The media, political campaigns, sports and any form of competition lends itself to picking sides and supporting rivalries. Which team to cheer for and which team to taunt? But do we have to have a team to degrade? A team to push to the side? Is this a requirement while watching sports?
Not every sport is set up the same. Sports like soccer, football, hockey and lacrosse are team-based, one versus the other. Sports like wrestling and boxing are one-on-one. Pick a team, pick a side or pick an opponent. Who do you root for, the underdog or the basketball team with strong odds?Â
When you get to the stands, you are provided with the opportunity to choose. This selection can be made up at the moment, but this is very unlikely. It is more common that you are attending a game with a team in mind. A team you have decided to support for one or multiple reasons. It could be that you were born into a family that already has select teams, like a specific baseball or football team. Maybe the decision was influenced by proximity, like what teams play in your state. Not only are teams on the national and professional levels, but also on local and novice levels. The school you choose to attend can dictate your support, whether it be to show school pride or to support your classmates. There could be an old friend on the team or maybe you went to or watched one game of theirs and became invested.Â
Whatever the reason is that you are invested in a team or showed up to the game, you have probably picked a side. Just like in the movies, we have picked our protagonist, the individual we want to see succeed. This is the team that we want to win, and the other is the team we want to lose. This selection is feeding into the binaries of winning and losing or the common binary in the media of good and evil. They are dependent on each other. For one team to be our heroic protagonist, the other must be the villain. When our players get tripped or shoved, we tend to think that a tripping call, foul or penalty appears as deserved. But every shove, trip and fight that was initiated by our team was justified, a mistake or not enough for a penalty, foul or call. We portray our team to be the heroes with good intent and the opposition as the villains with malicious intent. So, why are we prone to antagonizing the opposing team? Why do we paint them as the bad guys?
A study conducted at the University of Kentucky found that “Sports rivalries are deeply rooted in social identity theory, which suggests that people gain self-esteem from being part of a group.” A team reaches beyond the individual players and coaches, but into the alumni, families, friends and strangers that comprise the fan base. It is more than the players or the sport, but about the community. Because you are situated in this group, the other team is visualized as a rival. One team versus the other or one group versus the other. The competition is not only experienced on the field, court or ice, but in the audience. An opponent of your team is the enemy.​​ This perspective increases the anticipation and excitement for the next game. These emotions and the antagonist perspective of the opponent can extend beyond the individuals on the field, court or ice, to the fans.Â
Although many sports and characters feed into this binary, it is more complicated than winners and losers or heroes and villains. I recently encountered an ad for the Olympics that demonstrated that the U.S. Olympic team unites fans beyond rivalries. It created a larger community fan base by appealing to proximity and nationality. Members of teams that Americans have antagonized in the past for being opponents were reilluminated in a heroic light. Fans of different sports teams no longer wanted to see each other’s downfall when the Olympics were on TV. Teams change, players retire or get traded and the light we shine on opposing athletes changes with it.Â
During the 2026 Winter Olympics, the divisions among teams were thinner. There were displays of camaraderie amongst players across nations. This is most evidently displayed in the support and interactions of figure skaters in the Olympic games. For example, Ami Nakai, a Japanese figure skater competing for Japan, was celebrating her bronze medal with support from Alysa Liu, a figure skater competing for the U.S. Despite being the other’s competition, these women were seen supporting one another. Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee, addressed the 2024 Summer Olympic athletes by stating, “During all this time, you lived peacefully together under one roof in the Olympic Village. You embraced each other. You respected each other, even if your countries are divided by war and conflict. You created a culture of peace.” Although the Olympics promote competition, there is a built-in community outside of the court, field or ice.Â
I have heard a handful of horror stories of rivalries taken too far in parking lots that have only driven the wedge between different teams further apart. With the wrong team or school sticker on your car, you could end up with eggs on the windshield or slashed tires. Felonies do not need to be committed in support of your team or in hatred of the other. And love for a specific team is appreciated, but love is a spectrum, not a binary. To love one person, do you have to hate another? No. What unites Olympians together is their love for their sport. They understand the other’s dedication of time, sweat, tears and years of their life to the sport. This love is what builds the community, not the rivalries depicting opposing teams as enemies. One team is not the hero and the other the villain, but teams filled with players in love with a sport.Â
Growing up in Louisville, there is a question that you are always asked: what team do you cheer for, the Cards or the Cats, Louisville or Kentucky, U of L or UK? The rivalry between two SEC schools in Kentucky is deep and often seen as a defining factor in relationships. Kentucky only has one professional sports team: Racing Louisville FC, which is a professional women’s soccer team. This lack of major sports teams has caused the rivalry between Louisville and UK to be more than it should be. I should not be told that because I am from Louisville, I live in the wrong city or I can not wear a certain color in someone’s house.Â
So, like the Olympic commercial, we, as fans, can put deep-seated rivalries to the side and focus on the love for the game and our particular team. Whether I am a Louisville or UK fan should not define our relationship and neither should what football, hockey or baseball team I enjoy to cheer on. We all may not be privy to the relationships formed in the Olympic Village, at competitions or at games, but we can be aware that our opponents are not always our enemies. They are simply people with the same passions, but a different answer to the question: what team do you cheer for?