Visualizing Rivalry Intensity : A Social Network Analysis of Fan Perceptions

Central to the conceptualization of rivalry is the process of social categorization and seeing the self and others as members of ingroups and outgroups. For some sport fans — especially those deemed highly identified — a favorite team becomes an extension of one’s self, and opposing teams and their fans are seen as dissimilar outgroups. Akin to other definitions, we view a rival as being a highly salient outgroup that poses an acute threat to the identity of the ingroup. To bring further clarity and consistency to the rivalry discussion, we quantify the perceived rivalries within a closed network of organizations by surveying college football fans (n=5,317) from 122 Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS, or Division I-A) teams using on an online questionnaire posted on 194 fan message boards. Through employing social network analysis (SNA), we graphically map rivalry scores in Netdraw and conduct further statistical analysis via UCINET SNA software. The network analysis results are most interesting when viewed graphically as nodes (universities) with bi-directional ties among them of various magnitude. In the study, we employ SNA measures of ego networks, centrality and power to reveal insights about the nature of rivalry