It’s Sunday afternoon and the churches are full of women with only a few men in the audience. This is not necessarily because the men don’t believe in the Christian traditions their women observe, but because they have a stronger, higher calling at this time of day in the autumn.
The men can be found scattered through various American living rooms and what are termed ‘sports bars’ paying due devotion to their one true love – football. Like the churches, these sites of devotion also have their scattered population of female devotees as well and often a healthy dose of children in attendance.
Not limited to race or creed or gender or age, American football has a strong, growing and dedicated following of devotional fans that worship the game in the way that people used to worship God on Sunday afternoons. They have specific forms of expression, ritual activities in association with the game and have even been known to take up pilgrimages to the famous stadiums in which the games take place.
Although all different in the level and degree of their devotion, these people comprise a subculture centered around the popular sport and, in most cases, around a particular team. The reason why these subcultures develop is perhaps best understood from a sociological viewpoint as a natural extension of human nature which also explains the activities, expressions, pilgrimages and radical forms they undertake.
According to Anderson, the concept of community was fashioned by regional religious traditions previous to the surfacing of mass access to the printed forms of communication that were not of the church and were written in familiar languages. These longstanding structures of society [churches] were radically and permanently changed when the new technologies [newspapers and books] permitted communities to communicate effectively and therefore subsist without their constituents coming into direct contact with one other.
Through technological ties, Anderson theorizes, communities became the product of a collective imagination which was structured by and proliferated as a result of mass communications. People participate in and thus experience the society in which they live as it exists either outside their front door or brought to them each week through their television screen. This awareness of community becomes more intense during periods of shared ambitions and interests such as defending the borders, celebrating an event or mourning a collective loss.
Anderson theorizes that a very tangible nation is an imagined community because “the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow members, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each live the image of their communion” (Anderson, 1991: 6). People generally sense an instantaneous affiliation with others simply because they speak similarly or are from within the same borders.
All people have an ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality to some extent. Communities are “imagined as limited because even the largest of them, encompassing perhaps a billion living human beings, has finite, if elastic, boundaries, beyond which lie other nations” (Anderson, 1991: 7). All of these concepts, applied to the nation by Anderson, are equally applicable to the American football fan.
Investigating the football subculture reveals several shared elements between the national application brought forward by Anderson and the subculture itself. According to Anderson, awareness of a particular community or culture becomes more intense when the individuals in it have shared ambitions like needing to defend borders, celebrate success or mourn a loss. These are certainly elements of the football subculture as well as the fans gather around their TV sets to collectively encourage their team to the ultimate victory, the Superbowl championship and bragging rights for a year.
Each week presents a new opportunity to celebrate a win and an advance toward this goal or to mourn a loss and lament about the team’s chances this year. While these are general nationalistic ideals, American football has also been closely linked to specifically American ideals as well. According to sociologist Robin M. Williams (1951), there are several identifiable core American values that link the nation that can also be found in American football. These include individualism, achievement, morality (the concept that there is a right and wrong), activity, work, material comfort, equality and efficiency.
As they trace their way through the fascination that football has over its followers, authors Frank Hoffman, Martin Manning and Gerhard Falk (2005) illustrate how the game matches these core values in the superstars that emerge as coaches or players, the celebration of extraordinary events such as stupendous plays or outstanding careers, the insistence on (and perpetual disbelief in) the fairness of referees, the material comfort suggested by the high rates of pay these athletes receive and the activity of the game itself.
The football fan subculture can be identified because they have their own specific forms of expression, ritual activities in association with the game and places of worship. Certain forms of expression that might have once been common in the church are re-formulated in the world of football to take on new meanings. For instance, the phrase Hail Mary is a staple of the Catholic rosary, but it is also used to refer to a ‘deep’ pass, meaning long downfield throw, from the quarterback to a receiver.
Anyone wishing to discuss football with a fan must also know the various positions on the field, defensive and offensive, and some of the more common strategies used in the game such as the screen pass, blitz and the fly pattern. The red zone may mean an area where no parking is permitted to most people, but for a football fan, it refers to that region of the field between the 20 yard line and the goal. Approximately 30 years later, football fans can still be heard talking about the Immaculate reception when Franco Harris caught a deflected ball and ran it in for a touchdown in the AC championships, Pittsburgh v. Oakland in the 70s.
Football fans also share common ritualistic activities that might be anything from as simple as donning the preferred team’s logo-shirt or cap on the day of the game to something as major as hosting a neighborhood barbeque or ‘tail-gate’ party. “The tailgate is an essential element of football fandom, a way to make the precious few games on the schedule stretch into daylong affairs, where strangers form a community around food, drink and the beloved home team” (Wilgoren, 2002).
And of course, no football fan worth his salt will be found anywhere but watching the game on Sunday or during the Monday night features. For some football fans, the ultimate ritual is the pilgrimage made to see their favorite team in every stadium in which they play. However, even within this subculture of football fandom, there are a few standout behaviors. The more unusual expressions of the football fan can be at least partially attributed to societal pressures.
Humans have the tendency to alter their behavior, beliefs, morals and ethics based upon real or perceived societal pressures because of the fundamental and universal need for acceptance by social peers, which also plays into the football subculture. This has been proven through studies conducted by Solomon Asch in 1951 and Stanley Milgram in 1961, both of which have been duplicated, to some degree, in other countries and by other scientists throughout the world with the same general results.
In order to assert their own sense of belonging within the group as well as their individuality within it, there are pockets of individuals who associate themselves specifically with an expected radical element. These are described by Spenser Harrison (2008) as the ‘drunk guy’, ‘the old-timer’, ‘Mr. Facepaint’ and ‘The Hater.’ Harrison indicates the drunk guy is the most common form of radical football fan in that his primary purpose in life is to get drunk at the football game (or just before) and then yell out whatever comes into his head in an attempt to be heard over the loudspeakers.
The Old-timers are those individuals who pride the game as it was played when he was younger to the way it is played now and only nominally associates himself with the team on the field. The most unusual form of football radical is described as Mr. Facepaint and is the type of fan who gets his face on camera because of its bizarre team-oriented decoration. “Mr. Facepaint lives and dies through the achievements of his team. Generally the most rabid fans of this bunch, football has gone far beyond a passion and into a way of life” (Harrison, 2008).
Less extreme forms of this extreme type of behavior can be found in the headgear worn by fans such as the Wisconsin Cheeseheads, the Washington ‘Hoghats’ or the Cleveland ‘Dogpound.’ Finally, the Hater, as described by Harrison, is the ultimate anti-establishment rebel, looking for any excuse to separate himself from the general crowd while still enjoying the game.
American football has definitely become the focus for an entire subculture based upon the rituals, locations and expressions of the game as it reinforces their concepts of community and Americanism. Understanding how community forms, as a means of achieving a common goal, celebrating a victory or mourning a defeat, helps to establish the reason why football has become such a strong focus.
The unique concepts generally valued by the American community such as individualism, achievement, activity and work are also reinforced by the construct of the game itself and reflected within its fan base. Football fans have developed their own means of identification through common expressions, rituals and pilgrimage activities while radical elements have also broken out within the subculture as a means of individuating and yet still identifying with the overall base.
Works Cited
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, (1983; 1991).
Asch, S.E. “Effects of Group Pressure Upon the Modification and Distortion of Judgment.” Groups, Leadership and Men. H. Guetzkow (Ed.). Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Press, 1951.
Blass, T. The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram. New York: Basic Books, 2004.
Harrison, Spenser. “Examination of the American Football Fan: Part II, Typology of the Generic Fan.” Bleacher Report. (2008). Web.
Hoffmann, Frank; Martin Manning & Gerhard Falk. Football and American Identity. New York: Routledge, 2005.
Wilgoren, Jodi. “Driving; Cold Beer, a Warm Grill and 80,000 of Your Closest Friends.” New York Times. (2002). Web.
Williams, Robin M. American Society: A Sociological Interpretation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1951.