“Everyone is going nuts, and I’m just kind of sitting there,” Mr. Stemler added. “I remember this guy looking at me and asking: ‘What’s wrong? Why aren’t you excited?’”

The strange feeling did not go away.

“I think I have gotten to a point in my life where I need to let things go that don’t bring me enjoyment,” he said. “I think as you get older, you realize you don’t hang on to things that don’t bring you joy. If it’s not making me happy, then why do it? Don’t just do it because you feel like you should be doing it. That’s what I was doing — I was going up every Sunday for the Browns, and I was dreading it.”

Losing the Faith

Most fans develop a bond with a team as children. For reasons that may go unquestioned, they stick with it, no matter the emotional toll. In the view of the New Yorker writer and editor Roger Angell, our connection to sports is ultimately tied to caring: “deeply and passionately, really caring — which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives,” he wrote in 1975.

But then there are those fans who begin to question why they care so much. Once doubt takes hold, they wonder why they spend so much time and emotion on mere games. Before they know it, they are on a path that takes them away from the majority culture for whom sports adulation is the norm.