For even the most die-hard sports fans, winning isn't everything. In fact, it isn't even always the best outcome.

So says recent research investigating fan behavior. Sports studies usually focus on the benefits of playing. But research has started examining what happens in the bodies of fans taking in high-stakes contests, like the millions who will watch the two most important games of this college football season: Thursday's Stanford-Oregon showdown and Saturday's Alabama-Louisiana State grudge match.

Among the oddest findings: Fans tend to derive more pleasure from a close loss than a blowout win. "The less certainty, the greater the suspense, and the greater the enjoyment," says Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, a professor of communication at Ohio State University who surveyed 113 Midwestern college students.

As part of that research, she tracked how 40 OSU students watched their beloved Buckeyes against their perennial rival, the University of Michigan. The results, published in the Journal of Communication in 2009, showed that even if fans are disappointed by the outcome, edge-of-the-seat endings make games worth watching.

In another study published in the Journal of Media Psychology in 2012, Colleen Bee, an assistant professor of marketing at Oregon State University, had 133 participants watch a suspenseful speedskating competition. The competitions were presented to the audience as cases of heroes (someone known for working with ill children) vs. villains (someone caught using illegal drugs, for example).