A college football match is an event that attracted thousands of fans from all aspects of social life on the game day, Saturdays. The thousands of fans were drawn to cheer for their teams as they competed. Every fan did their best to remain loyal to their supporting teams through devoted conducts. They also engaged in different roles in ninety minutes that the matches were played. The dedicated roles involved protecting their team identity, participate in loyal behavior and also pulling new supports from the rival team to their side. In college football events, people often express their self and social identity without or with minimal limitations as the environment permits expression of certain behavior by football fans with little concern of others. Opponent fans compete through cheering to emerge the winner. The fans experience happiness and self-worth when their teams win (Mills et al. 2018). The atmosphere around the stadium shows instances of community loyalty, and different levels of fans behaviors. Therefore, this event provides a conducive atmosphere of learning social behavior through participant observation.
People attending football matches solicit for self-esteem and a sense of belonging. The social field of sports elicits a cost and benefit order for both players and fans. They both show the feeling of happiness after winning or sadness and low self-esteem in case of a loss. Moods and levels of satisfaction expressed by the fans reflect losses and win since all devoted fans respond to these situations as personal success or failure. When a team wins, its supporters gain high self-esteem and morale to remain loyal and celebrate in front of their opponents. In case of a loss, the fans feel that they have failed to achieve their objectives and thus they respond by trying to bring down the opposing fans (OpenStax, 2015). Failure in football is viewed as a performance factor, and it’s consequent. Ties are often not celebrated as fans see it as an expression of equal performance rather than victory. Consecutive win by a team usually results in attracting more loyal fans as they strive to remain winners. There are different emotions expressed by sports fans that show that they look up to their teams for better understanding of their own identity, comfort, and self-esteem. Hence these events act to instill connection among the fans creating an atmosphere of belongingness. These connections are strengthened through victories as more fans want to be associated with the winning group.
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In relation to gender, college football attracts both female and male fans. Both males and females express their behavior and fanship constructively. However, males actively participate more in fans behavior than females. This is because males often have had a chance to play and thus have a better understanding of the events than their female counterparts. In most sporting events they usually have a high level of involvement either through the media or physical presence in the stadiums. There is also an expression of strong emotional ties to a sports team by the males which is often demonstrated through actions of intense devotion such as active participation in pre-games activities, putting on jerseys with team labels or logos and cheering while watching the match.
Social identity theory explains fans identity and belongingness to a social concept. A group’s attachment, to a team, devotion to the activities and the satisfaction drawn from being a teams’ fan are factors that influence fans behavior. When people are attached to a sports team or involved in their activities, they usually rate their identity as fans as more essential than other social identities they may have. Fan identification is also related to psychological commitment as high strong fans’ psychological commitment results to a high level of devoted fans behavior an expression of loyalty to their teams. Most of the behaviors expressed by fans in sports events show some level of biases to the rival spectators as the opposing groups engage in a loyalty competition through cheering as their teams are playing. Mutual support behavior is a key factor showed by spectators of the same team. This is because there exist strong connections among fans of the same team that makes them form an in-group family-like community that expresses unity, strong devotion, and comfort that arises from having similar beliefs and shared actions among fans watching their teams (OpenStax, 2015). Out-group fans are often seen as rivals perceived as invisible until they interfere with the opponent fans either through actions or words. At this point, various stereotypes are seen as every group try to prevent compromisation of their groups’ cohesion.
Sports fan are satisfied through supporting their teams by expressing devoted behavior although they receive little or no return. However, this devotion requires a significant investment of emotions and the fans usually suffers if their teams lose. They receive oppression and ridicule for their commitment particularly in cases where the teams lose consistently. This behavior can only be understood by other fans. In extreme conditions, behavior leads to psychological suffering. This explains the strong connection between fans and their teams. Support of the team is usually an extension of expressing a personal sense of self. Therefore, teams’ performance reflects directly upon the fans where teams success is expressed as personal success, and teams’ failure reflects as a personal failure by the fans (OpenStax, 2015). This feeling of personal failure usually interferes with fans’ mood or judgment after experiencing failure, fans anxiety to win rises which prompt them to the excitement, praise, and loyalty. Every fan remains loyal to their teams after defeat, waiting optimistically to bounce back in the next match.
In a social concept of society, norms usually define certain aspects of behavior to be adhered to by all members of society. Members’ interaction forms important socialization tools which enable them to help strengthen their bond (Griffiths et al. 2015). Togetherness towards a common concept seems to be the greatest benefit for any social group. Engaging in team cheering creates an essential social community bound together by their common perspectives towards their teams. Working together allows fans to create family units that help them share sincere devotion for their teams and also achieve goals such as having other fans to cheer and talk to. During the match, fans share their love for their teams and care for the well being of other supporters. Strong bonds are also built when fans gather to share their sorrow and joys thus creating a sense of satisfaction (Mills et al. 2018). Tailgating is a common aspect in social groups such as those of football fans. People come together to share food and drinks and socialize with other fans dressed in their team's jerseys. Though the gatherings are formed through fanship, the activities and behaviors that take place are for fans enjoyment as a family unit.
References
Mills, B. M., Tainsky, S., Green, B. C., & Leopkey, B. (2018). The ultimatum game in the college football rivalry context. Journal of Sport Management, 32(1), 11-23.
OpenStax. (2015). Introduction to Sociology 2e . Houston, TX: OpenStax. Retrieved from https://openstax.org/details/books/introduction- sociology-2e?Book
