> Sportsing a ball across a patch of grass into a special area isn't really much of a victory.

Wrong scale. Think smaller by several orders of magnitude. Think the daily life of someone with a dead end job, a wife they hate, and two awful kids. If their local team wins, that's a great victory by proxy. A victory to crow about with mates, a victory to tolerate a kid's failing grades, a victory to stoke the old love machine. We're tribal pack hunting monkeys. If our tribe wins, we win. And winning, of any kind, feels great.