.
wait so what happens during the year shouldn't get someone to modify their expecations? so if lebron james gets injured i should still expect a championship if i'm a miami fan?
That's an extreme example. I think he's referring to the portion of the fanbase who will seemingly bend over backwards to find excuses for sucking. "Dooley inherited a mess. And then he had some injuries. He just needs more time."
