Enhance Your Experience: Open Threads- The Electronic Sports Bar?

I've never really had a good friend who was as into NBA basketball nearly as much as I was. Some have shown some passing interest, or hopped on board the 'We Believe' bandwagon briefly, but for the most part if I wanted to watch a game with fans as enthusiastic as I was, it would mean a trip up 880 for tickets and overpriced parking, or a search for a sports bar in the South Bay that wasn't showing the Sharks game instead. That's how it was until I found Golden State of Mind. Suddenly there was always a friendly and fun group of Warriors fans there to watch the game with. It was like finding that perfect dive bar that's walking distance from your house, has a great group of regulars, and always has the game on.

When Samsung asked us to write about how technology enhances our experience as a sports fan, the Open Thread was one of the first things to come to mind. Hit the Jump for a taste of what makes it so fun to hang with the mighty GSoM community in the open thread on game night!

As I said in my last Enhance Your Experience article, I don't get to watch many of the games live, and I rely heavily on my DVR as a Warriors fan. That means that It's not that often that I get to participate in the open threads here, but even when I don't watch the game with my laptop I usually go back through and check out what you all had to say as the game was going. Of course tonight, if the kids cooperate, I'm going to be watching tonight's game while hanging in the open thread and finishing this article. How's that for multitasking? So what's so great about our electronic sports bar?

The Regulars

Here are GSoM we are lucky to have a huge group of die-hard Warriors fans. As I type this GSoM has 6,360 members, which means on any given night there will be a good group of folks settling down to watch the game with each other in the open thread. You can always count on good people like IQofaWarrior, ROMESdavidWOOD37, Shells, Evanz, Reverend_Randy, and many others holding down the comments section.

The Pregame Chatter

Some of the best discussions here at GSoM happen in the hours leading up to the games. You can find Warriors fans breaking down coaching rotations, defensive match-ups, last minute injury updates, and plenty of related links being shared. And don't forget the predictions. It's your chance to take a shot in the dark and hopefully earn some post game bragging rights. You can also find some (mostly) good-natured trash talking with fans of the opposing teams. Check out a bit of the pregame debate from tonight's Open Thread for the Jazz game about the quality of Warriors fans from our Blog Buddies over at SLCDUNK.com:

I think the warriors fans who participate on the internet are GREAT fans.

There are a lot of fair weather fans of the warriors though. Over the last 10 years your avg attendance is below league average, and below 17k. There wasn’t a lot of winning in those years, but an average of 16.9k fans / home game isn’t that much better than the clippers (16.8k), or the bucks (16.2k). Does anyone say those two fan bases are great? Nope. Five of the last 10 seasons the avg. attendance was less than 16.5k people. Over the same time span (which included the post-Stockton and Malone years) the Jazz home game attendance was lower than 19k only three times (as seen as an average yearly attendance). That included a 23 win season where, on avg, 18.7k people still came to the games. Only two seasons have the Warriors avg. home game attendance been higher than that of the Jazz in a 23 win season.

Why is this? Perhaps the Jazz fans are more die hard than the warriors? Perhaps there’s less to do at night in the winter months in Utah? I don’t know. I don’t live there. But I am a Jazz fan. And I am making my conclusions based upon objective facts (nba attendance records are available on the internet.)

I’m not here to sling mud. I like the warriors team, but I don’t think that you guys (all of warriors nation) can be called die hard. Some of the fans here definitely are. Of course, I have high standards for this type of thing. You’re not die hard if you can only coax 15k people into your place for home games in a season where your boys got 15 more wins than the Jazz did when they were still getting 18k.

Best of luck for this game. You guys have some very nice parts and I’m looking forward to see the post-Nellie era. He hurt you guys more than he helped. (Chris Mullen on a team that played defense would have been great)

I do need to clarify about the hype issue. I did write "last two decades" when I should have spoken specifically about the two, distinct, and far from one another, periods of Warriors history. You guys have rings and a great history. Being a bball fan who lived in Cali during a part of the 80’s the desire for the Warriors to get better was great. Post-RUN TMC was supposed to be this magical time. You guys were always on NBC on the weekend. You ended up with 1 playoff win during that entire time.

I defined hype as unnecessary press that is not supported by winning.

I do think that the tendency to hype teams up is a really poor trend. And I needed to be more precise about that post to, as the WeBelieve era, no one believed (outside of Diehard fans) until you guys made it into the playoffs and ousted the Mavs.

Lastly, my personal opinions and what I post aren’t entirely the same. I am trash talking before the game starts. I’m sick to death of the new NBA where everyone wants to be best friends. I grew up on rivalries. The GS fans online (esp at gsom, I used to lurk there in the old days) are great. And hence, smart enough to have a rivalry with.

I couldn’t try this at a nuggets or rockets board . . .

Follow me on Twitter: @AllThatAmar ... Check out: SLCDUNK.com ... E-Mail me at: allthatjazzbasketball@hotmail.com

Really, I'm totally not lonely or anything . . .by AllThatJazzBasketball on Nov 5, 2010 6:24 PM PDT

The Reactions

Once the game gets rolling it's all about the fan reactions, and quick notes and observations. It's pretty fun when you watch an amazing play on your TV and then look down to see 15 simultaneous posts with lots of ALL CAPS AND EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I mean, really, who doesn't love exclamation points? Those quick observations can be pretty eye opening too. Sometimes it can be hard to pick up on all the minor details, statistical insights, and dramatic story lines while watching the games. Sure the broadcaster do a pretty good job of drawing your attention to those things, but for every one they mention there are hundreds they don't, and that is one way the good folks in the Open Thread can help enhance the game.

The Post-Game Celebration (or Group Therapy)

After it's all said and done, and the final buzzer has sounded you can enjoy the victory together as Warriors fans. Oh, yeah, and for those rare occasions where the Warriors don't come away with the victory you can slide right into a group therapy session with your fellow frustrated Dubs junkies. Not that we've needed many of those in recent years... right?