How a sports team’s success impacts fan behavior beyond the stadium
A team’s on-field performance can shape many aspects of fan behavior, including how they act, the language they use, what they wear and even their self-esteem.
At the conclusion of every sports event, one team’s fans will feel a rush of adrenaline as their team triumphs while the other’s will grapple with the sting of frustration and disappointment.
According to Texas A&M University research, both winning and losing can significantly influence how highly-identified fans act and think, shaping the language they use, the clothing they wear and more.
Jonathan A. Jensen, associate professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Sport Management in the College of Education and Human Development, analyzes data on sport consumers to better predict their behavior. By surveying fans and researching real-world examples of teams performing well or poorly, Jensen and his co-authors found a variety of psychological theories can be used to explain the behavior of fans. Sports leagues, teams and brands can use these theories to better understand how consumers are going to act and, in return, make better decisions on how to connect with these fans.
Jensen and his team observed real-world examples of fans’ reactions, including college football games at seven different universities, when the Ohio State football team was undefeated until its championship game loss in 2013, and the Chicago Cubs during its victory in the World Series in 2016. They also conducted lab experiments in which fans watched a video of their team losing and were surveyed on their commentary of the game.
“I think most people assume that the actions of fans, because fan is short for fanatic, are irrational or difficult to explain,” Jensen said. “There’s actually psychological theories and paradigms that have been developed over the past 50 years to explain the results of how fans behave.”
If a team is losing or performing poorly, Jensen said, fans may try to distance themselves from the team to protect their ego or self-esteem. This is a psychological mechanism called CORFing, or “cutting off reflected failure.”
This also manifests itself in the language that fans use.
“If your favorite team is performing well, you may be more likely to use first-person pronoun,” Jensen said. “For example, you may be more likely to say, ‘Hey, we won’ or, ‘We had such a great performance.’ Then, if a team loses or is not performing well, you’ll be more likely to use third person pronouns, like, ‘They’re not performing well’ or, ‘They’re struggling.’”
The opposite of CORFing is BIRGing, “or basking in reflected glory.” While BIRGing, a fan will publicly associate themselves with a successful team. One example of this phenomena is fans being more likely to wear clothing with a team’s logo when they are performing well, Jensen said.
“It’s actually a psychological mechanism that encourages fans to clothe themselves based on the success of the team because it signals to other fans, ‘Hey, I’m one of you. I’m part of the in-group,’” he said. “This will also have an economic impact because the fans are more likely to buy licensed apparel to clothe themselves when a team is successful.”
Although fans may distance themselves from losing teams through language and clothing, even the worst-performing teams of the season still have their fans. According to Jensen’s research, it’s rare for die-hard fans to switch allegiances due to possible damage to their psyche and feeling the need to prove themselves as a “real” fan, a phenomenon called “Basking in Reflected Failure” or BIRFing. Jensen’s study involving fans of the Cubs confirmed that their motivation to BIRF is driven by the camaraderie they enjoy with fellow die-hard fans and the loyalty they feel towards their team.
“First, it does boost your self-esteem to stay with a losing team because you feel like you’re a better fan than the fair-weather fans that might flip-flop or follow whoever’s favored,” he said. “The other reason we found in the study is this idea that if you don’t stay with the losing team, you’re going to let your fellow fans down. The camaraderie of other die-hard fans is just as important.”
However, even when a favorite team pulls off an upset fans may not publicly display their allegiance to protect their self-esteem should the team return to its losing ways, a phenomenon called “Cutting off Future Failure,” or COFFing.
With sports developing into a more than $50 billion industry, predicting fan behavior helps leagues and sports marketers make the most strategic decisions possible, Jensen said.
“If you understand how these theories work, you can actually predict the behavior of fans, which allows folks like us to work with sports teams, leagues and organizations to help them anticipate factors like revenue and how best to stock shops,” he said. “If these teams are better able to understand what consumers are thinking and feeling, they can use better messaging to connect with fans.”
