I did my university dissertation on sports team affiliation. The hypothesis was (I think) that Arsenal and Leyton Orient football supporters would exhibit different levels of self-esteem and distinctiveness. I think I 'proved' this too. The idea was that Arsenal (the big team) would attract people who like to 'bask in reflected glory', whereas the smaller and less successful team (Orient) would attract people who wanted to be seen as being different.

Something like that anyway. It was interesting.

I suppose that might make more sense in England, where the density of teams is relatively high, and you have some choices for whom to cheer.

Here in the US, only the largest cities offer even two teams to choose from. I think it would be much harder in the US to draw any conclusions about your personality by looking at your favorite team(s).

And I'd hate to know what it says about me that I root for a team (Oakland) that keeps finding more and more improbably painful ways to get close to winning and then fall apart.

Maybe so. My work was based on Cialdini et al somewhat though:

Cialdini, R.B. et al. (1976). Basking in reflected glory: Three (football) field studies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 34, 366-375.

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0190-2725(198603)49%3A1%3C90%3ABIRGRA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Q

which looked at big time college football programs.

Lots of mumbo jumbo but as a psychology student in need of direction it seemed a reasonable avenue to take at the time!

Oh, Ken, I did get that football (soccer) blog off the ground (re: email discussion of many months ago that you could very reasonably have forgotten all about).

http://cravencottagenewsround.wordpress.com

The Fulham orientation has an American angle (Bocanegra, McBride) so if you do ever progress the soccer angle and need a Fulham representative do give me a yell somehow.

Anyway, cheers
Rich