So how do you justify the purchase of a Sanits t-shirt right now? (Ludicrously expensive I know–but they’re so damn soft!) I love the simple logo. I love old sports team logos. I got an old Hartford Whalers shirt recently only for the way the whale tail fans out into a W. But the Whalers are defunct. The Saints, on the other hand are playing in the Super Bowl for the first-time ever today. So accusations of a jumping on the bandwagon would seem not only justifiable, but called for.

Does it make it any better that I’ve been thinking about buying the shirt for ages? What if I use the financial investment in a shirt as a bet? In this way I come out with a clothing garment, even if I lose and the Colts win. Or should be wearing team paraphernalia strictly limited to long-time fans? Perhaps on this day.

The nature of investment in sports continues to perplex me. After a dismal season rooting for the Giants in which I found myself spun into dour Sunday evening funks by miserable play in a game that I have absolutely no control over, I found myself wondering if rooting for a team is worth it. Over the second half of the season, when it was pretty evident that the Giants would not make the playoffs I found that I could actually watch a football game and enjoy it strictly on aesthetic grounds. But I also found I was more likely to turn the game off halfway through. Without the larger investment of rooting, I found that I couldn’t justify the time spent. The outcome of the game was, in the greater scheme of things just as meaningless (if Caillois is to be believed anyway), but now that fact was more evident and it’s unpleasantness made me yearn for emotional stakes.