Perceptions of highly identified fans regarding rival teams in US intercollegiate football and men's basketball

Examining the Impact of Team Identification and Gender on Rival Perceptions and Consumption Intentions of Intercollegiate Athletics Fans

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The current study investigated rival perceptions using the Sport Rivalry Fan Perception Scale (SRFPS) (Havard, Gray, Gould, Sharp, & Schaffer, 2013) on a group of male and female intercollegiate athletics fans at various levels of favorite team identification. To this point, the SRFPS has primarily been used to examine highly identified male fans (Havard, Reams, & Gray, 2013;Havard, Wann, & Ryan, 2013). The current study extended previous research on rivalry by finding that rival perceptions were impacted by level of team identification.

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“…Additionally, fans of intercollegiate football experienced various physiological reactions to the success and failure of their favorite and rival teams in direct competition (Hillman, Cuthbert, Bradley, & Lang, 2004), and described the actions of favorite team fans and performance of players more favorably than that of rival teams (Wann & Dolan, 1994;Wann & Grieve, 2005;Wann et al, 2006). Havard, Reams, and Gray (2013) found that the type of intercollegiate team followed (basketball, football), season ticket holder status, and the outcome of the most recent rivalry game impacted the way highly identified fans perceived aspects of identified rival teams. Further, fans of teams joining a new athletic conference found various ways to derogate the rival team in the conference their team was leaving (Havard & Eddy, 2013), and held more positive perceptions of the identified rival in the conference they were joining than the one they were leaving (Havard, Wann et al, 2013).…”

“…For example, many institutions give promotional titles to the rivalries they share with other schools in an attempt to engage fan bases and stakeholders (e.g., Red River Showdown, The Game, Iron Bowl). The impact of rivalry on fans of intercollegiate athletics has started to receive attention in the sport management literature (Havard, 2014, Havard & Eddy, 2013Havard, Reams, & Gray, 2013;Havard, Wann, & Ryan, 2013;Kilduff, Elfenbein, & Staw, 2010). The purpose of the current study is to extend the existing research by measuring perceptions of rival teams and intentions to consume a rivalry game among male and female fans with varying levels of identification with their favorite team.…”

“…The SRFPS has been used to investigate differences between team fan groups (Havard, Reams, & Gray, 2013), impact of conference realignment on fans (Havard, Wann, & Ryan, 2013), and differences based on the team a fan follows (Havard, 2016) and the conference in which the team is affiliated (Havard & Reams, in press). However, in previous studies, the SRFPS has primarily been used to measure rival perceptions of highly identified male fans.…”

Marvel, DC, and Sport: Investigating Rivalry in the Sport and Comic Settings

“…Rivalry has influenced sport fan perceptions and behaviors in many ways, including consuming favorite and rival games (Havard, Shapiro, and Ridinger, 2016;Mahony and Moorman, 1999;Wann et al, 2016, paying price premiums to attend live contests (Sanford and Scott, 2016), consuming favorite team merchandise (Havard, Eddy, and Ryan, 2016), and perceiving rivalry games to be more violent than nonrivalry games (Raney and Kinally, 2009). Further, researchers have asserted that variables such as competition realignment Ryan, 2013, 2017) and success of the favorite team (Havard, Reams, and Gray, 2013) can in turn influence rivalry. Rivalry can present both positive and negative outcomes to group members, 7 and as such, researchers have called 5 For example, Captain America has been used to illustrate patriotism to the United States (Phillips, 2013), Superman has been used to indicate right from wrong (Clanton, 2017), and characters such as Batman and Loki have been used to illustrate that characters, and through them, humans, do not easily fit into one category (Boscaljon, 2013;Thomas, 2013).…”