Sport Rivalry Is More Than Just “The Game”: Where We Are and Where We Can Go

Introduction

Research on sport fandom is entering a “golden age.” More people are doing more research on more areas of sport fandom than ever before (see Wann & James, 2019). Researchers from psychology, sociology, religion, and marketing have begun investigating the causes and correlates of sport fandom. Research on sport fandom can be traced back to the 1920s and 1930s, beginning with Coleman Griffith, who surveyed Chicago Cubs fans about their motivations to follow the Cubs (Griffith, 1938). Thus, current research activity builds on a long tradition of examination of the causes and correlates of sport fandom. Furthermore, sport rivalry grows from the same in-group-out-group conflict (see Tajfel & Turner, 1979) that sport fandom does, and the researchers in the area of sport rivalry also tend to do research on sport fandom.