I have spent $1,970 on a team this year. The survey calls that average. I am not average. I spent $2,627, because I am 31, and a company that studies this found that men my age go the deepest and borrow the most to do it, and when I read that number I did not feel warned. I felt seen. Then I felt behind. I did not have the $2,627. I want to be clear about that, because it is the part I am proud of. A company called National Debt Relief ran the survey. A company whose whole business is getting people out of debt called to ask how deep I had climbed into it for a team, and I treated it like a scouting combine. 47% of fans who spend went into debt to do it. I heard 47 out of 100 and thought: amateurs. I gave them a number with a comma in it. I may have rounded up. I wanted to place well. Let me read you the roster. I have four streaming services. The fourth one carries only the pregame, the postgame, and a camera pointed at the players' parking lot. I watch the parking lot. My guys park there. You never know. I have a seat that costs more than a mortgage payment, in a section a bank bought the name of, so I sit in a Terrace named after a bank I have never used and never will, out of loyalty. To the section. Which is named after the bank. I renewed early. I renew like a hostage passing a note that says I'm fine. I have a jersey. $340. The name on the back plays for the team we hate now. He was traded in March. I still wear it, because loyalty is to the front of the jersey and the back is just weather. I also have his rookie jersey, his alternate, and the one from the season we do not discuss. Four jerseys. For one man who left. I own more of him than his own mother does. I have socks I have not washed since a win in 2019. My wife has tried to wash the socks. We had a conversation about the socks that a counselor later called "not really about the socks." It was about the socks. I have a recliner no one may sit in. Not the kids. Not company. The recliner is 1 for 1 in playoff appearances, and I am not going to be the reason it regresses to the mean. I have a parlay. Five legs. I have only ever needed the last one. The last one is a part-time job I was never hired for and show up to every Sunday, unpaid, on time, in the jersey. I once tried to bet against my own team, as a hedge, the way a grown man protects his family. I could not click the button. My thumb knew something my portfolio did not. I lost the game and the money, and I have never felt more faithful in my life. My fantasy team is a second unpaid job. My commissioner is a 24-year-old named Kolby. I answer to Kolby. Kolby has never met my children. Kolby set the waiver deadline at 3 a.m., and I honored it, because I am a professional. I argued with a 19-year-old at 2 a.m. about a coaching decision from before the kid was born. I was defending the shield. No one asked me to defend the shield. The shield does not know I exist. I defended it for 90 minutes, I won, nothing happened, and I went to bed a soldier. My wife asked me for the number. The real one. Everything. The streaming, the seat, the four jerseys, the socks I cannot count because I cannot find them, the parlays, the flights to a city I only visit when my guys are in it, and the thing I keep on the second card so it does not have to be true on the same day as the groceries. I told her it was an investment. She asked for the return. I said joy. I showed her a Sunday. She was there for the Sunday. We lost the Sunday 34 to 10, and I stood at the end and clapped, because they gave great effort, and effort is the true score, and also the real score was 34 to 10. This one's the year, though. Here is the part I understand better than they think I do. They do not want my name. My name is not in their system. My card is. When my card is about to expire, they email me before my own bank does. They are more afraid of losing me than I have ever been of losing them, and they took that fear and made it a subscription, and I took it and made it a personality, a wardrobe, and a chair. They lost the game that mattered again, the way they always lose it, which is close. Close enough to keep me. Not close enough to pay me back. I have been buying that exact gap since I was 6 years old, I have gotten very good at it, and I would like it on my headstone. I renewed before the confetti hit the grass. I put it on the card that builds credit, which is the same card, which is how I know I am building something. I refinanced the house one summer, and I will not tell you against what. My son is 6. I bought him the jersey too, the small one, $60. He does not know the player was traded. He does not know anything is weather yet. I am teaching him the word we. We are down. We need this. We have a chance. He is going to say it back for the rest of his life, on a card that has not been invented yet. I wanted to name him after the quarterback. My wife said no. We compromised. His middle name is a city. He is going to place well. They raised the price again last week. I said thank you. Not out loud. In the only language they have ever read from me, which is the payment clearing on the first of the month, forever, from a man whose name they will never learn, for a team that will never once know it was loved this much by the guy it charged the most. I am not in debt. I am a hostage who says thank you. This one's the year, though. I keep every receipt. Not for the taxes. For the day they win, so I can walk in and hold them up and show them I was here the whole time. They will not ask. I have already renewed.