There are many psychological principles that have been discussed throughout this semester in The Social Psychology of Sports Fans capstone class. Applying these principles to everyday sport fan behavior has been exciting, yet challenging at the same time. In order to apply the concepts that I have learned in class, I have chosen five different sports fans web pages to analyze and discuss. The factors influencing why people become sports fans, basking in reflected glory, and blasting are the three concepts that I will apply to the five sports fans web pages.
Individuals identify with sports teams for a variety of different reasons.
Some people follow teams because the team is successful and others because the team has good players. It is easy for a person to begin associating with a team for their local area because they have a better opportunity to attend the games, they see more coverage of the games on television, and their friends are more likely to identify with the same hometown team. This is an example of how individuals BIRG with a team or athlete in order to boost their self-esteem. There is another aspect of BIRGing which I have found an example of after surfing the net. By wearing the apparel of a winning team, fans feel a positive association to a winning team, thereby boosting their self-esteem.