When does someone become your favorite?

I have been asking myself this question for quite sometime now, trying to identify reasons for calling someone our favorite. Now where did this start?

A few of us were watching a repeat telecast of some random ODI between Australia and Sri Lanka and Ricky Ponting was batting.

Me: Ricky Ponting is one of my favorite batsmen.

Thala (That is what we call him for his feats beyond human imagination): How about Sachin?

Me: I must say he appears quite low in that list.

Thala: Then you must have started watching cricket only after the year 2000. Anybody who had watched Sachin's innings in Sharjah in 1998 would not call anybody else his favorite cricketer.

Me: Yeah, it is quite possible my not seeing that innings live could have been the reason. In fact, when I think about this, Ponting's century against India in the 2003 world cup was perhaps the starting point. And as I watched more and more of his superb knocks I had come to a decision. Ponting is my favorite batsman, losing it by just a bit to Dravid.

Now why should anyone be anyone's favorite? Be it sport, be it business or be it politics. There are some reasons that I can think of. And of course there could be many more.

1. Because he/she is the favorite of your group.

2. He/she could be your favorite because he/she is acknowledged to be number 1 or considered the best in what he/she does by your peer group or by a group considered to be experts on the 'underlying criteria'.

3. The 'favorite' has achieved/ has been able to achieve what one covets the most in the world. In simple words he/she wants to emulate or is working on emulating his/her 'favorite' in that 'underlying criteria'.

4. Or maybe the reason is psychological. There is a high degree of correlation between the attitude/ ideologies/ character of your favorite and yourself.

5. Or you would like to have a high degree of correlation between the attitude/ character/ ideologies your favorite and yourself and that is what you are striving to achieve. Which means your favorite is your role model or idol.

6. Or your favorite is the contender to the top spot or is known to be second best (with the fighting spirit in most cases, I presume). This maybe because you dislike the fact that the universally accepted number 1 becomes the favorite of a large population just because he/she is number 1.

7. He/she is your favorite because no matter what the world has to say about someone being the best in the 'underlying criteria', on your personal evaluation of his skill/ ability (based on the qualities/ characteristics you look out for in an individual in that 'underlying criteria') you rate him/her to be the best.

Okay, so these are all that I can think of right now. But of course there can be many and I believe the ones I have missed would most certainly be related to the Psychology of the individual and his/her favorite.