identify with the school's football team following wins and non- wins. When the ...... championship game against the Ohio State Buckeyes. Remember, ...... Texas A&M played the Texas Longhorns 118 times beginning in 1894 (the game.
Rivalry How it Impacts Fans, Teams, and Sport Managers
Cody T. Havard, Ph.D.
Table of Contents Chapter 1 Team Identification Discussion Topic #1 Activity #1 Activity #2 Basking In Reflected Glory (BIRGing) Cutting Off Reflected Success (CORFing) Discussion Topic #2 Activity #3 Sport Spectator Identification Scale (SRFPS) Discussion Topic #3 Chapter 2 Rivalry Defined Activity #4 Discussion Topic #4 Spotlight on Rivalry – Adidas and Puma Chapter 3 Fan Treatment of Favorite and Rival Teams and Participants Activity #5 Discussion Topic #5 Spotlight on Rivalry – Hatfield’s and McCoy’s Chapter 4 Perceptions of Rival Teams Activity #6 Sport Rivalry Fan Perception Scale (SRFPS) – College Sport Sport Rivalry Fan Perception Scale (SRFPS) – Professional Sport Discussion Topic #6 Chapter 5 Out-group Indirect Competition (OIC) Influence on Out-group Indirect Competition (OIC)
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3 7 9 12 12 13 14 16 17 18 27 27 32 32 33 33 44 47 52 57 58 59 60 61 64
Chapter 6 Sense of Satisfaction (SoS) Influence on Sense of Satisfaction (SoS) Chapter 7 Out-Group Sportsmanship (OS) Influence on Out-group Sportsmanship (OS) Chapter 8 Out-group Prestige (OP) Influence on Out-group Prestige Chapter 9 Reactions to Rival Failure Activity #7 Spotlight on Rivalry – Evert and Navritilova Discussion Topic #7 Activity #8 Glory Out of Reflected Failure (GORFing) Chapter 10 Rivalry Lessons for Sport Managers Most Intense Fan Rivalries in NCAA Most Teams Identified as a Rival Identified as a Rival by Most Teams Promotional Titles and Logos Examples Activity #9 Chapter 11 Sport Rivalry Man: Using Comics and Cartoons to Teach Rivalry and Fan Behavior Sport Rivalry Man Chapter 12 Future of Rivalry Research Discussion Topic #8 References
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66 68 71 72 76 79 82 82 86 91 91 92 93 97 100 100 103 118 119 122 127 131 132
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Ch. 1 Team Identification In sport, fans will watch and follow teams for various reasons, whether they want to feel part of a team, part of a group of supporters and therefore bigger than themselves, if they want to experience vicarious achievement (when my team wins, I win!). Work by Daniel Wann has illustrated the various ways a fan attaches to and reacts to a favorite team. Fans can follow their favorite teams with such intensity that their identification can cause them to act in ways they wouldn't outside of the sport setting (Wann, Melnick, Russell, & Pease, 2001). Two great examples of a fans intense ties to their favorite team involve the Chicago Cubs 2016 World Series win. One fan from Des Moines, Iowa held on to hear about the Cubs victory and then passed away hours later. Mabel Ball, a 108-yearold fan was born shortly before the Cubs won the 1908 World Series and died six days after they captured the 2016 Championship. Fans can follow a favorite team because of family members, friends, or significant others. Or it could be social reasons, they go to a game,
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start to interact with people and really like the social interactions they have at games and with fans. Think for a minute about your favorite team, and how you reacted when they performed well, and when they performed poorly. For me, I experience high amounts of joy when the teams at my alma mater, The University of Texas at Austin win, and a great amount of displeasure when they lose. Looking back at the 2005 football season, when the Texas Longhorns beat the USC Trojans in the National Championship Game, I remember feeling as though I could accomplish anything I put my mind to at that time. I also remember celebrating and cheering with people that I had never met, would never speak to again, and probably had little in common with other than our Texas Longhorns. Recently, I also experienced one of the greatest joys of my life as a sports fan. During the 2017 Major League Baseball World Series, I was scheduled to attend a conference in Boston, Massachussets. I had booked my flight for the evening of November 1st, so as not to miss out on trick or treating with my family, and watched the World
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Series with a particular interest because (1) the Houston Astros, my childhood team, was playing the Los Angeles Dodgers, and (2) Game 7 if necessary, would be played on November 1st, during my flight. The series in deed went seven games, and I boarded my flight to Boston shortly after first pitch. Once the plane passed 10,000 feet and I was able to move around the plane, I passed a flight attendant at her station that had the game on. I was able to see George Springer hit a two-run home run to give the Astros a 5-0 lead! I then landed in Chicago for my layover, and I quickly found a place to watch the fifth and sixth innings sitting next to and talking with a Dodgers fan. When I boarded my connecting flight to Boston, I anxiously waited for the plane to reach 10,000 feet so I could stream the game on my computer (thank you Southwest for in-flight WiFi!). As soon as I was able to stream the game, I saw the final two outs that secured the win for the Astros! Wow! I sat back in my seat and thought about the fact that the Houston Astros had just won the World Series! However, as I was on my way to a conference, I really didn't have much time to let the victory set in.
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So I landed and attended my conference, visited tourist stops in Boston like Fenway Park, Harvard Square, and Boston Common with a view of the restaurant used as the front for the sitcom Cheers. When it was time to return home, I left Boston and had a layover in of all places, Houston. As I flew into Hobby Airport, my plane passed over the Astrodome and NRG Stadium. Taking a picture of the two stadiums side-by-side, I was reminded of watching countless Astros games in the Astrodome, showing up three hours before a game to watch batting practice and beg players to sign autographs and throw practice balls into the stands, and following my favorite player Craig Biggio through his career from catching for the great Nolan Ryan to reaching the 2005 World Series, to retiring in 2007, and finally watching his Hall of Fame induction with my oldest son in 2015. When I deboarded in Houston for my layover, a wave of emotions swept over me. I passed countless travelers with smiles on their faces donning official World Series and other Astros merchandise. I passed by a convenience shop in the concourse selling World Series hats, shirts, and many other collectables, that had set up tables outside of the store to handle the large amount of fan traffic. Having
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moved from the Houston area when I was 18, and then from Texas when I was 27, my fandom of the Astros had waned. As a matter of fact, having lived in Colorado for three years, I probably followed the Rockies more closely than the Astros as of recent. However, seeing the joy on the faces of travelers and employees in that airport, and feeling the immense amount of pride I felt as a native of the Houston area, I was once again struck with awe by what sport can do to people. Sport can make us feel like we are part of something larger than ourselves, can make us believe we can accomplish great things, and can make us feel great amounts of joy and excitement. Sitting in the airport, I thought how lucky I was to be a native of the Houston area, and a fan of the Astros. After my two times being in a city that just won a championship (Austin in 2005, Houston in 2017), I hope everyone has an opportunity to experience a city and region following a home team’s championship. --- Discussion Topic #1 If your favorite team, or a team that plays close to where you live or lived, has ever won a championship, take some time to write down your memory of your thoughts, feelings, and reactions to experiencing that moment. How long did the glow of the championship last? Were you able to see how the championship impacted other fans of the team or residents of the city/region?
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Regardless of the level of identification a person has with a favorite team, they typically interact at some point with fans of opposing or rival teams (Sherif, 1966). And so, this text is about those groups that we know as rival teams and what they mean to us. What they mean to our favorite teams, and how the presence of rival teams and rival supporters impact us as fans. The way we perceive our favorite team, our rival team, fans of our favorite team, fans of our rival team, and the way we behave toward our favorite team and our rival team are discussed in this book. So first, a discussion of rivalry really begins with one of social identity theory. Social identity theory really says that the groups we are part of say something about us (Tajfel, 1974). So think about it, the groups that you identify with, whether that is a group in your school, students in a certain class, a religious group, a political group, SES status, racial or ethnic group. All of these groups say something about us. Activity #1 illustrates what social identity tells us on an individual level.
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--- Activity #1 List 5 different groups that you see yourself belong to. For example, some groups could be (1) racial makeup, (2) maybe you were/are an athlete in school, (3) top 25% in your class so you identify with people in that group (4) maybe you participated in drama/theater, (5) maybe you played football. The examples could go on with religious affiliation, SES status and more like we talked about. After you have identified those 5 groups, write down three things for each group that those say about you. For instance, in our example, being an athlete may say (1) you have a strong work ethic, (2) your competitive, and (3) you like being physically active. Now go through and identify 3 characteristics for each group that you belong to. Groups can share the same characteristics. When you are finished with that, look at the 5 groups you belong to and the characteristics you wrote down for each group. Taken together, those 5 groups and 15 characteristics will say a lot about you as a person. When you put those groups and characteristics together, you start to see “who you are” and “what it means to be you as an individual”.
--- Now, particular to sport, part of social identity theory states that we want to identify with successful groups or successful others. We want to do that because if we can identify with a successful group or person, we can identify with their success (i.e., vicarious achievement: Bandura, 1977). This makes us feel better, and makes
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us feel as though we can accomplish more ourselves. Some common examples in sport are following a championship; many people who may otherwise not identify with the team before they won the championship will do so after the victory. We do that because success feels good and we want to have positive evaluations of ourselves and have others positively evaluate us. So if others see you wearing a shirt of a successful team, internally they are likely to form positive perceptions about you. This is where Basking In Reflected Glory (BIRGing) comes in. In other words, BIRGing means that after a win or success, more people are going to identify with a team (Cialdini et al., 1976). Cialdini and associates observed college students tendenies to identify with the school’s football team following wins and nonwins. When the school’s football team won, students were more likely to wear clothing that identified them with the team and/or school. They also used associative words such as “we” or “us” when asked to describe game outcomes. On the other hand, after some sort of failure, people will push away from a team because it reflects negatively on them. This is known as Cutting Off Reflected Failure
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(Snyder & Fromkin, 1980; Snyder, Lassegard, & Ford, 1986). For example, Cialdini et al. (1976) found that following non-wins (losses or ties), students tended not to wear clothing that identified them with the team or school and used distancing words such as “they” to describe game outcomes. Madrigal (1995) asserted that people participate in BIRGing and CORFing as a way to control for and protect their self-esteem. So in other words, if you’re BIRGing for a certain team that is successful and all the sudden they are not successful, you could CORF against that team and find another team to BIRG with. So in essence, you are choosing to CORF against one team and find another team to BIRG with. People commonly refer to fans that BIRG and CORF as bandwagon fans. This (apparently planned) video perfectly sums up the BIRGing, CORFing, and bandwagon fan. Wann and Branscombe (1990) surveyed fans of Kansas Jayhawks Men’s Basketball and found that highly identified fans are more likely to BIRG and less likely to CORF than lowly identified fans. This Alabama Crimson Tide fan must be one highy identified fan! A researcher by the name
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of John Spinda validated two scales to measure fan likelihood of BIRGing and CORFing (2011). --- Activity #2 Think about your favorite team, and identify who your favorite team is. This could be a team at any level, in any sport. If you would like, you could identify a favorite team in different sports (e.g., NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, MLS, College Sport, Premier League, etc.). Think about your favorite team, and complete the following scales on a separate piece of paper to determine on your likelihood of BIRGing and CORFing depending on team performance. Once you have completed all items in each measure, add up your score and divide by 10 to get your average score. Do you agree with your scores?
--- --- Basking In Reflected Glory (BIRGing) After the (favorite team) win… (Circle)
Strongly Disagree
I am more likely to display the (favorite team) logo, emblem, or insignia where I live. I am more likely to display the (favorite team) logo, emblem, or insignia where I work or go to school. I usually wear clothing or jerseys that display the (favorite team) team logo, emblem, or insignia. I am more likely to purposely read stories in the newspaper about the (favorite team) performance. I am more likely to read stories online to savor the (favorite team) win. I am more likely to purposely watch highlights of the (favorite team) after the game. I am more likely to “talk trash” to fans of other teams who have been
Strongly Neutral Agree
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
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defeated by the (favorite team). I am more likely to “talk trash” to fans of other teams whose teams are not doing as well as the (favorite team). I am more likely to chat online with other fans about the game. I am more likely to post messages online to show support for the (favorite team).
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
--- Cutting Off Reflected Failure (CORFing) After the (favorite team) lose… (Circle)
Strongly Disagree
I generally don’t “talk trash” to fans of other teams whose teams are doing better than the (favorite team). I generally don’t “talk trash” to fans of other teams who have defeated the (favorite team). I am not as likely to chat online with other fans about the game. I not as likely to post messages online to show support for the (favorite team). I won’t call fellow fans of the (favorite team) to discuss the game. I am not as likely to display the (favorite team) logo, emblem, or insignia where I work or go to school. I am not as likely to display the (favorite team) logo, emblem, or insignia where I live. I usually won’t wear clothing or jerseys that display the (favorite team) team logo, emblem, or insignia. I generally avoid articles in the newspaper about the (favorite team) performance. I am not as likely to read stories online so I can forget about the (favorite team) performance. I usually choose not to watch highlights of the (favorite team) after the game. I am more likely to avoid my family or close others for a while.
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Strongly Neutral Agree
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
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--- Discussion Topic #2 Thinking about your favorite team, do you consider yourself a “real fan” or to what degree do you follow your favorite team? In other words, do you BIRG following a win? Do you find yourself CORFing after a loss? What do you think of “bandwagon fans”, people who follow teams because they are successful and/or popular?
--- There are also two other phenomena that Campbell, Aiken, and Kent (2004) described as Basking In spite of Reflected Failure (BIRFing) and Cutting Off Reflected Success (CORSing). BIRFing describes the loyal fan of a historically unsuccessful team. Examples include the fan base for the Chicago Cubs, or the fan base for the Boston Red Sox before they won the 2016 and 2004 World Series’s respectively. Chicago Cubs fans and fans of historically underperforming teams seem like they were their fandom, and sometimes negative consequences of their fandom, as a badge of honor. This tells other people “I am a true Fan. For better or for worse, success or failure, I am a TRUE fan”. It also helps to tell people, “I am not a BANDWAGON fan”. On the other hand, CORFing may occur when some of those die-hard fans don't appreciate some of the things
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their team has done to be successful. So let’s say that the Chicago Cubs spend massive amounts of money to bring in talent and become very successful (which may be happening now). This talent takes them so far as winning the World Series. Most fans are going to BIRG for the Chicago Cubs. Many fans will talk about ending the curse of the billy goat, ending the curse of Steve Bartman, ending the World Series drought. So most fans will BIRG, but you may see some die-hard fans actually cut off that reflected success. Maybe they don't see the Cubs success as being genuine or they believe the organization gave up on some of their values. Now that we have discussed some reasons why fans may identify with teams, we will discuss some of the work of researchers that have studied how identified a person can be with a team. Daniel Wann has conducted research on fan identity and the way identification can impact the way a person feels and behaves toward loves ones, their favorite team, opposing groups and teams. In 1993, Daniel Wann and Nyla Branscombe published the Sport Spectator Identification Scale (SSIS). This is a 7-item measure that uses an 8point Likert Scale to address to what degree a person identifies with
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a favorite team. Questions from the SSIS can be found below. Also, the Team Identification Index (Trail, Robinson, Dick, & Gillentine, 2003) is a 3-item measure that uses a 7-point Likert Scale to measure a fan’s identification with a team (Trail, Robinson, Dick, & Gillentine, 2003). The Psychological Continuum Model (Funk & James, 2001; 2006) was developed and validated on participants of recreation activity but has been used to measure commitment to a favorite team. The PCM takes a little different approach, and asks what their favorite team means to them, how central the team is to their lives. By taking this approach, the PCM can tell how identified a person is with a favorite team, sport, or activity. --- Activity #3 Thinking about your favorite team you identified in Activity #2, respond to each of the SSIS prompts on page 6 on a separate sheet of paper (Wann & Branscombe, 1993). After that, add up the numbers of your responses to get your aggregate (total) score or divide by 7 showing how identified you are with your favorite team. level.
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Sport Spectator Identification Scale (SSIS) Using the favorite team identified above, please provide answers for the following prompts. How important is it to you that your favorite team wins? How strongly do you see yourself as a fan of your favorite team? How strongly do your friends see you as a fan as of your favorite team? During the season, how closely do you follow your favorite team via ANY of the following: in person or on television, on the radio, or televised news or a newspaper? How important is being a fan of your favorite team to you? How much do you dislike the greatest rivals of your favorite team? How often do you display
Very
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Dislike Very Much
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your favorite team’s name or insignia at your place of work, where you live, or on your clothing?
--- --- Discussion Topic #3 Looking at your scores on the SSIS on page 9, how identified are you with your favorite team? If you filled out the SSIS for multiple teams, and possible in different leagues, can you see a difference in your identification scores?
--- These are some of the reasons why a person may identify with a sport team and how identification is measured. This is by no means meant to be an exhaustive discussion of fan identity in sport. Now, to close out the chapter, I want to share some of the reasons I chose to study sport fan behavior (we will get to why I chose to stud rivalry in a later chapter). To do this, I will provide three examples of interactions I have had with friends and relatives of highly identified sport fans. The names have been changed to protect the
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highly identified fan’s identity and scenarios are summarized for length. First up, abrother-in-law of a highly identified fan: 1. I went to a game with my brother-in-law that had very important implications for our favorite college football team. This game is held every year in a neutral site and is one of those that fans from both teams get very excited and crazy for. It is fun, before the game you have fans of both teams screaming for their players and insults at the other team and fans. During the game, the intensity always grows to a feverpitch level, with fans from both teams yelling at each other and sometimes getting out of control. Well, during the game the opposing team fumbled the ball and our team tried to recover the fumble and score a touchdown. The player accidentally kicked the ball and was unable to pick it up. Instead, the other team fell on the ball and it seemed our favorite team failed to
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capitalize on a mistake. My brother-in-law yelled so loud that when I turned to look at him his face was red and his hands were bright red from rubbing them together in excitement/disappointment. I asked him if he was okay and he mumbled something resembling his thoughts on the favorite team’s player’s effort. After a few seconds, he looked pretty embarrassed by his actions. Our favorite team ended up winning the game, and to this day I always give my brother-inlaw a hard time about his overreaction during that game. A pretty interesting interaction with a highly identified fan right? Be honest, how many of you have either experienced this type of behavior with a friend or perhaps disply these tendencies of your own? Next, we will hear an example from a friend who attended a sporting event with a college buddy:
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2. One year, I went to a home football game at the college I attended with my buddy of mine. Our favorite team had played well all year, but was struggling to move the ball on offense in the game. Much of the game, our offense struggled but our defense was able to hold the other team to field goals and few points. Late in the fourth quarter, the other team scored a touchdown to go up by two points. All of the sudden I heard my buddy mumbling under his breath that it was time to get rid of our favorite team’s head coach (along with a few other derogatory words focused toward our team’s performance). He then proceeded to tell all of our friends that he was going to send an email to the athletics department and tell them how disappointed he was in our football team. Our backup quarterback entered the game with a little over a minute left,
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and led our team on a game-winning drive. After the game, he was ecstatic and talked about what a great job our coach had done during the game. (I guess he has a short memory) Again, how many of you have experienced this type of behavior when watching a game with a friend? How many of you represent the friend described in the above scenario? Finally, we hear from the spouse of a highly-identified fan: 3. Oh, it is hard to watch a game with my friend. He is so hard on the players of his favorite team. Nothing is ever good enough when he is watching his favorite team. He spends the entire game critiquing the team and pointing out all (and I mean all) the mistakes it makes. It is quite embarrassing sometimes when he gets going if we are in around other fans. I can always
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tell if my friend is watching his favorite team play on television from another room because you can hear him shouting throughout the house. Even after his favorite team wins, he has to start by pointing out all of the mistakes his favorite team made during the game. If I point out that the team won, he only justifies his actions by saying the players got lucky and the mistakes will come back to bight them in a future game. It’s as though he cannot just enjoy the game. It is getting hard to watch or attend games with him. I am a little afraid he may give himself a heart attack at some point. So, how many of you have either experienced or exhibited this type of behavior when watching your favorite team play? Now that we have read the trhee examples of a highly-identifed, possibly too highly-identifed fan above, I have something to reveal. The three
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examples above are all about me. Tthe three examples above were all gathered from the recollection I have had with interacting with my brother-in-law, college friend, and spouse regarding my fandom, and sometimes over-the-top behavior. So, in a way I guess you could say that I wanted to study fan behavior to help make sense of why I act the way I do. It is also important to point out that even though I used myself for the examples above, many of us who consider ourselves sport fans, that passionately follow a team, have the capacity, and even have, behaved in a similar way. So now that we all know why I have chosen a path to study and better understand sport fan behavior, it is time to look into why we behave the ways we do toward favorite and rival teams. Throughout the rest of the text, I want you to
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continually ask yourself why you behave the way you choose to and reflect on your own fan behavior. Additionally, fan consumption can change over time, depending on where a person is in the life cycle (Funk, 2008). For example, when you are in college and around the product on a daily basis, you are likely to consume the product or identify with a team more than after you graduate, move away, or possibly start a family. Recently, Rick Grieve and colleagues investigated factors that made college students identify with a local high school football team. Results showed that, among other factors, following the team in the media, perceived distance from the high school, and being a cheerleader in high school influenced college students to follow the local football team (Grieve, Wann, Zapalac, Cyr, & Lanter, 2018). From this, we
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can see that as a person moves away from their identified team, they can start to find consumption, and identification, alternatives. At this point, I also want you to think about how your fandom has changed or how you anticipate it changing in the future. Keeping track of your identification with sport teams can be a great experiement in y or personal consumer behavior. For me, my identification, certainly consumption, has changed greatly over the years. From moving out of the state where my favorite team resides, to starting a family and watching more Disney Channel and ESPN, my sport fandom journey has taken many twists, turns, and side roads. With that, I invite you to come along and enjoy the journey!
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Ch. 2 Rivalry Defined One interesting thing about sport is the interaction between opposing teams and their supporters. To give you first-hand experience with seeing how an opposing team or fan base can impact you, follow along in Activity #4. --- Activity #4 Using the favorite team or teams you identified in Activity #2, identify who you believe is the BIGGEST RIVAL of each team. Once you have identified the biggest rival, then identify a team you see as a SECOND rival, a THIRD rival, and so on until you cannot identify any more teams you see as a rival. When you are finished with the list of your favorite team(s) and their rival team(s), create a similar list for teams you consider to be your second or third favorite team. Keep this list of favorite and rival teams handy, and we will use it as we go through the rest of this book to see how the presence of these teams impact the ways you interact with your favorite team, and your rival team.
--- Sport rivalry has been defined as “an adversarial relationship existing between two teams, players, or groups of fans gaining
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significance through on-field competition, on-field or off-field incidences, proximity, demographic makeup, and/or historical occurrence(s)” (Havard, Gray, Gould, Sharp, & Schaffer, 2013, p. 51). Diving into this definition, a rivalry is something that can exist between teams, individual players, and fans of teams and players. For example, the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners consider each other rivals because they share a long history of athletics competition. The rivalry can also exist between individual players or coaches on the teams, or between a fan of Texas and a fan of Oklahoma. In fact, future research should be conducted to see if a person identifies a rival team because of the team or because of fans of that team. Sport fans can identify multiple teams as rivals (Wann, Havard, Grieve, Lanter, Partridge, & Zapalac, 2016), and rivalries can vary in intensity (Havard & Reams, 2017; Tyler & Cobbs, 2017). Futher, David Tyler and Joe Cobbs defined a rival group as, “a highly salient out-group that poses an acute threat to the identity of the ingroup or to in-group members’ ability to make positive comparisons between their group and the out-group” (Tyler & Cobbs, 2015, p. 227). This definition was developed to help the researchers identify antecdents and characteristics of rivalry. Looking at both
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contemporary definitions, we can draw some similarities regarding the groups of people fans consider rival teams and fans. In short, a rival group is one that is opposite of the fan of their in-group ( i.e., favorite team supporters). Regarding the characteristics or facets of a rivalry, on-field competition can definitely cause a rivalry to form and increase over time (Havard, 2014; Kilduff, Elfenbein, & Staw, 2010; Quintanar, Deck, Reyes, & Srangi, 2015; Tyler & Cobbs, 2015). For example, a search for “best” or “greatest” rivalries will typically pull up results of teams that share a long history or competition, in many cases close competition. We will see a list of the most intense fan rivalries in college athletics in Chapter 6, and most teams on that list share long competitive histories with one another. On-field or off-field incidences can attribute to the formation and intensity of a rivalry. For example, Tyler and Cobbs (2015) found that competition for personnel and defining moments were characteristics that increase rivalry between teams and fan bases. Additionally, participants cited cultural similarities and differences as contributors to the feelings they reserved for rival teams (Havard, 2014; Tyler & Cobbs,
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2015). Proximity of a team is definitely a contributor to the formation and intensity of a rivalry (Havard, 2014; Kilduff et al., 2010; Tyler & Cobbs, 2015). One reason for this could be the closer teams are to one another, the closer their fan bases are, causing supporters of both teams to interact with each other surrounding athletic competition. Demographic makeup, or cultural difference illustrates how differing beliefs or group norms can impact rivalries. A great example of such a rivalry within the United States is the Holy War between the University of Utah Utes and the Brigham Young University Cougars. Many fans of both teams are members of the Church of Latter Day Saints, however see supporters of the rival team in a negative light. Finally, some rivalries can be traced back to a historical incident outside of sport. For example, the land dispute surrounding the Red River between Texas and Oklahoma is said to have started and added to the rivalry between the Texas Longhorns and the Oklahoma Sooners. The now dormant rivalry between the Missouri Tigers and Kansas Jayhawks dates back to the American Civil War.
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In addition to some of the characteristics of a rivalry, the presence of a rival competitor made participants increase their playing intensity and training (Kilduff, 2014; Kildiff et al., 2010), but can also increase participant likelihood to engage in unethical behavior (Kilduff, Galinsky, Gallow, & Reade, 2016). This is consistent with research at the turn of the 20th century that found cyclists pushed themselves harder when faced with competition from others (Triplett, 1898). This is due to the fact that as humans, we want to (1) believe we are good at an activity (Deci, 1975), (2) be viewed favorably by others (Heider, 1958), and (3) our nervous systems are aroused by onlookers (Zajonc, 1965). People will increase their effort in activities to meet both of these criteria (Bandura, 1977). Now that we better understand what constitutes a rival team, in the next chapter we will begin to focus on how we as sport fans treat supporters of our rival teams.
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Discussion Topic #4 Think about the effort you give an activity when you are by yourself as opposed to when you are participating with or against someone else. For example, let’s say you are given a word find puzzle to complete as quickly as possible. If you were alone completing the puzzle, you could take your time without judgment from someone else. If someone were watching you, or worse, completing the same puzzle you would likely feel a need to hurry and finish before the other person could. As a result, you may feel pressure that could ultimately impact your ability to complete the puzzle correctly, not to mention in a way that is fun.
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Spotlight on Rivalry – Adidas and Puma The popular shoe companies Adidas and Puma were originally created from a sibling rivalry. According to History.com, Adolf and Rudolf Dassler started a shoe company in 1920’s Germany. The two worked together for years, and their product grew in popularity with elite athletes. Based on a family misunderstanding, and an off-handed remark taken the wrong way, the two brothers started a feud that ended their professional relationship. Adolf created Adidas, yes, from Adi Dasslar, and Rudolf created Puma. The brothers event built factories in the same town (which reminds you of the current Twix commercials right)?
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Chapter 3 Fan Treatment of Favorite and Rival Teams and Participants --- Activity #5 Using a favorite and rival team you chose in Activity #2 and #3, make a list of the attributes you believe about each team. Draw a line straight down the middle of your paper. One the left side of the paper, write down 5 characteristics of your favorite team. Characteristics that you think represent your favorite team to yourself and other fans. After you have completed this list, write down 5 characteristics of your rival team on the right side of the line. When finished, look at your list of characteristics of your favorite and rival team side-by-side. Do the characteristics you wrote down for the two teams look different? Are characteristics for your favorite team more positive than those written down about your rival team?
--- Activity #5 illustrates how fans make meaning of characteristics and attributes of favorite and rival team participants and fans. Typically, fans will describe actions of rival teams, whether players or fans, differently. Remember Daniel Wann? He has found that sport fans will describe behavior of favorite and rival team fans differently (Wann & Dolan, 1994; Wann & Grieve, 2005) and will that rivalry
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can impact favorite team and player performance evaluation (Wann & Thomas, 1994). He and colleagues also conducted a study where Kentucky Wildcats Men’s Basketball fans watched a video of a player they believed was a highly rated basketball recruit (Wann et al., 2006). Fans were either told the player had committed to the Wildcats or to the Duke Blue Devils. When fans believed the player had committed to Kentucky, they evaluated his performance very positively and believed he would significantly help the Wildcats the upcoming season. However, fans that were told the player had committed to Duke tended to devalue his skill and future potential. In reality, the recruit of focus in the video was someone playing at a different level of college competiton. The important and very interesting point of the study was to evaluate whether the amount of identification or attachment to a favorite team influenced their perceptions of player performance, which it did! People behave differently toward people they like (e.g., supporters of a favorite team) than ones they disagree with (e.g., supporters of a rival team) based on what is known as in-group bias (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). In common terms, in-group bias means that a person
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will typically treat a member of their in-group more favorably than a member of an out-group, which sometimes can be caused by of a perceived threat to the in-group (Stephan, Ybarra, & Rios, 2016). This tendency is enhance as people can start to take on the collective identity of the groups in which they belong (Ashmore, Deaux, & McLaughlin, 2004), and the type of group membership one enjoys (e.g., core member versus periphery member) can influence the way someone treats an out-group (Noel, Wann, & Brancombe, 1995). An early investigation of in-group bias was conducted by researchers Sherif, Harvey, White, Hood, and Sherif (1966), and is known as the Robber’s Cave Experiment. In the study, the researchers took a group of junior high age boys to an overnight camp in Oklahoma (Robber’s Cave to be exact). When the boys arrived at the camp, they were split into two groups. The groups were assigned different names and living quarters. The researchers then instructed the boys to create things that would identify their group as separate from the other. Next, the two groups were instructed to compete against each other in a series of events including athletics and arts. The researchers observed that when the groups competed against each other, boys in both groups tended to treat members of the
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opposing team very poorly. The poor behavior between groups included vandalizing the living quarters of the opposing team and even went as far as boys picking on and starting fights against members of the out-group. On multiple occasions, the in-group bias, and out-group derogation, got so bad that researchers had to break up fights and separate boys. After a while, the researchers told the boys that the groups would no longer compete against each other. In fact, the two groups would no longer exist. All the boys at the camp were members of the same group. The researchers then presented the boys with several tasks that required they work together to succeed. The researchers quickly found that boys previously belonging to two separate groups were working and playing together without trouble. The major takeaway from the study was that the mere presence of competition and an out-group caused the boys to treat members of the out-group more negatively than members of their in-group. Think about opening your computer and reading your favorite sport news website. At the top of the page you see a headline that reads, “(RIVAL TEAM) Fans Display Poor Sportsmanship at Rivalry Game”.
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Before reading the article, what is your first reaction to this headline? Does the headline represent your beliefs about fans of your rival team? Do you want to read the article? If so, do you want to read so that you can search for evidence that proves fans of your rival team behave poorly or do you want to read to gather information before making a snap judgment? Maybe seeing the headline affirms everything you have believed about your rival team for a long time, that their fans behave poorly. Maybe you read the article in search of examples to discuss with you friends about how bad the rival fans are. Now, let’s say you the headline
reads,
“(FAVORITE
TEAM)
Fans
Display
Poor
Sportsmanship at Rivalry Game”. Now ask yourself (1) your initial reactions, (2) do you read the article, (3) and do you read to find inaccuracies in the article to justify the behavior of your favorite team’s fans or for information gathering purposes? Recently, Patrick Ferruci and I designed an experiment to determine how fans reacted to positive and negative news regarding their favorite and rival teams (Havard, Ferrucci, & Ryan, 2018). In the
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experiment, we exposed fans to either a positive, neutral, or negative story about an upcoming game between their favorite and rival teams. The positive story was one about participants on the favorite and rival teams participating in a joint blood drive that benefited the general public. The neutral story was a preview of the upcoming rivalry game. The negative story was one about a fight between supporters of the favorite and rival teams leading up to the game. After controlling for fans identification with their favorite team and their preconceived feelings about the rival team, we found that fans exposed to the story about the fight (i.e., negative story) reported more negative perceptions about the (1) prestige of the rival team and (2) attitude toward the favorite team than fans that read the story about the joint blood drive (i.e., positive story). In other words, reading a negative story about an upcoming rivalry game, such as a fight between rival supporters, not only lowered a person’s attitude toward the rival team, but also their attitude toward their favorite team. This is very important for practitioners because they must realize that fans exposure to mediated stories involving their favorite and rival teams can significantly influence their perceptions of both groups. Practitioners would then be wise
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to encourage positive stories involving their favotite teams, and create situations where such stories can be told. Since practitioners have little to no control over negative news involving their teams, such as the example of fans fighting used in the experiment, it is imperative that they try to place their teams in situations where they can receive positive press. In this way, it is similar to a coach saying they try to put their athletes in situations where they can be successful. Also, placing team members, representatives, and fans in situations where they can receive positive press, such as a joint blood or food drive, positively impacts the surrounding and larger community. People typically display in-group bias in the ways they describe actions of in-group and out-group members. For example, Maass, Arcuri, Salvi, and Semin (1989) studies how people reacted to behaviors exhibited by in-group and out-group members. The researchers found that people tended to describe negative behaviors of the out-group in ways that stereotyped the whole group to the action. The opposite was true of negative behavior by an in-group member. The authors coined the term Linguistic
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Intergroup Bias (LIB) to explain how in-group members will typically describe actions of in-group members more positively than actions of out-group members. In other words, if an in-group member does something that reflects negatively on the group, people may push the behavior away so that it does not impact them or the group in unpleasant ways. However, when an out-group member does something that negatively reflects on their group, people may expect such behaviors from “those fans”. We have discussed how sport fans react to rival fan behavior (Wann & Dolan, 1994; Wann & Grieve, 2005). The affiliation with a group (e.g., supporters of a favorite team) can inherently cause individuals to find ways to derogate a rival team in whatever way necessary. In-group bias also extends beyond the descriptions fans have of rival teams and their supporters. Researchers using fans of English Premier League teams ran an experiment to test how fans would react to seeing someone in an emergency situation (Levine, Prosser, Evans, & Reicher, 2005). In the study, fans were told they were coming to a university campus to discuss their fandom. Participants first met with a researcher and discussed what it means to be a fan.
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Then, the participants were instructed to walk across campus to another building where they would watch a video featuring their favorite team. This is where the experiment comes in! On the way to the second building, participants deliberately passed through a parking lot that ran alongside a bike path. During their walk, the fans witnessed an individual fall off of their bike. It would be expected that the fans would help the individuals’ right? Turns out, fans did not always help the individual in distress. Why? The researchers had designed the experiment so that all study participants witnessed an individual that had fallen off of their bike, but one third of participants saw the individual in distress wearing a shirt of their favorite team, one third saw the distressed individual wearing a shirt of the rival team, and one third saw an individual wearing a shirt not featuring either favorite or rival team or the sport in any way. The researchers observed that participants were more likely to help the individual in distress if the person was wearing a shirt of their favorite team rather than a shirt of their rival team. Interesting right? As we have discussed, this finding can be attributed to in-group bias. The researchers also observed that participants were more likely to help the individual if they were
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wearing a shirt of the favorite or rival team than if the individual was wearing a shirt that did not affiliate them with either team or the sport. What this experiment points out is that (1) people will display a form of in-group bias when deciding to helps others in emergency situations and (2) in-group bias can exist on multiple levels. For example, a participant was more likely to help someone wearing a shirt featuring their favorite team, but also identified with people wearing shirts that professed their fandom to the sport. These findings are very important because they say that people can belong to multiple in-groups. We see this all of the time in sport. We will use United States college football as an example. Let’s say Phil is a fan of the Washington Huskies. He always wants the Huskies to win no matter who they are playing or the significance of the game. However, let’s say that the Huskies season is over and Phil has a chance to watch the Oregon Ducks play in the national championship game against the Ohio State Buckeyes. Remember, this example could very well have occurred during the 2014 college football season. When watching the Oregon Ducks play in the national championship game, Phil can either (1) cheer for the Ducks,
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(2) cheer for the Buckeyes, or (3) just watch for the enjoyment of the game. If Phil chooses to cheer for the Ducks, he may be doing so because he believes that a win by the Ducks will reflect positively on the Pac 12, and in turn on his Washington Huskies. This illustrates that Phil belongs to at least two in-groups; (1) a fan of the Washington Huskies and (2) a fan of the Pac 12. Now if Phil chooses to cheer for the Buckeyes in the championship game that could be attributed to a phenomenon called Glory Out of Reflected Failure (GORFing: Havard, 2014). We will discuss more about that later. The example of Phil, Washington, Oregon, and Ohio State makes sense doesn't it? Ask yourself if your favorite team’s season was over, but a team from your conference were playing in the post season, or national championship, you may want to cheer for them to show conference pride correct? After all, on television we often hear chants of “SEC, SEC” when a team from that conference is going to win a high-profile game. Well, that may not necessarily be the case. I conducted research with a colleague Lamar Reams where we compared the perceptions fans held of their most significant rival (e.g., Auburn fans perceptions of Alabama, etc.) by conference
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affiliation (2016). We believed that fans would in fact differ in their rival perceptions based on conference affiliation. We believed this because I had found that rival perceptions differed by team affiliation and conference membership using a small sample size (Havard, 2016). Based on this finding, Lamar and I chose to collect a large sample from the Power 5 Conferences (i.e., ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac 12, SEC) and investigate the hypothesis that conference affiliation would cause differences in fan rival perceptions. In other words, we believed that fans of SEC teams would perceive their most significant rival team differently than fans say in the Big 12, Big Ten, ACC, or Pac 12. Our investigation uncovered some very interesting results. --- Discussion Topic #5 When your favorite teams rival is playing against someone else, do you cheer for or against the rival? Why? If the rival were playing in a game that could reflect heavily on your favorite team, such as a championship game, would you cheer for or against the rival? Why? What do you think about fans that cheer for their rival team when they are not playing the favorite team? What do you think about fans that cheer against their rival team when they are not playing their favorite team, no matter if a rival failure reflects poorly on the favorite team?
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We used the Sport Rivalry Fan Perception Scale (SRFPS) to measure rival perceptions (Havard, Gray, Gould, Sharp, & Schaffer, 2013). More about the SRFPS later, but the scale measured (1) fan likelihood to support their rival in a game against someone other than their favorite team, (2) perception of their rival institution’s academic prestige, (3) perception of rival fan behavior, and (4) the sense of satisfaction fans feel when their favorite team defeats their rival team. We found that fans in the SEC were less likely to support their most significant rival in games not involving their favorite team (including post season or championship games) than fans of teams in the Big Ten or Big 12. Additionally, we found that fans of SEC teams perceived the behavior of their most significant rival team’s fans along with academic prestige of the rival team more negatively than fans in any other conference. Finally, we found that fans of teams in the ACC rated the academic prestige of their most significant rival more positively than fans in any other conference and fans in the SEC rated the academic prestige of their greatest rival more negatively than fans in any other conference. This is very interesting because it suggests that fans may support other teams in their conference, but are resistant to do so when that other team is
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their most significant rival. It may also suggest that identification with a conference can influence fan perceptions and behavior (Spinda, Wann, & Hardin, 2016). Through a series of studies, Joe Cobbs and David Tyler found that in professional sport, fans of NFL teams display more animosity toward rivals than in other leagues (Cobbs, Sparks, & Tyler, 2017), and that while antecedents such as geography and frequency of competition are the most important to fans of Major League Soccer, the elements most closely tied to schadenfreude (taking pleasure in the demise of another) and outgroup discrimination are perceived unfairness and cultural difference(s) between rival teams (Cobbs & Tyler, 2018). These two elements, it should be pointed out, are open to perceived importance of fans, and therefore could also serve as a way to derogate the rival or justify negative competition outcomes (e.g., favorite team losing to rival).
Rivalry can elicit reactions and behaviors based in fun and harmless pranks, such as this wife, a fan of the Alabama Crimson Tide who served her Tennessee Volunteers fan husband pancakes that showed the lopsided score of the most recent matchup between the
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teams. Researcher Martin Lee (1985) asserted that rivalry has the capacity to develop negative feelings in people that can elicit deviant behavior if not properly controlled. Additionally, Vassilis Dalakas and Joanna Melancon (2012) called for sport practitioners to take precaution when promoting rivalries to ensure that deviant behavior is kept as a minimum. We can all probably recount a story when a sport rivalry has caused people, possibly us, to act in a manner we aren’t proud of. --- Spotlight on Rivalry – Hatfield’s and McCoy’s You have probably heard of the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s. As a matter of fact, you may have heard them referenced in popular songs or event watched the television mini-series on the History Channel. But few people know the intricacies of the famous family feud, and that the generational battle between the two started over a pig. Read the events that surrounded possibly the most referenced but least-known rivalries.
--- I will give a personal example of a time when fans of my favorite team, including myself, behaved poorly at a rivalry game. In 2009, the Texas Longhorns football team was #3 in the nation. In the
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annual Red River Rivalry, they played the #20 Oklahoma Sooners. The Sooners quarterback Sam Bradford, who decided to forego being a potential first round draft pick in the previous season’s NFL draft to return to school for his senior year, had suffered an injury against Brigham Young in the first game of the season. Bradford returned for the Red River Rivalry game, threatening to end the Longhorns’ undefeated season. Early in the game, a Texas defensive player sacked Sam Bradford and the crowd erupted, including me. Bradford stayed on the ground and it took about half a minute for the crowd, including me again, to realize that he was hurt. Even after most of the crowd, including me, had stopped cheering, some fans kept up the taunting until Bradford was escorted off the field by athletic trainers. This story is important because most people, myself included (again), consider themselves to be rational people. Outside of sport, most people would not cheer if someone they saw on the street fell and injured him or herself. However, in that game, a rivalry game, many in the crowd, once again myself included, cheered a play where a college athlete, who passed up a lot of money from the NFL to return to school, was injured. As fans, we can justify our actions after the fact. For example, after realizing Sam Bradford
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was injured, I stopped cheering and rationalized my behavior as cheering for a great hit, or the star quarterback from the rival team possibly not being able to play the full game. But no matter what, the crowd, including me, cheered for several seconds after it appeared a college athlete was injured. When we as members of a group feel threatened, possibly when faced with members of an out-group, we may feel more hostility toward out-group members (Chang, Krosch, & Cikara, 2016). Daniel Wann and colleagues have conducted a series of studies investigating fan likelihood to consider anonymous acts of aggression toward players, coaches, and supporters of a fan’s rival team (Wann, Haynes, McLean, & Pullen, 2003; Wann, Petterson, Cothran, & Dykes, 1999; Wann & Wadill, 2013). In their studies, they asked fans if there was not chance that they would get into trouble and they could stay completely anonymous, how likely would they be to (1) trip, (2) break the leg, (3) hurt, or even (4) murder the star player, coach, or a fan of a rival team. Even though sport fans do not show a difference in trait aggression from nonsport fans (Wann, Fahl, Erdmann, & Litteton, 1999), highly identified
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fans reported they were more likely to consider committing anonymous acts of aggression toward the rival participants and fans than fans with lower levels of identification with their favorite team. Measures of dysfunction plays an important role in how a person perceives the appropriateness of fan aggression (Donahue & Wann, 2009). Further, in each sample, including two that I have been associated with (Havard, Wann, & Ryan, 2013; Havard, Wann, & Ryan, 2016), roughly 1% to 2% of participants indicate they would strongly consider committing the most heinous anonymous act of aggression (either hurt or kill depending on the scenario posed to a sample) toward the rival team. This may seem rather small, but let’s take this example into consideration. For the example, let’s use the 1% figure. Large numbers of fans attend sporting games (usually 10,000 to 20,000 in basketball, upwards of 100,000 in football). If you consider that roughly 1% of people in the crowd would strongly consider committing severe acts of anonymous aggression, that is very troubling. For example, out of a crowd of 10,000 basketball fans, 100 people would consider those severe acts of anonymous
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aggression (hurting or killing someone associated with the rival team). Out of a crowd of 100,000 football fans, that number grows to 1,000. Pretty scary right! It should be noted that participants in the above studies were asked to indicate their likelihood. The participants were not placed in a situation and observed whether they would commit the acts or not. But the simple fact that people would even indicate they would strongly consider severe acts like those described is very alarming. When other variables such as a close game, pre-existing tensions between individuals, severe trashtalking, or alcohol come into play, it is sadly not difficult to understand how some fans react negatively toward rival supporters or how unfortunate examples like San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow would occur, or the most recent unfortunate encounter following the Dallas Cowboys playoff game against the Green Bay Packers .
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Chapter 4 Perceptions of Rival Teams We have discussed how and why people affiliate with a sport team, what rivalry is, and how the presence of a rival team or group can impact a fan’s psychology. In this chapter, we will discuss how fan perceptions of a rival team are measured. Specifically, we will focus on the Sport Rivalry Fan Perception Scale (SRFPS: Havard Gray, Gould, Sharp, & Schaffer, 2013) and how it is has been used to study fan behavior. The development of the SRFPS begins from an observation I made during the 2008 football season. In that season, my favorite team, the Texas Longhorns were top 5 in the national football rankings. When they played the Oklahoma Sooners, ranked #1 in the nation, in their annual rivalry game, the Longhorns won the game and vaulted up the rankings to #2. Later in the season, the Longhorns lost to the Texas Tech Red Raiders. The Longhorns won the rest of their games to finish with one loss. The Oklahoma Sooners defeated the Red Raiders, meaning those two teams also ended the regular
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season with one loss. There was a three-way tie for first place in the Big 12 South division, and the representative to the conference championship game ended up being determined by BCS rankings (this was the fifth tiebreaker used by the Big 12 Conference!). The Oklahoma Sooners edged out the Longhorns by 0.0128 points in the BCS Standings, meaning that they would represent the Big 12 South in the conference championship game. The Sooners went on to win the championship game handily, and were chosen to play in the national championship game against the Florida Gators. After the Texas Longhorns defeated the Ohio State Buckeyes in a close game at the Fiesta Bowl, I eagerly awaited watching the Sooners and Gators play.
Something felt different as I mentally prepared to watch the national championship game. I found myself wanting the Florida Gators to win the game, even though I had no affiliation with the Gators. In fact, if I had any affiliation with either team, it should have been with the Oklahoma Sooners (however as we saw in Chapter 3 people have a hard time supporting their biggest rival in indirect competition). Interestingly, this feeling was in direct conflict with
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the 2000 football season, when I wanted the Sooners to beat the LSU Tigers in the national championship because I wanted a Big 12 team to win. Back to the Sooners and Gators, while watching the game, I started to think about why I wanted the Gators to win. After much thought, it dawned on me that for me it wasn't that I necessarily wanted Florida to win the game, I just didn't want Oklahoma to be national champions. After the game, which Florida won, I started thinking that other people must feel the way I do about their rival teams. So I began interviewing sport fans about their relationships with their favorite teams and their rival teams (more on that later). Through the interviews, I compiled a list of 112 statements that reflected fans’ views and perceptions of their rival teams. Through a pilot study, the list was narrowed to 58 statements. Then, following the criteria for creating marketing measures used by Churchill (1979), I first presented the list of items to a panel of experts in sport marketing and fan behavior. After the expert panel, some items were eliminated, combined, or reworded. The items were then sent to a sample of college athletics fans and they provided their responses to the items on a Likert-scale ranging from 1
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(Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree). After the data was collected, it was analyzed to see what factors emerged from the statements. These factors and statements were then sent back to the expert panel for additional feedback. Finally, a second sample of sport fans were presented with the items and responses were analyzed to validate the SRFPS.
The final SPRFS contained four factors and 12 items (see the figures on pages 25 and 26). Each factor was made up of three items, and measured (1) a fans’ likelihood to support their rival in a game not involving the rival – OIC (this is like the championship game between Oklahoma and Florida), (2) fans’ perceptions of academic prestige of the rival institution – OP, (3) perceptions of rival team fan behavior – OS, and (4) the sense of satisfaction a fan experienced when their favorite team defeated their rival – SoS (Havard, Gray, Gould, Sharp, & Schaffer, 2013). The items in the OP, OS, and SoS factors were worded so that higher scores indicated stronger negative perceptions toward the rival team. The OIC items were worded so that higher scores meant more likelihood to support the rival in indirect competition (in subsequent studies, the OIC items
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have typically been reversed coded to be consistent with the other factors). In general, fans have indicated that they are not willing to support their rival when they play other teams, believe the academic prestige of the rival school is somewhat prestigious, somewhat believe rival fans behave poorly at games, and experience great sense of satisfaction when their favorite team beats the rival team. The SRFPS has most frequently been used in college athletics to measure fan perceptions of rival teams and what variables impact how a fan views their rival. For example, variables such as team identification (Havard, Eddy, & Ryan, 2016), consumption habits, type of sport team, outcome of the most recent rivalry game (Havard, Reams, & Gray, 2013), team affiliation (Havard, 2016), conference affiliation (Havard & Reams, 2016), and conference realignment (Havard, Wann, & Ryan, 2013) can impact how a fan perceives a rival team. Additionally, rival perceptions can impact things like favorite team consumption (Havard, Eddy, & Ryan, 2016; Havard, Shapiro, & Ridinger, 2016) and likelihood to celebrate when a rival team loses in indirect competition (Havard & Hutchinson, 2017; Havard, Inoue, & Ryan, 2017). A fan’s perceptions of their
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rival team can even play a role in their decisions to draft a player for their fantasy football team (Spinda & Havard, 2016). Recently, the SRFPS has been modified so that it can be used in professional sport settings. In particular, the items in the OAP factor were modified to reflect a fan’s perception of the city or area where the rival team plays rather than the academic prestige of the rival institution (Havard & Hutchinson, 2017). The modified version of the SRFPS was validated and found to be reliable to measure rival perceptions of professional and international sport fans (Havard, Inoue, & Ryan, 2016). The next chapters detail each sub scale or facet of the SRFPS. ---
Activity #6 Using the SRFPS on pages 28 and 29 (use the College Sport or Professional Sport version depending on your favorite team), indicate your responses for each item regarding your favorite team’s biggest rival on a separate piece of paper. Once you have done that, you can average your responses to measure your perceptions for (1) each rival factor and (2) the overall rivalry scale.
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Sport Rivalry Fan Perception Scale (SRFPS) – College Sport Please indicate your level of agreement toward the team you identified as your biggest rival for each prompt below. (Circle)
Strongly Disagree
Strongly Neutral Agree
Out-Group Competition against Others (Indirect) OIC – Likelihood that a fan will support the athletics efforts of the favorite team’s rival in indirect competition. OIC1 I would support my favorite team’s rival in a championship 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 game. OIC2 I would support my favorite team’s rival in out-of-conference 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (division/league) play. OIC3 I want my favorite team’s rival to win all games except when 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 they play my favorite team. Out-Group Academic Prestige OAP – The amount of respect a fan has for the academic prestige of the institution where the favorite team’s rival plays. OAP1 The academic prestige of my favorite team’s rival is poor. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 OAP2 I feel people who attended school where my favorite team’s 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 rival plays missed out on a good education. OAP3 I feel the academics where my favorite team’s rival plays is not 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 very prestigious. Out-Group Sportsmanship OS – The perceptions of fan sportsmanship of the favorite team’s rival. OS1 Fans of my favorite team’s rival demonstrate poor 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 sportsmanship at games. OS2 Fans of my favorite team’s rival are not well behaved at games. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 OS3 Fans of my favorite team’s rival do not show respect for others. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Sense of Satisfaction SoS – The satisfaction a fan gets when their favorite team defeats the favorite team’s rival. SoS1 I feel a sense of belonging when my favorite team beats my 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 favorite team’s rival. SoS2 I feel a sense of accomplishment when my favorite team beats 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 my favorite team’s rival. SoS3 I feel I have bragging rights when my favorite team beats my 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 favorite team’s rival.
Scale of Agreement – 1 – Strongly Disagree; 2 – Disagree; 3 – Somewhat Disagree; 4 – Neutral; 5 – Somewhat Agree; 6 – Agree; 7 – Strongly Agree
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Sport Rivalry Fan Perception Scale (SRFPS) – Professional Sport Please indicate your level of agreement toward the team you identified as your biggest rival for each prompt below. (Circle)
Strongly Disagree
Strongly Neutral Agree
Out-Group Competition against Others (Indirect) OIC – Likelihood that a fan will support the athletics efforts of the favorite team’s rival in indirect competition. OIC1 I would support my favorite team’s rival in a championship 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 game. OIC2 I would support my favorite team’s rival in out-of-conference 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (division/league) play. OIC3 I want my favorite team’s rival to win all games except when 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 they play my favorite team. Out-Group Prestige OP – The amount of respect a fan has for the prestige of the city or area where the favorite team’s rival plays. OP1 The prestige of my favorite team’s rival is poor. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 OP2 I feel people who live where my favorite team’s rival plays 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 missed out on a good life. OP3 I feel the city/area where my favorite team’s rival plays is not 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 very prestigious. Out-Group Sportsmanship OS – The perceptions of fan sportsmanship of the favorite team’s rival. OS1 Fans of my favorite team’s rival demonstrate poor 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 sportsmanship at games. OS2 Fans of my favorite team’s rival are not well behaved at 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 games. OS3 Fans of my favorite team’s rival do not show respect for 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 others. Sense of Satisfaction SoS – The satisfaction a fan gets when their favorite team defeats the favorite team’s rival. SoS1 I feel a sense of belonging when my favorite team beats my 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 favorite team’s rival. SoS2 I feel a sense of accomplishment when my favorite team beats 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 my favorite team’s rival. SoS3 I feel I have bragging rights when my favorite team beats my 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 favorite team’s rival.
Scale of Agreement – 1 – Strongly Disagree; 2 – Disagree; 3 – Somewhat Disagree; 4 – Neutral; 5 – Somewhat Agree; 6 – Agree; 7 – Strongly Agree
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Discussion Topic #6 So what do you think? Do you agree with your scores on SRFPS? It seems like people typically do not score quite as high on the measure as they believed they would. A benefit of the SRFPS is that it takes a more rounded view of rival perceptions than simply asking fans how they feel about a rival team. By asking questions about indirect and direct competition, fan behavior, and rival prestige, we get a better picture of just how a fan perceives their favorite team’s rival. Discuss your responses and impressions of the SRFPS and share ways you think the scale could be used to measure the impact of rivalry on sport fans.
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Chapter 5 Out-group Indirect Competition (OIC) The strength of the Sport Rivalry Fan Perception Scale (SRFPS) is that it takes a rounded view of an individuals perceptions of a rival team (Havard, Gray et al., 2013). Rather than asking a fan how they feel about a rival team, the SRFPS asks fans to evaluate the outgroup or rival team in various facets regarding both on-field and offfield competition. The first facet of rivalry that falls into the on-field competition category (Havard, Inoue, & Ryan, 2018) is labeled Out-Group Indirect Competition (OIC, Havard, Gray et al., 2013). OIC refers to a fans likelihood of supporting the rival team when they play someone other than the favorite team. Such examples include supporting a rival team in a post-season tournament or conference or national championship game. The idea for the OIC sub scale is what started my journey looking into the rivalry phenomenon. The OIC sub scale asks fans to report their responses on a 7-point likert scale (1 = Strongly Disagree to 7 = Strongly Agree) on the
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following items, “I would support my rival team in a championship game”, “I would support my rival team in out-of-conference play”, “I want my favorite team’s rival to win all games except when they play my favorite team.” These items, as detailed in Chapter 4, came from responses I gathered in my interviews with sport fans. In that process, I had some people tell me they wanted their rival team to win games if (1) it was going to make the game against their favotite team more important or (2) if it would make the favorite team look better. Remember, we like to feel good about ourselves and look good to others. Also remember that as sport fans we can accomplish these benefits through following a favorite sport team. Therefore, what people were saying is that in fact they wanted their rival teams to win games leading up to the game against their favorite team, which they would lose, thereby making the favorite team and through association themselves look and feel better. As some fans voiced their support for rival teams, others however said they could not support their rival teams no matter how much the outcome would help or hurt the favorite team. Some fans even said they could not even stand to see their rival team competing in a
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game such as a league or national championship because it meant their rival team was one of the best teams. The items of the OIC are positively worded, meaning the questions were phrased in a way that higher scores mean fans infact would support their rivals when playing another team or in a playoff or championship game. As is the case with rival sport fans, responses to these items are typically low. At times, responses to the OIC items have been reverse coded so that higher responses indicate more negativity toward the rival team, such as the case with the Most Intense Rivalries in College Atheltics in Chapter. 6. The OIC is a sub scale of the SRPFS that has one item modified when using the scale to measure fan rival perceptions in professional sport. To see these modifications to the OIC sub scale items, see Sport Rivalry Fan Perception Scale (SRFPS) – Professional Sport in Chapter 4. The OIC is the sub scale or facet of rivalry that have been influenced most by fan characteristics or experimental design. The following table shows how the OIC sub scale has been significantly influenced by fan and exterior characteristics and variables.
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--- Influence on Out-group Indirect Competition (OIC) Characteristic or
Influence on OIC
Independent Variable Titles and logos used to
Exposure to a neutral rivalry title and logo (Red
promote rivalry games
and Blue Rivalry) made fans less likely to support
(Havard, Wann, &
the rival in indirect competitoin than exposure to
Grieve, in press)
a negative title (481 Miles of Hate) – More on this later
Indiscretions of the rival Exposure to a very negative rival indiscretion team (Havard & Eddy,
made fans less likely to support the rival in
2018)
indirect competition than exposure to a moderately negative rival indiscretion
Presence of a Primary
Fans of professional and collegiate teams were
and Secondary rival
less likely to support the primary rival in indirect
(Havard & Hutchinson,
competition than the secondary rival. Likewise,
2017; Havard & Reams,
students attending the University of Nebraska,
in press, Havard, Ryan,
Lincoln were less likely to support the Iowa
& Workman, 2018)
Hawkeyes (primary rival) than the Wisconsin Badgers (secondary rival) in indirect competition.
Joining a new athletic
Before conference realignment, fans were less
conference (Havard,
likely to support their current rival in indirect
Wann, & Ryan, 2013,
competition than their anticipated rival in the new
2017)
conference. Following conference realignment,
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fans remained less likely to support their former rival in indirect competition than their current rival in the new conference. Rivalry between
Fans of teams in the SEC were less likely to
conferences in collegiate support their biggest rival in indirect competition athletics (Havard &
than fans in the Big Ten or Big 12.
Reams, 2016) Addition of a new
Fans were less likely to support a rival in an
football program
existing sport in indirect competition than rivals
(Havard, Shapiro, &
of the new football program.
Ridinger, 2016) Team identification and
Fans with higher levels of identification were less
rivalry (Havard, Wann,
likely to support their rival in indirect competition
& Ryan, 2018)
than fans with lower levels of fan identification.
--- As I discussed at the beginning of this chapter, the OIC sub scale is one that have most frequently been influenced by fan characteristics and outside variables. The next SRFPS sub scale we will cover is the other rivalry facet found in the on-field category, Sense of Satisfaction (SoS).
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Chapter 6 Sense of Satisfaction (SoS) Sense of Satisfaction (SoS) refers to the excitement a fan experiences when their favorite team defeats the rival in direct competition (Havard, Gray et al., 2013). Direct competiton could be head-tohead competition or the favorite team performing better in a tournament or event setting, such as in a conference tennis tournament or track & field meet. The items in the Sense of Satisfaction (SoS) sub scale read, “I feel a sense of belonging when my favorite team beats my favorite team’s rival”, “I feel a sense of accomplishment when my favorite team beats my favorite team’s rival”, and “I feel I have bragging rights when my favorite team beats my favorite team’s rival”. Higher scores on the SoS items indicate greater excitement experienced when the favorite team defeats the rival team. Additionally, the SoS sub scale items have also not had to be modified to fit measuring fan rival perceptions in the professional sport setting.
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As expected, fans tend to score high on the SoS items and sub scale. This means that in most situations, fans report experiencing high levels of satisfaction when their favorite team defeats the rival team in direct competition. Interestingly, the meaning behind fans satisfaction experienced when their favorite team beats the rival team may have something to do with their level of rival support against other teams. For example, if a person wants their rival team to win all games except when they play their favorite team, they may experience greater satisfaction when their favorite team infact beats the rival in direct competition. The following table illustrates the fan and experimental characteristics that have influenced the SoS factor:
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--- Influence on Sense of Satisfaction (SoS) Characteristic or
Influence on SoS
Independent Variable Indiscretions of the rival
Fans that were exposed to a very negative rival
team (Havard & Eddy,
indiscretion reported they would experience
2018)
greater sense of satisfaction when their favorite team beat the rival than fans that were exposed to a moderately negative rival indiscretion
Presence of a Primary and
Fans of professional and collegiate teams
Secondary rival (Havard &
reported higher sense of satisfaction gained
Hutchinson, 2017; Havard
from beating the primary rival than the
& Reams, in press)
secondary rival.
Joining a new athletic
Following conference realignment, fans
conference (Havard, Wann, reported experiencing a stronger sense of & Ryan, 2017)
satisfaction when their favorite team beat the former rival than when they beat the current rival.
Rivalry between
Fans of the Texas Longhorns and Missour
conferences in collegiate
Tigers experienced greater sense of satisfaction
athletics (Havard, 2016)
from beating their rival than fans of the Kansas Jayhawks.
Impact of Team
Highly identified fans experienced greater
Identification and Gender
sense of satisfaction from beating their rival
(Havard, Eddy, & Ryan,
than lowly identified fans.
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2016) Impact of Sport, Season
Season ticket holders experienced greater
ticket holder status, and
sense of satisfaction from beating the rival than
Win/Loss of most recent
non-season ticket holders. Additionally, fans of
rivalry game (Havard,
teams that lost the most recent rivalry game
Reams, & Gray, 2013)
experienced greater satisfaction from beating the rival than fans of teams that won the most recent rivalry game.
Impact of Team
Fans with higher identification with their
Identification, College vs
favorite teams experienced greater satisfaction
Professional Sport
than fans with lower levels of identification.
(Havard, Wann, & Ryan,
Additionally, fans of college sport experienced
2018)
greater satisfaction than fans of professional sport.
--- A very interesting thing I want to point out from the above table is that fans of the Missouri Tigers experienced greater sense of satisfaction from beating the Kansas Jayhawks than vice versa. This may provide a glimpse into the now dormant rivalry between the Jayhawks and Tigers. As with all research, additional research that would confim these findings would enhance our understanding of rivalry in general, and the rivalry between these two teams.
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The SoS factor has also played in interesting role in influencing outcome variables such as Glory Out of Reflected Failure (GORFing) and consumption likelihood. For example, the greater sense of satisfaction a fan receives from defeating their rival increases their likelihood of experiencing excitement and celebrating when their favorite team loses to a third, neutral team. Regarding favorite team consumption intentions, the greater sense of satisfaction a fan reports made them more likely to (1) attend live games, (2) purchase merchandise, (3) watch on television or the Internet, and (4) follow the team online. The SoS factor is very interesting in that it has both been influenced by several external variables while at the same time influences outcomes such as GORFing and consumption intentions. We now turn the page and look at the two facets of the SRFPS that deal with off-the-field characteristics. First, we will discuss the Out-Group Sportsmanship (OS) factor.
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Chapter 7 Out-group Sportsmanship (OS) As I talked about in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5, the facets of the SRFPS have been dissected into on-field and off-field characteristics. Having discussed the on-field characteristics in Chapter 5 and Chapter 6, we will now talk about the first off-the-field charactertic of Out-Group Sportsmanship (OS) (Havard, Gray et al., 2013; Havard, Inoue, & Ryan, 2018). The OS factor addresses how fans believe fans of their rival team behave surrounding the rivalry. Again, the three items of the OS factor are measured on a 7-point likert scale and higher responses mean that fans believe rival fans behave more negatively. The items read, “Fans of my favorite team’s rival demonstrate poor sportsmanship at games.”, “I feel a sense of accomplishment when my favorite team beats my favorite team’s rival.”, and “I feel I have bragging rights when my favorite team beats my favorite team’s rival.”
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Fans tend to report responses somewhere around the neutral point on the scale. However fans of college athletics believe their fans behave more poorly than fans of professional sport (Havard, Wann, & Ryan, 2018). The table below shows the external characteristics that have influenced the OS factor: --- Influence on Out-group Sportsmanship (OS) Characteristic or
Influence on OS
Independent Variable Titles and logos used to promote rivalry games (Havard, Wann, & Grieve, in press)
Fans that were exposed to the negative title (i.e., 481 Miles of Hate) believed fans of their rival team behave more poorly than fans exposed to the neutral title (i.e., Red and Blue Rivalry).
Presence of a Primary and
Fans of professional and collegiate sport
Secondary rival (Havard &
believed fans of their primary rival behaved
Hutchinson, 2017; Havard
more poorly than fans of their secondary rival.
& Reams, in press) Joining a new athletic
Following conference realignment, fans
conference (Havard, Wann, believed fans of their current rival behaved & Ryan, 2017)
more poorly than fan of the former rival.
Rivalry between
Fans in the SEC believed fans of their rivals
conferences in collegiate
behaved more poorly than fans surveyed in the
athletics (Havard, 2016;
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ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, or Pac 12.
Havard & Reams, 2016) Addition of a new Football Fans believed that fans of their rivals in general Program (Havard, Shapiro, athletics (i.e., not football) behaved more & Ridinger, 2016)
poorly than fans of rival football teams.
Impact of Sport, Season
Season ticket holders experienced greater
ticket holder status, and
sense of satisfaction from beating the rival than
Win/Loss of most recent
non-season ticket holders. Additionally, fans of
rivalry game (Havard,
teams that lost the most recent rivalry game
Reams, & Gray, 2013)
experienced greater satisfaction from beating the rival than fans of teams that won the most recent rivalry game.
Impact of Team
Fans with higher identification with their
Identification, College vs
favorite teams believed rival fans behaved
Professional Sport
more poorly than fans with lower levels of
(Havard, Wann, & Ryan,
identification. Additionally, fans of college
2018)
sport believed rival fans behaved more poorly than fans of professional sport. Fans of non-US teams also believed their rival fans behaved more poorly than fans surveyed that follow US teams.
---
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The particular thing that is very interesting to me about the OS factor, and sportsmanship in general is that fans like to say their rival teams and fans behave more poorly than fans of their favorite team. Remember Linguistic Intergroup Bias (LIB) as discussed by Maass, Salvi, Arcuri, and Semin (1989)? Those researchers found that based on group identity, people tended to stereotype negative behaviors to out-group members and positive behaviors to in-group members. As we know, it is not always the case that fans of one team cause all arguments, fights, or trouble. However the interesting finding here is that based solely on group membership, sport fans will evaluate rival fan behavior negatively (Wann & Dolan, 1994; Wann & Grieve, 2005). Another point note on favorite and rival fan sportsmanship and behavior. Remember the experiement Patrick Ferrucci and I did when we exposed sport fans to a positive, neutral, or negative story? The fans that read the story about a fight between fans of the favotrite and rival teams reacted differently than fans who read the positive story about a joint food drive (Havard & Ferrucci, 2018). And if you remember, those exposed to the negative story tended to
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rate more negative attitudes of the rival and favorite teams than fans who read the positive story. This indicates that while fans may continue to show in-group bias in the way they evaluate fan behavior, exposure to a negative story such as a fight between rival fans influences fan perceptions of both rival and favorite team. In the next chapter, we will discuss the last facet of the SRFPS, and the other off-the-field facet, Out-group Prestige (OP).
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Chapter 8 Out-group Prestige (OP) The Out-group Prestige (OP) factor is a very interesting aspect of rivalry for a number of reasons. First, the OP factor is the only factor that does not directly relate to athletic competition. Second, it is the facet that requires the most change in order to use it at to measure fan rival perceptions at the professional level. This chapter will detail these two topics plus more. As I mentioned, the OP factor is the only facet of the SRFPS that does not directly tie to athletic competition. After all, it asks fans their perceptions of the prestige, whether academic or city/region, of their rival team (Havard, Gray et al., 2013; Havard & Hutchinson, 2017). The three items of the OP factor are measured using a 7point likert scale and higher responses mean fans believe the prestige of their rival is poor. Second, the items that make up the OP factor were developed using fans of college sport, and kept intercollegiate athletics in mind. Therefore, the original items asked fans about their percpetions of
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the academic prestige at rival institutions. This came from my interviews with fans in which I was told people knew little to nothing about the academic prestige at their rival school but imagined it was not as good as that at their favorite school. I even had one sport fan tell me they would never consider getting a master’s degree from their rival institution. Think about that, would you enroll for a graduate degree or take a job with your college team’s biggest rival? Even thought I understand fan rivalry and what causes the phenomenon, I think I would still have problems doing so. However, when the SRFPS is used to gauge fans of professional sport, the OP factor has to be changed to reflect fan perceptions of the city and region where the rival team is located. That is why there are two different versions of the SRFPS in Chapter 4. Fans tend to report lower scores regarding the Out-group Prestige factor at both the collegiate and professional level. Items used to measure college fans read, “The academic prestige of my favorite team’s rival is poor.”, “I feel people who attended school where my favorite team’s rival plays missed out on a good education.”, and “I
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feel the academics where my favorite team’s rival plays is not very prestigious.” The OP items used to measure fans of professional sport read, “The prestige of my favorite team’s rival is poor.”, “I feel people who live where my favorite team’s rival plays missed out on a good life.”, and “I feel the city/area where my favorite team’s rival plays is not very prestigious.” The OP factor is also one that has been frequently influenced by external factors. See the table below for the number of external characteristics that influence fan perceptions of rival prestige:
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--- Influence on Out-group Prestige (OP) Characteristic or
Influence on OP
Independent Variable Joining a new athletic conference (Havard, Wann, & Grieve, in press)
Following conference realignment, fans rated the academic prestige of their current rival more negatively than the academic prestige of their former rival.
Influence of Conference
Fans in the ACC believed the academic prestige
membership in college
of their rival team was less negative than fans
athletics (Havard, 2016;
in the Big Ten, Big 12, Pac 12, and SEC.
Havard & Reams, 2016)
Additionally, fans in the SEC reported the academic prestige of their rival more negatively than fans in the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, and Pac 12.
Addition of a new Football Fans reported the academic prestige of their Program (Havard, Shapiro, general athletic rrival (i.e., not football) was & Ridinger, 2016)
more negative than the football rival.
Impact of Sport, Season
Fans of basketball teams reported stronger
ticket holder status, and
negative perceptions of rival academic prestige
Win/Loss of most recent
than fans of football teams. Season ticket
rivalry game (Havard,
holders also reported stronger negative
Reams, & Gray, 2013)
perceptions of rival academic prestige than non-season ticket holders. Finally, fans whose
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favorite team has lost the most recent rivalry game reported stronger negative academic prestige than fans whose favorite team won the most recent rivalry game. Students at the University
Students enrolled at the University of Nebraska
of Nebraska, Lincoln
believed the academic prestige at the
(Havard, Ryan, &
University of Iowa as worse than that at the
Workman, 2018)
University of Wisconsin.
Influence of mediated
Fans exposed to the negative story about a fan
messages (Havard &
fight reported more negative prestige of their
Ferrucci, 2018)
rival teams (both college and professional teams were used in the study) than fans exposed to either the positive or neutral story.
Influence of team
Fans with higher levels of identification, and
identification (Havard,
fans of non-US teams were more negative
Wann, & Ryan, 2018)
regarding their rival team’s prestige than their counterparts.
--- The perceptions fans have of their rival teams has also influenced fan behavioral intentions such as consuming their favorite teams. For example, the more prestigious fans believed the academic prestige at their rival to be made them less likely to attend a rivalry game, watch the rivalry game online, or eread about the game on
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television. Now we have reached the end our our discusson abou the specific factors of the SRFPS. Next, we move on to something that encouraged me to begin researching rivalry in the first place.
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Chapter 9 Reactions to Rival Failure Now that we have covered how fans treat participants and fans of rival teams, and how their perceptions can be onto talk about how fans react when their favorite team’s rival loses or experiences indirect failure (i.e., not against the favorite team). In particular, we will discuss the phenomena of schadenfreude, disposition of mirth, sport disposition theory, and Glory Out of Reflected Failure (GORFing) in this chapter. --- Activity #7 Using your favorite team’s biggest rival team or teams, reflect on your responses in Discussion Topic #4 and write down how you react when your rival team loses to someone other than your favorite team. How do you react internally, or cognitively? How do you react publicly, or behaviorally? Do you celebrate with others? Do you post insults on social media or on sport discussion boards? Are you upset or disappointed? Whatever your response, think about and write down why you think your react that way when your rival team loses.
---
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Researchers have asserted that a rival team losing can cause similar feelings of excitement or euphoria as those experienced when a favorite team wins a game (Mahony & Howard, 1998). Additionally, fans may even want to watch their rival team play someone else if the outcome of the game has a direct compact on their favorite team or if they believe the rival may lose (Mahony & Moorman, 1999). Because fans identify with a favorite team or group, they also may choose a team to disidentify from, and take joy when that team or group experiences failure (Elsbach & Bhattacharya, 2001). People will also choose sides when given an opportunity to display their affiliation, and derogation with a group (Ewing, Wagstaff, & Powell, 2013). Additionally, when rival teams are playing, fans will cheer for the successes of their favorite team and failures of their rival team (Zillman, Bryant, & Sapolsky, 1986). This is known as the sport disposition theory, and was adapted to the sport setting from disposition theory. Disposition theory asserts an individual experiences joy when someone they like is successful and someone they dislike experiences failure; and pain when a favored person is unsuccessful and a disliked person is successful (Zillman & Cantor, 1976).
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The German term schadenfreude refers to a person experiencing joy when something negative happens to someone else (Heider, 1958). Think about this phenomenon in your life for a minute. Do you experience a little bit of joy when someone who brags about their accomplishments fails, whether in school, sports, or other activities? Be honest, you do right? It’s okay, almost everyone does (we cannot generalize to every single person, but common belief is that the vast majority of us do). In fact, Eric Vanman has (2016) has described schadenfreude as counter-empathy. As we have discussed, it is human nature to want to feel accomplished or successful at something (Deci, 1975). One way to show our competence or that we are successful is to compare ourselves to others (Festinger, 1954). Because of this human trait, it makes sense that we want to be more successful than others, even if that means putting others down. While this may not an overly admirable trait, don't be too ashamed, because you join a very, very large group of humans who do the same thing.
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Outside of sport, Eslbach and Bhattacharya (2001) found that opponents of the National Rifle Association experienced joy at unflattering news about the organization. Within sport, several researchers have used schadenfreude to study fan behavior. One such researcher is Mina Cikara, who, along with colleagues conducted a study on Major League Baseball fans to see how they neurologically reacted to the success and failure of a favorite and rival team. Findings showed that fans reacted positively when a favorite team defeated a rival team, but also when a third neutral team defeated a rival team (Cikara, Botvinick, & Fiske, 2011). Also, schadenfreude was stronger when expectations of a rival team were high and were not met (Cikara & Fiske, 2012). Think about it, when your rival team loses to an underdog team you experience more joy than if they lost to someone perceived to be on their same talent level don't you? Again, don't be ashamed, most people do. Research lead by Colin Leach found that schadenfreude was caused by a threat to the in-group and the perceive inferiority of the ingroup (Leach, Spears, Branscombe, & Doosje, 2003). Schadenfreude was also activated when the in-group or favorite team experienced a
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loss. In fact, following a favorite team loss, fans experienced schadenfreude toward the team that had defeated their favorite team, but also toward a third team that did not play their team (Leach & Spears, 2009). Finally, Leach and Spears asserted that schadenfreude was activated in fans because they wanted supporters of other teams to share in their misery of defeat. --- Spotlight on Rivalry – Evert and Navritilova The rivalry in Women’s Tennis between Chris Evert and Martina Navritilova spanned more than a decade (the two played over 80 times!) and has been referred to on numerous occasions at the best individual sport rivalry in history. For many tennis viewers, the rivalry represented something more than just phenomenal women’s tennis. The on-court rivalry occurred during the height of the Cold War between the United States of America (USA) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Even though Navritilova defected to the USA from Soviet-control Chechoslovakia at the age of 18, to many tennis fans, national loyalty and pride played a role in deciding which player to cheer for. The link from tennis.com details Martina Navritilova’s defection while playing at the 1975 US Open.
---
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We mentioned the interviews I conducted with fans about their favorite and rival teams in Chapter 4. We can now address other implications of those interviews besides development and validation of the SRFPS. In those interviews, people were asked to explain how they reacted when their favorite team won and lost a contest. Fans were also asked to describe how they reacted when their favorite team defeated their rival team (joy, excitement, and pride were some responses offered), but also when someone other than their favorite team defeated their rival. Fans differed some on their reactions to a rival defeat by another team, but some said they were happy and felt excitement, especially if the rival lost to an underdog or in a post-season contest (kind of like how I felt when Oklahoma lost in the national championship game). Some fans event went so far as to say a loss in the post-season or championship game made the rival look like they “were unable to show up for big games or could not perform on the national stage” (Havard, 2014, p. 249). From the interviews, Glory Out of Reflected Failure (GORFing) was identified (Havard, 2014). GORFing describes “the enjoyment one
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gets from the defeat of the favorite team’s rival by a team other than the favorite” (p. 250). GORFing can be thought of as a competition form of schadenfreude. Indicators that GORFing has been activated rather than general schadenfreude include (1) the inclusion of the rivalry phenomenon (i.e., a rival team has to be present – schadenfreude does not have to involve a favorite or rival team), (2) the presence of the favorite team (schadenfreude can occur absent of the favorite team), and (3) the focus on the impact of a rival failure on the individual fan and favorite team (research on schadenfreude in sport has focused solely on how a rival failure impacts the individual fan). In other words, GORFing somehow reflects positively on the fan and their favorite team, (e.g., making the fan feel their favorite team is better). This is important because it means, to a fan, a rival indirect failure (1) gives them personal enjoyment and (2) reflects positively in some way on their favorite team. For example, online sport fans displayed tendencies of schadenfreude on learning about the death of Baltimore Ravens owner Art Modell (Dalakas, Melancon, & Sreboth, 2015), even though this did not reflect positively on their
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favorite team (nor should it!). However, Auburn fans “rolling Toomers Corner” following Alabama’s loss to Clemson in the 2017 CFP National Championship Game is an example of GORFing because (1) the Auburn fans definitely felt happy, and (2) they celebrated in a similar way as if Auburn had won the game rather than Clemson. Also, Auburn fans could say “we wouldn’t have lost in the National Championship Game” as a way to make them feel better for their season. It is also important to note that GORFing can exist outside of sport as well as long as (1) an in-group is present, (2) an out-group is present, (3) the outcome impacts the in-group as well as the individual, and (4) some form indirect competition is present. For example, a person who supports a political candidate can take joy when the opponent of their chosen candidate gets into legal trouble or loses to another candidate (say in a primary). This can occur because (1) the person is part of the in-group of the chosen candidate’s supporters, (2) the opposing candidate and supporter (i.e., out-group) is present, (3) the opponents legal trouble or loss in primary reflects positively on the in-group (e.g., my candidate would never get in legal trouble/lose in a primary), and (4) indirect
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competition is present because the candidates are compared by supporters, observers, and media. Colleagues and I have started to quantitatively test the GORFing phenomenon (Havard & Hutchinson, 2017; Havard, Inoue, & Ryan, 2018; Havard, Wann, & Ryan, 2018). First, we showed that GORFing is in fact present when (1) the rival team loses to another team, and (2) regardless of favorite team performance (Havard, Inoue, & Ryan, 2018). Items measuring GORFing were again pulled from interviews with fans about the successes and failure of their favorite and rival teams (Havard, 2014). Currently four items have been validated as a quantitative measure of GORFing (Havard, Wann, & Ryan, 2018). So far, the measure has been used to investigate how perceptions of rival teams impact the likelihood of experiencing GORFing and whether the presence of a primary or secondary rival influences the phenomenon. Results show that (1) GORFing is unique from the SRFPS, (2) fans do not differ in their likelihood of experiencing GORFing whether a primary or secondary teams experiences indirect failure, however, (3) rival perceptions significantly influence the phenomenon (Havard & Hutchinson,
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2017). In particular, the OIC, OP, and SoS factors influenced fan likelihood of experiencing GORFing. Also, GORFing influences fan likelihood to wear or purchase favorite team merchandise. GORFing is also unique from schadenfreude and impacted by identification with a favorite team (Havard et al., 2018). --- Discussion Topic #7 Based on what you have read, do you believe that GORFing is the competition form of schadenfreude? Give some examples of what you believe to be general schadenfreude and what you believe is GORFing.
--- --- Activity #8 Using your favorite team’s biggest rival, respond to the GORFing prompts below on a separate piece of paper. When you finished, add up your score and divide by 4 to measure your likelihood of experience GORFing when your biggest rival loses to someone other than your favorite team. Based on your score, how likely are you to experiencing GORFing? Do you agree with the score?
---
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--- Glory Out of Reflected Failure (GORFing) When your favorite team’s rival loses to another team, how likely are you to: (Circle) Strongly Disagree
Strongly Agree
Neutral
Celebrate with others. Feel my favorite team is superior to my rival team.
1 1
2 2
3 3
4 4
5 5
6 6
7 7
Feel better about myself. I feel closer to my favorite team.
1 1
2 2
3 3
4 4
5 5
6 6
7 7
Scale of Agreement – 1 – Strongly Disagree; 2 – Disagree; 3 – Somewhat Disagree; 4 – Neutral; 5 – Somewhat Agree; 6 – Agree; 7 – Strongly Agree
---
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Chapter 10 Rivalry Lessons for Sport Managers To this point, we have covered fan identification with a favorite team, what sport rivalry means and how it begins, how rivalry impacts the way fans treat in-group and out-group members, how people perceive rival teams, and how people react to rival failure in direct and indirect competitive settings. Now, we turn our attention to what practitioners can learn from the study of rivalry and its impact on sport fan behavior. There are several lessons that managers can take from the research discussed so far, and in this chapter we will focus on those things that can help sport managers provide a better sport product to consumers. First, it is very important that sport managers understand how the presence of an opponent impacts the sport fan. For example, people tend to rate rivalry games to be more violent than non-rivalry games (Raney & Kinally, 2009), and rivalry can influence fan reactions to game outcomes (Hillman, Cuthbert, Bradley, & Lang, 2004). College students tended to describe fellow students at their institution to be
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more similar to them leading up to a rival game (Smith & Schwartz, 2003). Additionally, rivalries can carry positive benefits for fans such as uniqueness and cohesion (Berendt & Uhrich, 2016; Berendt, Uhurich, & Thompson, 2018; Delia, 2015). The presence of rival team can make fans more likely to attend, watch, or read favorite team games (Havard, Eddy et al., 2016; Havard, Shapiro et al., 2016; Paul, 2003; Sung, Mills, & Tainsky, in press), and pay premium prices to attend games (Sanford & Scott, 2016). Additionally, playing a primary rival rather than a secondary rival influences fan likelihood to consume their favorite team (Havard & Reams, 2017). Rivalry also influences fan evaluations of favorite team merchandise (Kwak, Kwon, & Lim, 2015), sponsored products (Dalakas & Levin, 2005; Davies, Veloutsou, & Costa, 2006), and cause-related messaging (Nichols, Cobbs, & Raska, 2016). These findings, along with others we have discussed so far, namely intentions to consume the favorite team, clearly illustrate that rivalry impacts sport fans in ways that regular contests (i.e., not against a rival team) do. It is important that managers recognize this as it can help them market, promote, and plan for rivalry games.
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For example, administrators could market games involving rivalry games to help increase interest in the sport product. This could also include games involving rival teams playing someone other than the favorite team. As we have seen so far, fans are not willing to support their rival in indirect competition, and are likely to watch a rival play if they think they will lose. This information tells us that perhaps games featuring rivals playing a third team could be promoted to favorite team fans. For example, how many Auburn fans would show up to a party to watch Alabama play in the football national championship in hopes the Crimson Tide would lose? In the United States, sport organizations and athletic department use rivalry and opponents to promote the on-field product their team offers. For example, many college athletic departments have created year-long competitions between rival schools to increase interest in all sport competitions between the two programs. For example, in the Civil War Series, athletic teams from the Oregon Ducks and Oregon State Beavers compete for points. At the end of the school year, the school that collects the most cumulative points is crowned winner for the year and presented with the Civil War
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Series trophy. This somewhat contrary to international football, where rivalries are often downplayed in an effort to diminish negative fan behavior. However, recent research suggests that at the international level, acknowledging rather than downplaying rivalry actually decreases fan animosity toward the out-group (Berendt & Uhrich, 2018). The website www.SportRivalry.com is a resource that can be used by sport managers and fans alike. The website features historical records of college football and men’s basketball teams, along with NFL, MLB, and NHL teams. www.SportRivalry.com contains podcasts detailing select historical rivalries, such as the Havard/Yale, Michigan/Ohio State, and Texas/Oklahoma football rivalries, the Duke/North Carolina men’s basketball rivalry, and professional rivalries from the NFL and MLB. The site also contains stories about rivalry at international events such as the 2018 Men’s Football World Cup, commentary about relevant rivalry and fan behavior issues, and This Week in Rivalry, a podcast that previews rivalry games in collegiate and professional sports. Also of
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importance to sport mangers, a ranking of intensity of fan rivalries in college athletics can be found on the website, which includes over 2500 participants aggregate scores from the SRFPS. The lists below include (1) Most Intense Fan Rivalries in NCAA, (2) Most Teams identified as a Rival, and (3) Identified as a Rival by Most Teams. --- Most Intense Fan Rivalries in NCAA Rank 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.
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Team Arizona Nebraska Kansas Alabama Oklahoma TCU Connecticut UCLA Oklahoma State Alabama Kansas Oregon Texas Indiana Iowa State Duke Michigan Michigan Ohio State Georgia Tech Texas Iowa Baylor Minnesota Auburn
Team Arizona State Colorado Missouri Auburn Texas Texas Tech Syracuse USC Texas Tech Tennessee Kansas State Washington Texas A&M Purdue Iowa North Carolina Ohio State Michigan State Wisconsin Georgia Texas Tech Nebraska TCU Wisconsin Georgia
SRFPS Aggregate 64.24 62.55 62.47 62.4 62.23 61.93 60.26 59.34 58.86 58.41 57.12 57.07 56.26 55.23 55.06 54.78 54.6 52.83 52.8 52.63 52.22 51.79 51.25 50.93 50.92
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The intensity rankings on the preceding page are entertaining for fans while also helpful for sport managers while. First, sport fans and personalities enjoy debating what are the most intense rivalries in every sport. The above information was compiled using the shared average aggregate SRFPS score from 2500 data points. This is unique in that it is a measure of intensity among fans. It is helpful for sport managers because they can use the data to help promote the sport product between favorite and rival teams. Knowing what we do about fan likelihood to consider anonymous aggression, the list could also assist managers in preparing for a rivalry contest in an attempt to control negative sentiments and behavior between fan bases. It is important for sport managers to know how many teams their fans consider as rivals. Recent findings illustrate that Tyler and fans can identify multiple teams as rivals, and reserve different degrees of perceptions toward such teams (Havard & Reams, 2018; Tyler & Cobbs, 2017; Wann, Havard, Grioeve, Lanter, Partridge, & Zapalac, 2016). This phenomenon is further available for people to view on
www.KnowRivalry.com.
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To
collect
this
data
for
www.SportRivalry.com, and the data below, every team that at least one individual considered a rival was counted. The lists contain the teams that identified the most rivals and those teams that were identified as rivals most by other fans. Looking at the rankings, what stands out most to you? Three of the top four schools, (Syracuse, Nebraska, and West Virginia) all recently changed athletic conferences. As a result, some fans identify teams from the previous conference as rivals while others identify rivals from the current (i.e., new) conference. This is important because it shows managers that when a team changes athletic conferences, they cannot expect their fan base to immediately jump behind supporting a rivalry in the new conference (more on this later in the chapter!).
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--- Most Teams identified as a Rival Rank 1. 2. 3. 4. 6. 9.
Team Syracuse Orange Nebraska Cornhuskers Arizona Wildcats West Virginia Mountaineers Wisconsin Badgers Kansas Jayhawks Texas Tech Red Raiders Illinois Fighting Illini Kansas State Wildcats Oklahoma State Cowboys Texas Longhorns Iowa Hawkeyes Kentucky Wildcats
Number of Rivals 11 9 8 7 4 6 6 6 5 5 5 5 5
--- --- Identified as a Rival by Most Teams Rank 1. 2. 6. 10.
Team Texas Longhorns Duke Blue Devils Michigan Wolverines Ohio State Buckeyes Penn State Nittany Lions Georgia Bulldogs Iowa Hawkeyes Nebraska Cornhuskers USC Trojans Alabama Crimson Tide Kentucky Wildcats Michigan State Spartans North Carolina Tar Heels Notre Dame Fighting Irish Oklahoma Sooners Wisconsin Badgers
Number of Rivals 11 7 7 7 7 6 6 6 6 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
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Think about non-sport products, such as mobile phones. The leading mobile phone product is currently the iPhone manufactured by Apple. When you watch television, you probably see commercials from other mobile phone manufacturers that somehow favorably compare their product to the iPhone. The commercials will find a way to derogate the iPhone or show their product is superior in a given category. This practice is also prevalent in other product categories such as mobile phone service providers, cable or satellite television providers, sport clothing, car, and beer companies. By having other groups compare to you, the perceived value of your group is enhanced. The more companies and groups that compare to you the stronger your brand. If we apply this logic to the sport product, then we could conclude that the teams on the above list enjoy a very strong brand. This is important for sport managers because it provides evidence of their brand strength and possible promotional merchandise. For example, Texas Longhorns fans (along with fans of pretty much every team) can buy shirts that read, “Loved by Few, Hated by Many, Respected by All”.
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When promoted responsibly, rivalry and opposing teams can be a very good way to engage a fan base and possibly attract new consumers. However, because of researchers’ assertions about rivalry (Dalakas & Melancon, 2005; Havard, Gray, Gould, Sharp, & Schaffer, 2013; Lee, 1985) and findings regarding fan aggression (Wann, Haynes, McLean, & Pullen, 2003; Wann, Petterson, Cothran, & Dykes, 1999; Wann & Wadill, 2013), we know how important it is that rivalries are promoted in a way that (1) increases fan excitement and engagement while (2) not creating animosity between teams and groups that causes fans to become deviant. Recently, my colleagues Dan Wann and Rick Grieve joined me in an experiment to test the influence of fans seeing either a neutral or negative promotional title (Havard, Wann, & Grieve, 2018). We collected data from students at The University of Memphis and Western Kentucky University regarding teams they believed would develop into the biggest rival of the men’s basketball. We chose Memphis and Western Kentucky because both schools were joining new athletic conferences in which they did not share continuous
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annual rivalries. We first asked students which schools would represent their biggest rival and found that Memphis students identified Cincinnati, and Western Kentucky students identified Middle Tennessee State. We then developed promotional titles and logos (below) using the word Rivalry (neutral) and Hate (negative). --- Promotional Titles and Logos Examples
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Next, we exposed students to either the promotional title and logo using the word Rivalry or the promotional title and logo with the word Hate. After students were exposed to the titles and logos, they indicated their perceptions of their rival teams (using the SRFPS). We found that students exposed to the title and logo containing the word Hate indicated fans of the rival team behaved more poorly than those exposed to the title and logo containing the word Rivalry. However, students that saw the title and logo containing the word Rivalry were less likely to support their rival against another team than those who saw the title and logo with the word Hate in it. It donned on us that possibly using a word like Hate increased the level of animosity toward a rival team, however using a word such as Rivalry increased feelings of rivalry. This is very important because as sport managers develop ways to promote rivalry between teams, using a word such as Rivalry possibly instills in fans minds that this is a rivalry, whereas a negative word such as Hate potentially only increases animosity or negativity toward the rival and their fans.
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Let’s discuss a few examples of organizations promoting rivalries in a questionable manner. We will use the Memphis Grizzlies of the National Basketball Association as a reference, but we should be clear that promotions such as these occur across the NBA, other professional leagues, and at the college and high school level as well. The first example we will discuss is a common skit where an employee from the organization wears a shirt of the visiting team and proceeds to act obnoxiously during a timeout. Most of the crowd does not know the person in the opponent’s shirt is an employee of the organization so to the majority of people it just seems like a fan of the opposing team taunting the hometown crowd. The fan is then displayed on the big screen so fans of the Grizzlies can boo and jeer the individual. Then, beloved Memphis mascot, Grizz, approaches the individual and gets their attention. The fan continues to be obnoxious and starts taunting Grizz. This makes the crowd boo and jeer louder, and then erupt in applause when Grizz sprays silly string in the opposing fans face. Depending on the importance of the game or the opponent, sometimes Grizz will physically accost the fan to the enjoyment of the crowd.
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Another example again features the Grizzlies mascot when the team played the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the 2015-2016 NBA Playoffs. During a timeout, Grizz appeared in the terrace of the arena, where a fake San Antonio Spurs mascot was laying on a table. Grizz climbed to the top of a latter and jumped onto the fake Spurs mascot, breaking the table and crushing the mascot to the floor. Video of the skit can be found at Grizzlies/Spurs skit or through SB Nation. Finally, the Memphis Grizzlies hold a pretty intense and negative rivalry with the Los Angeles Clippers because the two teams have played in the playoffs on multiple occasions. Fans in Memphis, and around the league I should add, sometimes refer to the Los Angeles Clippers and the Los Angeles Floppers. For a regular season game against the Clippers, the Grizzlies gave away promotional flip-flops to fans entering the arena. Alone, these skits are meant to be fun and entertain the crowd, especially in a place with a history of professional and amateur wresting like Memphis, Tennessee. To be clear, they can be fun and entertaining. However, there are multiple problems with skits and promotions such as these. First, if a fan became deviant, which we
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have seen examples of (e.g., Bryan Stow in Los Angeles), and we know roughly 1% of fans at an athletic event indicate they would strongly consider committing the most heinous acts of anonymous aggression (more people indicate they would consider committing less heinous acts), the organization would attempt to distance itself from the action right? It is hard to do so if the organization very publicly promotes the rivalry to fans in a negative or irresponsible way. Fallout from an issue like this can carry negative financial, legal, and fan engagement consequences. Think about taking a child, younger sibling, or relative to their first sporting event, which happens to be against a historical rival. After all, research shows that people are typically introduced to sport and a favorite team through family members and loved ones (Wann, et al., 2001). You have built up the experience in the child’s mind where they are very excited when the day finally arrives to attend the game. Imagine during the later part of the game you and the child are having a great time, and you are thinking that he or she will be a fan for life. During a time out, the home team uses a skit that in someway derogates fans and players of the rival team. Following
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the skit, you hear two rival fans start yelling insults at each other two rows behind you. The confrontation worsens and one fan throws a drink on the other or worse, a physical altercation breaks out. Now, you are thinking how do you keep the child with you safe and get out of the situation as quick as possible. However, that child may be thinking this is activity that regularly happens and sporting events and may not want to attend future games. From a fan perspective, it is sad that someone, of any age, would have to endure that type of encounter. From an organization perspective, you may have just lost someone that could have become a loyal fan for his or her life. Sport practitioners claim a great thing about sport is that it brings people together and allows people to escape their outside lives. Now, you are faced with someone who may not want to consume your product again. In the example above, the organization could be (and has been) held liable for the actions of fans fighting at their games. This could carry large legal consequences along with having to pay legal fees and possibly a large settlement amount. Additionally, you may have a number of fans that do not wish to attend games again because they
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witnessed the fan confrontation. This issue is only magnified if some of the offended fans are children, as you have possibly lost out on a lifetime of fandom and consumption. If a fan is offended enough by seeing the fan altercation, they could choose to not only stop going to games, but stop watching on television and purchasing merchandise. So as you can see, from an organization’s perspective, you run the risk of losing attendees and future consumers. Sport organizations can also use rivalry to responsibly promote the sport product. There are many examples of teams and schools hosting food or blood drives leading up to rivalry games. Doing so allows fans to identify with two in-groups. First, they can identify with their favorite team’s in-group and second with the in-group of the people donating food or blood for a positive cause. Possibly the clearest example of administrators ability to promote a rivalry in a responsible manner occurs following competition realignment. Competition realignment refers to conference realignment at the college level, or teams changing leagues or divisions at the professional level. From 2010 to 2013, over 40 schools changed athletic conferences, meaning virtually every school at the highest
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level of college athletics was left having to replace a historical rivalry (either because they or their rival were joining a new conference). When starting a new rivalry, it is important to have fan support, as they are heavily responsible for ensuring that rivalries grow and sustain over long periods of time (Livingston, 2015). As a practitioner faced with starting a new rivalry, it is important that you either (1) get fan ideas on identifying teams and forming rivalries, or (2) have key fan trend setters buy in to the rivalry and spread excitement to other fans. For example, administrators at Missouri and the University of Arkansas started the “Battle Line Rivalry” in hopes of engaging fan bases and increasing interest in the new football rivalry. Research on conference realignment has found that fans feel a fundamental need to identify a rival team (i.e., out-group). Through interviews with fans whose teams were changing conferences, I and Terry Eddy (2013) found that fans tended to show excitement for the conference they were joining, and stated they felt sorry for their
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rival that they were left in the old conference. Additionally, fans were ready to identify a potential rival in the new conference and were looking forward to beginning their competitive relationship. Survey research found that before teams actually played in the new conference, fans reserved more negative perceptions of the rivals in the conference they were leaving than the one the team was joining (Havard, Wann, & Ryan, 2013). Also, since we have discussed fan behavior, and deviant behavior throughout the text, fans reported they were more likely to consider acts of anonymous aggression toward participants and fans of the current rival than the anticipated rival. Recent research found that after playing in the new conference for three or four years, fans started to change the amount of negativity they attribute to former and current rivals (Havard, Wann, & Ryan, 2016a). Specifically, fans reserved more negative feelings for the current rival regarding fan behavior and academic prestige than for the former rival. However, fans still reserve stronger negative feelings for the former rival regarding playing a team other than the favorite team, and the sense of satisfaction they experience when their team defeats the rival. Additionally, fans reported they were still more willing to consider
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committing anonymous acts of aggression toward the former rival than the current rival. Recently, Dan Wann, Tim Ryan, Norman O’Neal, and I (Havard, Wann, Ryan, & Norman, 2017) compared fan rival perceptions of three teams that changed conferences. The Texas A&M Aggies and Missouri Tigers both left the Big 12 Conference for the SEC. At the same time, the TCU Horned Frogs left the Mountain West Conference for the Big 12. The data we collected in the 2013 Conference Realignment study included fans from all three teams. Remember, this was the study where fans reported their perceptions of the rival in the current conference (this was before schools actually changed conferences) and the anticipated rival in the new conference. In that study, Texas A&M fans identified the Texas Longhorns as the current rival and the LSU Tigers as the anticipated rival. Missouri fans identified the Kansas Jayhawks as the current rival and the Arkansas Razorbacks as the anticipated rival. Fans of TCU identified Boise State at the current rival and the Baylor Bears as the anticipated rival. In the most recent data collection, fans of the three teams identified the same teams as the
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former rival and current rival. Therefore, we were able to compare whether fans reported different perceptions of their relevant rivals in the former and current conferences after competing in the new conference for three seasons. We found that fans of the Texas A&M Aggies and the Missouri Tigers did not report significantly different perceptions of their former (i.e., Texas Longhorns; Kansas Jayhawks) or current (i.e., LSU Tigers; Arkansas Razorbacks) after competing in the SEC for three seasons. On the other hand, fans of the TCU Horned Frogs reported less sense of satisfaction from beating the Boise State Broncos and more satisfaction from beating the Baylor Bears after conference realignment. Additionally, they perceived the behavior of Baylor Bears fans to be more negative after competing in the Big 12 for three seasons. The key in all three of these findings is history of competition. Remember, history of competition was identified as an important antecedent and characteristic of rivalry (Havard, 2014; Kilduff et al., 2013; Quintanar et al., 2015; Tyler & Cobbs, 2015). Texas A&M played the Texas Longhorns 118 times beginning in 1894 (the game was continuously played from 1915 to 2011), and the Missouri
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Tigers played the Kansas Jayhawks 120 times. Additionally, Texas A&M has played LSU 54 times, and Missouri has played Arkansas only four times. Therefore, it could be expected that three seasons was not enough time for new rivalries to supplant ones with such history. Likewise, the TCU Horned Frogs played the Boise State Broncos only four times compared to the 112 times they have played the Baylor Bears. The really cool thing about these findings is they strongly support the notion that history is vitally important to the formation and overall health of a rivalry. These findings show (1) perceptions of rivals and willingness to consider anonymous acts of aggression build over time, and (2) a period of three or four years is not enough to make them completely replace the former rival with a new rival team. It is very important to know how fans feel about rival teams in their conferences or leagues because it can help administrators promote the sport product but also prepare for contests between teams. Further, knowing fan likelihood to consider committing anonymous acts of aggression is very important for sport managers of teams trying to start new rivalries because they have the opportunity to promote a
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rivalry in a way that may help alleviate some of the negative behavior that can occur between fans of rival teams. Next are some examples of responsibly promoting rivalry. Remember my experiment with Dan Wann and Rick Grieve? Well, let’s talk about real world examples of sport organizations responsibly promoting rivalry. When the Nebraska Cornhuskers joined the Big Ten Conference in 2011, conference officials decided they would play the Iowa Hawkeyes at the end of the football season. Nebraska and Iowa are neighboring states, and share some competitive history, so it made sense that the conference would try to start a new rivalry between the schools. In an effort to positively promote the rivalry, officials at Nebraska and Iowa worked together to develop an idea that would (1) increase excitement around the game, but also (2) engage fans of both teams in a responsible and positive way. The idea they came up with was to call the game the “Heroes Game”. Among the joint-recognitions during the game, one citizen from Iowa and one citizen from Nebraska are recognized at halftime for positively reflecting on their state. For example, one citizen was honored during the game for being a military vet while
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another for saving a family from a burning house. This is a good example of organizations and sport managers trying to work together to responsibly promote a rivalry. And remember our discussion about in-groups. By promoting the “Heroes Game”, fans of both teams could feel like there were part of their favorite team’s in-group, but also part of the larger in-group of people at the game or in the combined two states. Another example of responsible promotion using Nebraska football is naming the annual football trophy between the Cornhuskers and the Wisconsin Badgers the "Freedom Trophy", paying homage to active and veteran members of the military. Just like with the Heroes Game, fans of both teams can feel part of a smaller in-group as supporters of their favorite teams, and a larger in-group as proud national citizens. These two descriptions illustrate how sport managers try to promote a rivalry game in a responsible manner. These examples are balanced however with the rivalry trophy between the Cornhuskers and the Minnesota Golden Gophers named the "$5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy". Some background on
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this trophy. When Bo Pelini was the football coach at Nebraska, someone started a “Faux Pelini” account on Twitter, where they would send out funny and ironic messages (that obviously was not affiliated with the Nebraska Athletics Department). One year leading up to the football game between Nebraska and Minnesota, Goldy Gopher, the official Golden Gophers mascot account, and Faux Pelini had an entertaining, and all in fun as best anyone could tell, exchange on Twitter. The exchange ended with Goldy Gopher suggesting he get to break a chair over the Faux Pelini’s head if Minnesota won the game. Faux Pelini responded that he would agree to the terms as a long as he could make a trophy from the broken bits of the chair. Thus, the $5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy was born. An interesting note about the three Nebraska Cornhuskers examples is that the administrators tried to create and promote rivalries in a responsible manner with the Heroes Game and the Freedom Trophy, but a very popular rivalry that grew organically from the fan level is the $5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy. So, work may also be needed at the fan level to help promote rivalries in a responsible manner.
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--- Activity #9 Using your favorite and rival teams you have identified, plan an event that will increase interest in the rivalry game while controlling for negative behavior among fan groups. Why do you think this event will be successful?
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Chapter 11 Sport Rivalry Man: Using Comics and Cartoons to Teach Rivalry and Fan Behavior A project that I am really excited about it teaching people, with a specific focus on school-age children, how the rivalry phenomenon really impacts people and groups. To do this, we have created comic strips and cartoons of the historical rivalry podcasts on www.sportrivalry.com. At the end of each comic strip and movie, a term or description of a phenomenon that explains rivalry and describes why people treat others differently depending on their group affiliation. The goal with this project is to reach younger people through sport rivalry, while teaching them that members of in-groups and out-groups have more in common that some would have them believe. To help teach about group behavior, we have also developed comic strips and movies about fan behavior and how fans should treat members of their favorite and rival teams.
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Some of the comic strips and cartoons depict the historical significance of a state militia standoff in the Red River Rivalry between the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners, the Civil War’s influence on The Border War between the Missouri Tigers and Kansas Jayhawks, how religion plays a role in The Holy War between the BYU Cougars and Utah Utes, and how an egg was used as an attempt to prevent fights between fans of the Ole Miss Rebels and Mississippi State Bulldogs. A full list of comic strips and cartoons of historical rivalries, both at the collegiate and professional levels, can be found at SportRivalry.com. These comic strips and cartoons are part of a larger project in which we are tying to teach the public about the rivalry phenomenon. With the help of the SportRivalry.com research team, and through consultation with Daniel Wann, we hope to educate the public about rivalry and group member behavior. Another, very important goal of our project is to teach people about appropriate fan behavior, with the hope that education can improve group member behavior. To this end, Sport Rivalry Man was
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introduced in the spring of 2017. The idea for Sport Rivalry Man came from the realization that people, and particularly school-age children, enjoy (1) sport, (2) comic strips and cartoons, and (3) super heroes. If you want to see how popular super hero movies are, take one look at the massive box office numbers movies made by Marvel Studios bring in. The story of Sport Rivalry Man goes like this. While teaching the very class this text was written for, I tried to create characters Jeff and Jeffrey, characters that represent essentially the same person, with favorite team being the only difference between the two. As we move through the class, Jeff and Jeffrey are used to teach just how alike fans of rival teams can be. Jeff/Jeffrey then become Sport Rivalry Man to illustrate the use of a super hero to teach about rivalry and group member behavior. Through various iterations, Sport Rivalry Man was developed to represent a super hero that acts as a (1) guide through historical rivalries and (2) conscious reminder of appropriate fan behavior.
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--- Sport Rivalry Man
--- The main reason Sport Rivalry Man was created (he bears no resemblance to anyone correct?) was to tell stories about appropriate fan and group member behavior. So, the Adventures with Sport Rivalry Man were created, and detail stories of fans being placed in situations in which they must make choices regarding the appropriate treatment of rival fans (i.e., out-group members). In particular, comic strips and cartoons tell stories of fans having to
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help rivals change a flat tire, stop bullying a rival fan online or in person, helping fans find lost items after a game, learning how to appropriately cheer at a rival game, and how to welcome new students to school and social groups. The goal of the Adventures with Sport Rivalry Man stories is to use the popularity of sport and super heroes, along with the medium of comic strips and cartoons to teach about appropriate fan and group member behavior. If we can reach children at an early age, maybe we can help shed light on how they should treat others. And hopefully we can even help children generalize the lessons from the Adventures with Sport Rivalry Man stories to settings outside of sport. After all, as we said, rivalry is the study of group behavior, so if we can use sport, super heroes, and comic strips/cartoons to illustrate how people should treat rival sport fans, maybe they can apply those lessons to other settings in their lives. Out-group derogation, bullying, and dehumanizing tendencies are serious problems facing society, and in this is our attempt to help teach appropriate group member behavior..
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It is important to note that the use of the comic strips and cartoons does influence individual perceptions and rival teams and likely behaviors toward out-group members. We set up an experiement in which we exposed a group of college students to the historical and Adventures with Sport Rivalry Man comic strips and cartoons as a way to teach about rivalry (Havard & Workman, 2018). A second group of college students in turn were not exposed to the comic strips and cartoons to learn about the rivalry phenomenon. At the end of the experimental period, we asked students in both groups to report their perceptions of a rival group, an asked them their likelihood to help a rival fan in various situations (e.g., helping pick up dropped items, stopping someone from bullying a rival fan, stopping someone from trying to steal a rival fan’s belongings). After all, Levine, Prosser, Evans, and Reicher (2005) found that fans were more likely to help others in emergency situations when they wore a shirt representing a shared favorite team rather than a rival team. In our experiment, we actually found that student exposed to the comic strips and cartoons rated rival fan behavior more negatively,
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experienced less satisfaction from defeating their rival, and reported higher likelihood of trying to stop someone attempting to steal the belongings of a rival fan. These findings make sense because many of the historical rivalries relate stories of negative behavior between rival fans, which would influence someone’s perceptions of outgroup member behaivor. Additionally, the Adventures with Sport Rivalry Man stories discuss appropriate ways to treat out-group members, which could have made fans less likely to celebrate success at the hand of direct rival failure, and more likely to help rival fans in an emergency situation. In an effort to help school-aged children, a curriculum using the Advntures with Sport Rivalry Man stories has been developed. Available on SportRivalry.com, the curriculum is available to schools teachers and counselors for use in tyring to teach appropriate group member behavior. The stories are accompanied by lesson plans and activities, including coloring pages, stickers, and a take-along Sport Rivalry Man, which can be taken to games for pictures and used to remind of appropriate fan behavior, address relavant issues such as bullying, making good choices, showing kindness, and teamwork.
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Again, the goal is that school children, and perhaps others, can take the lessons from the stories and apply them in other non-sport settngs. Here is even a presentation I gave on using the Adventures with Sport Rivalry Man in a classroom setting (as Sport Rivalry Man). All of these efforts are important because as we know, rivalry is about group member behavior, and the importance of educating about and displaying appropriate behavior toward others cannot be understated.
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Chapter 12 Future of Rivalry Research This final chapter focuses on the future questions facing rivalry in sport. How will rivalry look in 5 or 10 years? With the importance of television viewership, will rivalry become something that is of more or less focus to sport teams, organizations, and athletic departments? Is rivalry, in its current form, a phenomenon that will last in the future? How will historical rivalries be impacted by sponsorship contracts, and vice versa? These are just some of the questions facing sport researchers. In fact, an annual research meeting, the Forum on Sport Rivalry invites individuals interested in the study of sport rivalry to discuss current and future ideas on the phenomenon. Following is a brief discussion of future work on sport rivalry. First, we need to better understand how rivalry impacts the loyal and casual fan. Havard (2014) interviewed college fans about their favorite and rival teams, but more interviews need to be conducted at the professional and amateur leagues. Second, more interviews, survey research, and experiments are needed to help determine
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how the phenomenon impacts the psychology of sport fandom. Earlier, we discussed the ideas of schadenfreude and GORFing, and we need to conduct more in-depth research to understand the similarities and differences between the two. Further, as Pradhan and colleagues are working on scales to measure how fans behaviorally react to rival team’s indirect failure, research is needed to determine if differences exist between those scales and the GORFing scale. Research on rivalry at the international level has lagged behind that of the phenomenon within the United States. How is rivalry different for fans in the United States and abroad? Parrish and Tyler (2018) provide a comprehensive overview of football rivalries in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, including antecedents and characteristics of the phenomenon in the setting. We mentioned that domestic teams often use rivalry to promote the sport product, but practical examples indicate rivalry is something to be controlled at the international level. Also, how do nations use sport rivalry as a means for relating to one another? Every Summer and Winter Olympic Games, we see fans of different countries display grandiose
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examples of national pride, is this something that helps or hurts international relations? A very important area for future research in sport rivalry is investigating the way groups, and group members, treat each other. Fans often use exaggerated language to explain their relationships with their favorite and rival teams, but how does this language manifest itself, and how can this language impact the professional and personal relationships we have with other people? Outside of sport, negative and exaggerative language is often on display in chat rooms and on message boards during an election cycle. Current research is trying to identify similarities and differences between the types of language used to describe out-groups in sport and politics. In other words, do fans of the Denver Broncos differ in their descriptions of the Kansas City Chiefs than Democrats do of Republicans? Another important area is determining how the understanding of rivalry and behavior can impact group relations. For example, if we can gain a better understanding of how people form their beliefs
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about out-group members, we can possibly begin work to alleviate some of the negative feelings and behaviors we see between groups. There are many different areas and paths of research on rivalry in an out of sport. One very important area that has so far been overlooked is the existence, prevalence, and influence of rivalries in individual sports. Recently, Scott Ambrose and Nathan Schnitzlein found that parity, defining moments, and competition frequency play important roles in building and sustaining rivalries in individual sports (Ambrose & Schnitzlein, 2017). Additionally, Lamar Reams and Terry Eddy, (remember them?) identified conflict as the primary antecedent that drives people to watch Ultimate Fighting Championship pay-per-view bouts (Reams & Eddy, 2017). These are just a few ideas that are being discussed, but many, many more have yet to be addressed, or even discovered. The study of rivalry is very important, and can help form the way (1) sport managers promote the sport product and (2) people act toward members of their in-groups and out-groups.
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--- Discussion Topic #8 What are some future ideas for research in rivalry, inside and outside of sport that you see? How will knowing more about rivalry help improve our society?
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