Rival Team Research Articles

Talent Allocation in European Football Leagues: Why Competitive Imbalance May be optimal?

Abstract Professional sports are part of the entertainment industry; as such, its business is developed based on the perceived interest in sporting events, which in turn depends on features like: the (i) degree of competitive balance that determines the uncertainty of the outcome; the (ii) concentration of gifted players in a team, whose interaction of talents on the field enhances the quality of the ‘product joint’ that is a sporting event; the (iii) joint aggregate quality of rival teams; the (iv) appeal of rivalries associated with fans’ feelings of empathy and loyalty; etc. This paper focusses on the first three points by modelling the success of team-sport competitions as the result of the overall quality, which encompasses more than the mere sum of individual talents. Sport economists and practitioners generally acknowledge that competitive balance must be fostered to protect uncertainty about the outcome and thus achieve greater interest in sport competitions by fans and the media. In this paper, we argue that certain degree of imbalance in allocation of talent between teams may be preferable – rather than a perfect competitive balance – to broaden the interest of fans on the sport events and, thus, maximise economic outcomes. The paper also examines the discrepancies across the main European football leagues in this regard.

“Guarding Our National Volleyball Sheroes Against Social Media Malice”: Exploring the Rejection-Identification Process Among Chinese Women’s National Volleyball Team Fans

Sports-related online abuse has evolved into an inevitable issue and even those athletes and teams honored as national icons cannot be exceptional. This study explores how exposure to abusive content on social media affects sports fans’ behavior. More specifically, the researchers draw from social psychology and exam the rejection-identification model with fans’ team identity and hate for rival teams as parallel competitive mediators in the context of online abuse in sports. Using a sample comprising 917 fans of the Chinese Women’s National Volleyball Team (CWV), the study suggested that exposure to online abuse is linked to a decrease in fans’ intention to create content and advocate for their teams on social media. However, the identification with their idol and hatred towards the opposing groups are evidenced to buffer negative behavioral impacts, revealing an effective psychological mechanism among fans. These findings shed light on the dual psycho-behavioral impacts of online abuse on sports fans and provide practical implications for addressing online incivility and mitigating its toxic effects on sports communication and management.

TacticAI: an AI assistant for football tactics

Identifying key patterns of tactics implemented by rival teams, and developing effective responses, lies at the heart of modern football. However, doing so algorithmically remains an open research challenge. To address this unmet need, we propose TacticAI, an AI football tactics assistant developed and evaluated in close collaboration with domain experts from Liverpool FC. We focus on analysing corner kicks, as they offer coaches the most direct opportunities for interventions and improvements. TacticAI incorporates both a predictive and a generative component, allowing the coaches to effectively sample and explore alternative player setups for each corner kick routine and to select those with the highest predicted likelihood of success. We validate TacticAI on a number of relevant benchmark tasks: predicting receivers and shot attempts and recommending player position adjustments. The utility of TacticAI is validated by a qualitative study conducted with football domain experts at Liverpool FC. We show that TacticAI’s model suggestions are not only indistinguishable from real tactics, but also favoured over existing tactics 90% of the time, and that TacticAI offers an effective corner kick retrieval system. TacticAI achieves these results despite the limited availability of gold-standard data, achieving data efficiency through geometric deep learning.

Exploring socio-educational learning transfer between school and non-formal school football in six- and seven-year-old children

ABSTRACT Background Extracurricular activities are an inexorable training complement to the curricular learning promoted at school. Among the spectrum of possibilities, physical and sports activities stand out. School football is a privileged activity in the Spanish context due to its volume of participation and involvement. The educational-sports institutionalization of the child converges between the formal curricular planning of the school and the dynamic learning in extracurricular activities. Purpose This study aims to understand the main educational implications in the transfer of learning between the non-formal environment of school football and school, in order to seek optimization of monitoring strategies. Method An ethnographic case study design is presented, where 57 six-year-old and 44 seven-year-olds schoolchildren are accompanied during their first and second year of participation in football through participant observation. 207 observation sessions include families, relatives, rival teams, monitors and organizers and are carried out between matches, training sessions and school breaks, which are complemented by interviews with 21 of their teachers. Results The results categorize four outstanding learning transfer areas: quasi-schooling, socialization, Construction of a competitive identity and self-assessment. First, quasi-schooling, that represents the mobilization of curricular contents in school and in the family environment through football, combines formal teaching and non-formal learning environments. Balancing extracurricular activities, such as football, with academic responsibilities is a challenge. Football serves as a valuable educational tool, linking it to curriculum content, promoting healthy habits, and establishing connections with students. Second, football-mediated socialization revolves around the complex network of relationships within school football. It fosters social skills and cooperation among team members, while also highlighting social hierarchies based on skill levels. Those who enjoy football form close-knit groups, impacting classroom dynamics. Third, construction of a competitive identity involves the child's self-esteem and adaptation to team roles. Expectations, attributed profiles, emotional management, competitive morality, and self-esteem are key factors in shaping the child's identity within the competitive football environment. Finally, Evaluation in football is predominantly result-oriented, with judgments made by adults based on performance. Children internalize this perspective, creating their own self-assessment standards focused on quantifiable success and individual contributions to the team's outcome. Conclusion The study highlights the importance of coordination between school football and formal education. Communication among educational agents (families, educators and sports monitors) is crucial for optimizing children's learning. School football strengthens the educational relationship, promotes knowledge transfer, and enhances children's identity. Addressing conflicts, developing social skills, and fostering a healthy understanding of competition are recommended. Coordinating extracurricular activities is essential for meaningful and equitable education, bridging educational and social gaps.

Impact of the Soweto football derby on the trauma emergency department at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital, a tertiary level hospital in South Africa.

The Soweto Derby is one of Africa's largest football derbies. The two rival teams, Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates, both originate in Soweto, a sprawling township 20km outside Johannesburg. Soweto is infamous for the high levels of violent crime and trauma, but also for Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital (CHBAH), with one of the world's largest trauma emergency departments (ED). Research globally, describing the impact of sports events on public health care systems is conflicting, with evidence showing both increases and decreases in spectator related trauma. This paper seeks to describe the trauma burden during the Soweto Derby and add to the research concerning trauma relating to sporting derbies in low to middle income countries. To analyze the impact of the Soweto Derby on the trauma ED at CHBAH over a 24-hour period. A retrospective comparative study at the CHBAH Trauma ED of 13 Soweto Derbies played over a 5 year period between 2015-2019, compared to the corresponding non-Soweto Derby days of the preceding year. Patients were triaged according to the South African Triage Scale and Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) principles. Data was organized into 3 time frames where the triage score and mechanism of injuries were compared: 1) 4 hours pre-match, 2) 2 hours during the match, and 3) 18 hours post-match. Thirteen Soweto Derbies and 2552 patients were included. The median age was 29 with males accounting for 73.4% of all trauma cases. Significantly more P1 patients presented during the Soweto Derby. Pre-match there were 3x less P1 patients presenting to the ED (4.7% vs 12%, p = 0.044). During the match, there was a 40% drop in males presenting to ED (5.95% vs 9.45%, p = 0.015). Post-match there was a significant increase in P1 patients treated (17.4% vs 13.5%, p = 0.021)), with the majority being young males. There was no increase in either female or paediatric visits to the ED. The Soweto Derby has a direct effect on the trauma burden at CHBAH, with more P1 patients presenting post-match. Young African males are disproportionally affected by severe trauma requiring increased health care resources in an already overburdened hospital.

Effectiveness of sponsorship type, sport team identification, team support and congruence

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to investigate the interaction effect that sponsor-team congruence and team fan (home/rival team) have on the influence of different types of sports sponsorship (joint, corporate social responsibility [CSR]-linked and conventional sponsorship) on fans' attitudes and purchase intentions toward the sponsor.Design/methodology/approachTwo experimental studies were conducted on 391 and 297 participants. The data gathered underwent analysis through five multivariate general linear model analyses.FindingsThe study found that CSR-linked sponsorship had the strongest positive impact and the weakest negative impact on the attitude and purchase intention of home team supporters and the attitude of rival team supporters. Nonetheless, the sponsor-team congruence did not significantly moderate the relationship. Additionally, the research demonstrated that the fan identity of both home and rival teams moderates the impact of sports sponsorships on attitude and purchase intention.Originality/valuePrevious research has studied the effectiveness of sponsorship format types independently. This is the first research comparing sponsorship formats regarding fan type and congruence.

Child images affect sports fans' prosociality and aggression

This study explores the effect of child images in advertisements on financial support provided by team fans -including the intention to buy licensed club products- and reported aggression toward rival team fans. An online experiment was conducted on Turkey's three largest rival club fans (Fenerbahçe, Galatasaray, and Beşiktaş). Used visual materials were derived from Football (Study 1) and Basketball (Study 2). Fans (N = 496) exposed to the appeals with child images showed a higher intention to support their team financially and buy licensed club products; however, the stated aggression toward rival club fans did not differ. A follow-up experimental study (N = 132) was conducted on Fenerbahçe fans to retest this insignificant effect, in which fans’ state aggression is increased through a motivation video. It is concluded that this approach was only effective on aggression for the fans whose team identification was significantly higher. Findings are discussed within the kin selection theory and kindchenschema cuteness concept.

Scale Development Study on Match Analysis

Match analysis is a method used to evaluate and improve teams' game understanding, tactical structure, and individual-based player performances. Today, with match analysis methods, coaches can make detailed analyzes of both their own teams, rival teams and individual athletes. This present study aims to develop a scale for match analysis. Within the scope of this objective, an item pool consisting of 51 items was created by the researchers, and a 47-item scale was drafted by excluding 4 items in line with expert opinions. Explanatory and confirmatory factor analyses, internal consistency analysis and test-retest reliability methods were used for statistical purposes. As a result of the exploratory factor analysis, a measurement structure was obtained consisting of 4 sub-scales and a total of 22 items. The fit indices of the scale were evaluated within the relevant reference range. The reliability of the scale was examined by test-retest method and internal consistency analysis. As a result, the stability coefficient of the scale was calculated as 0.792 and the Cronbach Alpha internal consistency coefficient as 0.911. Internal consistency analysis results showed that the items had high reliability. The current scale has a 7-point Likert-type rating. There are negative items in the scale. In this context, these items should be reversed when scoring. It was concluded that the scale developed is a reliable and valid measurement tool.

Unveiling the Real Madrid effect: the impact of football-related acrimony on elections

Contributing to the literature on so-called irrelevant events, this article aims to investigate the existence of a relation between football results and voters’ behaviour. There are indeed reasons to believe that football-related acrimony could influence electoral behaviour. More precisely, does the rank of a rival team and the distance between it and local teams influence the behaviour of the electorate? Spain seems to be the perfect case for study of this relationship, since the presence of football teams representing both local (comunidad) and central authorities (the Spanish Crown) allows us to study the effect of an important cleavage: the centre-periphery. This means that sport disputes may be reflected in voting preferences for ethno-regionalist parties. Following this reasoning, the better Real Madrid (the team representing the Crown) performs, and the closer the local team is to it (and thus actually competing), the stronger local supporters’ sense of acrimony and desire for payback will be. By means of a quantitative approach, using data on election results and Spanish Liga rankings, our analysis confirms the existence of a negative correlation between Real Madrid’s ranking and distance from local teams, and the share of votes in ethno-regionalist parties.

Football supporterism in Tunisia: facilitating participatory democracy through citizen education

ABSTRACT After the Arab Spring (early 2010's), the relationship between football supporterism and politics has been the subject of much debate. We attempted to describe, understand, and explain the modes of interaction between supporterism in post-revolution Tunisia, the ultras supporters’ (i) involvement in their club’_ affairs, and (ii) participation in the political life of the country. The case studied is that of ultras supporters of the Tunisian football team ”Club Africain” (CA). We opted for a constructivist-grounded methodology, using semi-structured interviews with 10 CA fans and 10 fans of the rival team from the same city (Tunis), Espérance Sportive de Tunis (EST), who represented the control group. A conceptual diagram was constructed to visualize the relationships between the items collected and the emerging theoretical dimensions. The results indicate an inclusive and autonomous commitment based on universal values. This persuasion experiment revealed a dynamic and creative model that led to positive changes in attitudes within the club and in the country's political life. During the club's crisis, this mobilisation led to the development of solidarity, mutual aid, and meaningful actions. As a result, it encouraged real involvement in the country's political events. The research model constructed visualizes a voluntary and autonomous educational process involving political participation that helps to regulate the country's democratic process. The study proposed pro-social alternatives, highlighting young people's spontaneous learning to participate in a dynamic and reflective political process. The results of the study should be verified with other types of supporters and in other Arab Spring countries.

Bridging the brand content divide: The cross-departmental collaboration that created institutional best practice and a high-performing website

This paper analyses how Ferris State University unified two rival teams to rebuild their College of Business's web presence, create a model for cross-departmental collaboration and innovation and grow the college's web traffic and conversions for the first time in more than seven years. Learn how the College of Business and the university's Advancement and Marketing team came together in the face of enrolment declines to rebrand and rebuild their prospective students’ online experience and improve their conversion rate. While the authors discuss the best practices they utilised to develop the site, this paper focuses on how these two teams navigated previous conflicts and leveraged the unique expertise of both teams to create something neither was capable of on their own.

Subtle primes of in-group and out-group affiliation change votes in a large scale field experiment

Identifying the influence of social identity over how individuals evaluate and interact with others is difficult in observational settings, prompting scholars to utilize laboratory and field experiments. These often take place in highly artificial settings or, if in the field, ask subjects to make evaluations based on little information. Here we conducted a large-scale (N = 405,179) field experiment in a real-world high-information context to test the influence of social identity. We collaborated with a popular football live score app during its poll to determine the world’s best football player for the 2017–2018 season. We randomly informed users of the nationality or team affiliation of players, as opposed to just providing their names, to prime in-group status. As a result of this subtle prime, we find strong evidence of in-group favoritism based on national identity. Priming the national identity of a player increased in-group voting by 3.6% compared to receiving no information about nationality. The effect of the national identity prime is greatest among individuals reporting having a strong national identity. In contrast, we do not find evidence of in-group favoritism based on team identity. Informing individuals of players’ team affiliations had no significant effect compared to not receiving any information and the effect did not vary by strength of team identity. We also find evidence of out-group derogation. Priming that a player who used to play for a user’s favorite team but now plays for a rival team reduces voting for that player by between 6.1 and 6.4%.

Walk in Someone Else’s Shoes: Fan Group Behavior and Rivalry in Sport and Athletic Footwear Brands

AbstractThe current study investigated how sport fans and those of popular athletic footwear brands Nike and Adidas perceived and behaved toward their favorite and relevant rival brands. First, sport fans were compared with fans of athletic footwear brands to determine if differences were present in their favorite and rival brand perceptions. Sport fans reported higher identity toward their favorite brand, and more derogation toward a rival team than fans of the Nike and Adidas athletic footwear brands. Analysis also revealed that identifying as a fan ofbothsport and athletic footwear was associated with more positive attitudes directed at the favored footwear brand, while fans of Nike and Adidas did not differ in how they viewed their favorite and rival athletic footwear brands. Discussion and implications for researchers and marketing professionals is included, along with avenues for future research.

Us versus them mentality in football fans: Significant social defeat engages the mentalization network and disengages cognitive control areas

Background: Social affiliation is one of the building blocks that shapes cultures and communities. This motivation contributes to the development of social bonding among individuals within a group, enjoying rights, assuming obligations, and strengthening its identity. Evidence has shown that social affiliation has inspired different social phenomena, such as wars, political movements, social struggles, among others, based on two human motivations: the ingroup love and the outgroup hate. One contemporary group to study as a proxy of social affiliation, and ingroup and outgroup motivations is the sports competition. However, this affiliation model has been poorly considered in social neuroscience research. This research aimed to shed light on the neurobiological networks that are related to social affiliation in football fans of two of the most popular Chilean football teams. Methods: To this end, 43 male fans of two football rival teams watched videos of winning and losing goals of their favorite team while their brain activity was measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Results: The results showed that while the activation of the reward system was observed in fans when their team scores goals against the rival, both the activation of the mentalization network and the inhibition of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex were associated with the emotional correlates of defeat in football fans. Conclusions: Taking these findings together could contribute to a deeper understanding of social affiliation, and more importantly, of extreme affiliation phenomena, and fanaticism.

Spor Taraftarı Aşk ve Nefret Ölçeği ile Spor Takımı Lisanslı Ürün Satın Alma Niyeti Ölçeğinin Geçerlik Güvenirlik Çalışması

Bu çalışmanın amacı “Spor Taraftarı Aşk ve Nefret” ve “Spor Takımı Lisanslı Ürün Satın Alma Niyeti” ölçeklerinin Türkçe formunun geçerlik ve güvenirliğini test etmek ve spor taraftarlarının takımlarına olan bağlılıkları, lisanslı takım ürünü satın alma niyetleri, gelir düzeyleri ve taraftarlık düzeyleri arasındaki ilişkiyi incelemektir. Araştırmanın örneklemini ölçüt örnekleme yöntemiyle seçilen 51 kadın (%28,3), 129 erkek (%71,7) olmak üzere toplam 180 üniversite öğrencisi oluşturmaktadır. Çalışmada “Spor Taraftarı Aşk ve Nefret Ölçeği” ve “Spor Takımı Lisanslı Ürün Satın Alma Niyeti Ölçeği” nin Türkçe formu ve araştırmacılar tarafından geliştirilen katılımcıların taraftarlık düzeylerini ve gelir seviyelerini sorgulayan kişisel bilgiler bölümü veri toplama araçlarını oluşturmuştur. Ölçeklere geçerlik ve güvenirlik analizleri uygulanmıştır. İstatistiksel bulgular her iki ölçeğinde geçerlik ve güvenirlik analizlerinde referans ölçütleri sağladığını ortaya koymuştur. Ayrıca taraftarın, taraftarlık seviyesi ile kendi takımına yönelik aşkı, taraftarlık seviyesi ile ezeli rakibi olan takıma yönelik nefreti ve taraftarlık seviyesi ile spor takımı lisanslı ürün satın alma niyeti arasında istatistiksel olarak pozitif anlamlı ilişki saptanmıştır. Bununla birlikte, taraftarların takımlarına duydukları aşk ve ezeli rakibine duydukları nefret ile taraftarı oldukları takımın lisanslı ürününü satın alma niyetleri arasında istatistiksel olarak pozitif anlamlı ilişki tespit edilmiştir. Sonuç olarak, Spor Taraftarı Aşk ve Nefret Ölçeği ile Spor Takımı Lisanslı Ürünü Satın Alma Niyeti Ölçeğinin Türk popülasyonu üzerinde yapılacak çalışmalarda kullanılabilecek geçerli ve güvenilir ölçekler olduğu ve taraftarın taraftarı olduğu takımın lisanslı ürünlerini satın alma niyetinin takımına duyduğu aşk ve ezeli rakibi olan takıma hissettiği nefret duyguları ile ilişkili olduğu ortaya konmuştur.

The Pick-and-Roll in Basketball From Deep Interviews of Elite Coaches: A Mixed Method Approach From Polar Coordinate Analysis.

Pick-and-roll is the most widespread cooperative action among high-level basketball teams and the most applied strategy by coaches to gain an advantage over the rival team. During pick-and-roll, opposing teams perform antagonistic actions based on goals that are expressed in offensive and defensive tactics. The aim of this study is to examine the approaches of high-level coaches on the offensive and defensive dynamics emerging in matches of a basketball elite team during an entire season of the Spanish Asociación de Clubes de Baloncesto (ACB) league. To this end, we used a mixed-methods approach based on systematic observation of verbatim transcripts of interviews conducted with six high-level coaches about the pick-and-roll dynamics that emerged in matches of the Unicaja Málaga team during an entire season of the ACB league. The observational design was nomothetic, punctual, and multidimensional. The choice of this methodology is justified since we developed an ad hoc indirect observation tool to evaluate the coaches’ perspective on this dynamic. Once the intra-observer reliability of the instrument was confirmed, we performed a polar coordinate analysis to identify the significant relationships between the coaches’ evaluations and the offensive and defensive pick-and-roll elements that supported such verbal behaviors. The results highlight the presence of various offensive and defensive aspects of pick-and-roll (n = 2224) emerging in the Unicaja team that were significantly associated with positive and negative evaluations of the coaches. The interview confirms that coach 1 and his staff were less confident in options that pick-and-roll offer, which is also reflected in the record of screens made and simulated, than coach 3. This study shows that the application of mixed methods, by analysis of the polar coordinate of the coding carried out on responses of a systematized interview, has proven to be an effective strategy in obtaining relevant information on the expert knowledge of the elite coaches on the influence of pick-and-roll on tactical actions in basketball.

Happiest place(s) on Earth? Investigating the differences (and impact) of fandom and rivalry among fans of sport and Disney’s Theme Parks

The present study investigated differences in the way fans experience rivalry in sport and popular culture, specifically, Disney Theme Park fandom. The results showed that fans of a sport team identified more with their favourite team and were more negative towards their rival team than were fans of Disney’s Theme Parks towards Disney and Universal (rival theme park of interest). Further, analysis showed that being a fan of both a sport team and Disney’s Theme Parks resulted in more positive perceptions and behaviours towards the rival in both the sport and theme park setting. Implications for practitioners are discussed, along with future areas of inquiry.

Let’s settle this on the (online) gridiron: Examining perceptions of rival brands and platforms in gaming and sport

This study investigates the differences in perceptions of rival brands and outgroup members between fans of sport teams and electronic gaming/e-sports. Using the theoretical underpinnings of social identity theory, rivalry, in-group bias and the common in-group model, the authors compare the influence of setting and belonging to multiple in-groups on fandom and rival perceptions in sport and gaming. The study finds that compared with gaming fans and participants, fans of sport teams tend to report stronger negative perceptions of their rival teams and supporters. The study also finds that being a fan of both a sport team and gaming tends to influence more positive perceptions of rival brands and out-group members than being a fan of sport or gaming only. Finally, gamers that use an online platform report more negative perceptions of console platforms than vice versa, and ethnicity presents interesting influence on gaming participants. Implications for marketing professionals along with avenues for future investigation are also discussed.

A new team sport club aggression scale and its relationship with fans’ hatred, depression, self-reported aggression, and acceptance of aggression

ABSTRACT Aggression and antisocial behaviour in sport are of significant concern for team sport clubs (TSCs) around the world. Although several types of fan aggression and antisocial behaviour scales that have furthered our understanding of TSC aggression have been used in sport literature, a reliable and valid instrument that measures sport fans’ perceptions of both fan base aggression and team aggression in TSCs from a holistic perspective has not previously existed. This study developed and tested a scale that examines TSC aggression through two different measures: fan aggression, which measures fans’ perceptions of the behaviour of their favourite team’s fan base, and team aggression, which measures fans’ perceptions of their favourite team’s (i.e., coach’s, players’, and management’s) aggression. The scale was calibrated and validated in three studies, one that used exploratory factor analysis, one that used confirmatory factor analysis, and one that used nomological network validity. Each study was distinct from the others and employed separate and independent samples. The data for all the studies were collected from an internet panel. The participants were Israeli Soccer fans. The findings show that the club aggression scale (CAS) has positive, direct, and significant relationships with self-reported aggression and perceptions of the appropriateness of aggression among sport fans. In addition, fans’ hatred of rival teams and depression as a result of their team’s performance significantly and positively mediate these relationships. From a managerial perspective, better understanding fans’ perception of TSC aggression can assist managers in their attempts to reduce violence.

The simultaneous sponsorship of rival teams: Beyond ingroup favoritism and outgroup animosity

The simultaneous sponsorship of rival teams: Beyond ingroup favoritism and outgroup animosity