Why are we as a Society, so Emotionally Invested in Sports?

As I was walking out the the Jazz's preseason win vs Portland I made a comment that I know has been made hundreds of thousands of times, "It is amazing that millions of people pay millions of dollars to watch grown men play a game." Why is that? Why does our happiness ebb and flow with the win-loss records of our favorite teams? Why do Doug and I spend our free time writing a blog that to our knowledge, is only consistantly read by each other? To me, it's because it makes me feel like I'm a part of something larger than life. It's better that movies, or T.V., or books because it's REAL. It's unscripted. Anything can happen. And when you have a professional sports team that like that Jazz that you grew up with, a team that your grandparents, or parents, or whoever spent their hard earned money on tickets, you become even more invested. Basketball gives us an escape from life, but it is in itself, a represenation of life. We connect with it because we all want to be the best. We have people who are trying to keep us down and when we prevail against them, it is extremely rewarding. We know what it's like to work hard for every minute of playing time even when nobody expected us to amount to anything. We also know what it's like to be the best at something, anything, and have people try to emulate us or try to take us down. Basketball is symbolic of life, whether we realize it or not, and because of that, we become emotionally tied to it, because when our team succeeds, it is a representaion of us suceeding and beating the odds. Why else do we refer to our teams as, "us." That makes no logical sense. I have never had anything to do with the Utah Jazz or their organization other than purchasing tickets. Yet, the only logical(to me) way of referring to them is by saying, "us," or, "we."
One of the happiest moments of my life was when John Stockon hit the game winning shot against the Rockets to send us to our first ever NBA Finals. That is one of the few memories I have vividly etched into my brain. I can still hear the announcer. I can still see John Stockon jumping out of pure joy, the only emotion I ever recall Stockon displaying. That memory is important to me because of what it represents, which could be completely different from what it may or may not represent to you. To me it shows that hard work pays off. That if you dedicate your life to something, certain moments can become transcendent. The simple fact that it has influenced me shows that you can have an influence on people without even realizing it and by doing what is expected of you.
Maybe to you, Basketball is just a game. But to me it is much deeper than that. And that is why when the Jazz beat the Bucks tonight, when a group of men did something as basic as putting a ball through a net more times than another group of men, a smile came to my face.