What is it about a sport that causes
the expression of such intense emotion from people? What is it about a sport,
or a team, or a player that can cause a sane individual to burst out in so much
rage? For anyone that is passionate about a sport or team it’s easy to relate
to that feeling of “fan aggression” When a Yankee’s fan is sitting next to a
Red Sox fan or when a Raven’s fan is listening to a loud Steelers fan taunt
them about how many super bowls rings they have. We don’t know why, but that
can spark a feeling of aggression inside ourselves. Our more rationale half
knows it’s foolish to become this upset or angry with someone over a sport, but
for the passionate sports fan, they still feel it. There are many different possible explanations for this. One
is the Catharsis Doctrine, which explains that fans act out in aggression or
enjoy sports with aggression as a way to release their own tensions and anger
about things going on in their day-to-day lives. Somehow screaming at the
television becomes a release for aggression one feels that day after being
chewed out by their boss. Another reason may be that sports provide an escape.
When one is so deeply committed to a team, nothing else matters when he or she
is watching that team play. All the trials and tribulations of the world seem
to disappear, and the only thing that matters is the game. When one thinks
deeply about it, maybe an individual getting so worked up isn’t so confusing.
We would all like to escape from life every once in a while. Thus, if watching the Cowboys beat the
Redskins is a way of escaping the stresses of everyday life, or ia viewed as
the only thing that went right over a weekend, it is easier to believe that
when the Cowboys miss what would be the winning goal, and a Redskins fan is
taunting him, that a person may lose sight of his or her better judgment and
act aggressively. It’s almost as
if individuals are protecting their right to “escape” when they are supporting
their own team.
Over the past years, as sports have
become more a more widely accessible phenomenon, several events have been
punctuated by incidences of spectator violence. Such cases include the fight between Ron Artest and
teammates, and on-looking fans, and the incidence of aggression following a
soccer match in Egypt. In order to
fully understand these events and the accompanying implications, one must
relive them:
The roar
of the crowd erupts like an army charging into the line of fire. People
globally have an identification to teams which leads to narcissistic behavior
like, “my team is better than yours” “Kobe is better than LeBron”. According to “Behavioral and social
motivations for mediated sports consumption” it states that viewers bring some
pent-up emotions to the viewing experience. In which we agree with, because there
are many times when our day is not going to great and knowing our favorite
teams are playing and winning gives us easy and makes our day seem a little
better. The book also states that “fans high in release motivation report
watching ‘to let loose’, ‘to have a few beers or drinks’, to let off steam’ and
‘to get psyched up’” (322). This
hold true, because we have experience those behaviors when watching sports.
Fans enjoy their sports by applauding and shouting in pleasure, and through
yelling in displeasure and anger, verbally disputing the tactics of the coaches
and players and the calls of officials, and pacing the floor in nervousness and
anticipation. We all can attest to doing this all the time when watching
sports, if our teams aren’t doing good we yell at the TV in anger, or at the
referees wanting to hunt them down or have them fired for not officiating the
game fair. Fans tend to have a group affiliation to some team. This group
affiliation is formed at home, schools, and regionally. This gives us a pride
to support teams that represent our state, in beating out the competition and
winning a ranking spot in history. However, there is a downside to this
euphoric high. Competition tends to bring out the worst in an individual, we have seen this is
many games when fans snap and cause havoc. For example, The Pistons versus
Pacers brawl of 2004 in which fans felt disrespect my “Word Peace” formally
known as “Ron Artest” by disrespecting one of the Pistons players, when a fan
threw a cup at Word Peace who then leaped into the crowd and sort out the fan
to strike him which erupted into a massive brawl amongst fans and sports
athletes. A video clip displaying
this incident can be viewed at the following site: http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=715.
In the latter of the two incidents
reviewed in this entry, EGYPT'S ruling Supreme Council of the Armed
Forces has announced three days of national mourning after at least 74 people
were killed and hundreds injured in a brawl between rival soccer fans. The
violence erupted after a match in the city of Port Said. It was the bloodiest outbreak of
lawlessness since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak one year ago. The
clashes and stampede did not appear to be directly linked to the political
turmoil in Egypt, but the violence raises questions over the ability of police
to manage crowds in the wake of the uprising that forced Mubarak to step down.
Protest marches were being planned over the police's inability to curb the
violence. Soccer fans rushed on to the field on Wednesday following an
unexpected win by the home team against the country's top club, setting off
clashes and a stampede. It was the worst incident of soccer violence in Egypt
and the deadliest worldwide since 1996. One player said it was ''like a war.” The
melee broke out when fans of Al-Masry, the home team, stormed the field after a
rare 3-1 win against Al-Ahly. Al-Masry supporters hurled sticks and stones as
they chased players and fans of the rival team, who ran towards the exits to
escape, witnesses said. Health ministry officials said most deaths had been
caused by concussion, deep cuts to the head and suffocation during the
stampede. Al-Ahly player Mohammed Abu Trika criticized the police for standing
idly by during the violence. ''People here are dying and no one is doing a
thing. It's like a war,'' he told media. ''Is life this cheap,” he
questioned. TV footage showed
Al-Ahly players rushing for their locker room as fist fights broke out among
the hundreds of fans swarming on to the field. Some men had to rescue a manager
from the losing team as he was being beaten. Black-clothed police officers
stood by, appearing overwhelmed. Egypt’s state prosecutor ordered an
investigation, and the Egypt Football Association suspended the championship
indefinitely. Parliament said it would convene an emergency session .State TV
reported the casualty toll, citing a health ministry official. A medic in the
Port Said morgue gave the same figures and said some of the dead were security
officers. Sepp Blatter, president of the world soccer governing body FIFA, said
''this is a black day for football''.
Building
upon these ideas, psychologists have investigated spectator aggression at
sporting events. Initially, sports
psychologists question whether the viewing of athlete’s aggressive behavior
serves as a cathartic experience for fans (hereafter, referred to as the
catharsis theory). Weinberg et al.
(2007) present evidence which disproves this theory: “researchers found that
observing a sporting event does not lower the level of the spectator’s
aggression” (544); rather, one has a greater propensity to engage in violent
behavior after viewing similar acts in a sports broadcast, for example. Weinberg et al. (2007) further
suggest that such factors as team identification and social class (544) may
have bearing upon one’s likelihood to engage in aggressive acts. Perhaps the present packaging of sports
as ‘confrontainment’ contributes to this heightened intimacy and consequent
pattern of aggression. Studies
thus confirm that “[fans] may be looking for violent behavior as a source of
enjoyment” (544). If sports are
indeed packaged as confrontainment, do sports serve as an ideal arena for
cathartic release? In what ways do
varying degrees of fandom dictate ones inclination to be physically emotive? In the further examination of the link
between on court and spectator aggression, one should consider what measures sporting associations can implement to
lessen the prevalence of such destructive behaviors. It is possible that through instating greater regulations
and penalties for on court violence, athletes would be less likely to fight
amongst one in other, which would lead to a decline in fan aggression. Moreover, if sports are indeed packaged
as confrontainment, do sports serve as an ideal arena for cathartic
release? In what ways does fandom
dictate ones inclination to be physically emotive?
WORD COUNT: 1,489
Works
Cited
Bryant, Arthur A. Raney and Jennings. “Handbook of Sports and Media.” Why
We Watch Sports and Enjoy Mediated Sports. Lawrence Erlbaum, 2006. 322-323.
Weinberg, Robert S. and Gould, Daniel. Foundations of Sport and
Exercise Psychology. Champaign: Human Kinetics, 2011. Print.
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