If you ever go to a sporting event, you will notice the interaction between the people in the stands. Most of these people met for the first time on game day, but it doesn't feel like it. They're there drinking beer and eating hot dogs like they're at a backyard barbecue. The common ground these people share is their interest in gaming. They are part of fan culture. The reason I find this particular topic fascinating is because professional sports have a stranglehold on our society. Sports fans identify highly with particular teams and players. Listen to someone talk about their favorite team and you might think they're talking about people they have a long-standing relationship with. You go to a match and the fans of the same team are like a big family. I think you can say that sports fans have their own community. The teams and their colors create an identity for the fans. You see someone walking around in your favorite team jersey and there is an immediate recognition of the team, of the person. To quote Nyla R. Branscombe and Stephen Reysen, authors of this report for the Journal of Sport Behavior, "Fandom is similar to social identity, defined by Tajfel (1978) as "That part of an individual's self-concept which derives by his knowledge of his membership in a social group together with the value and emotional meaning attributed to that membership" (p. 63). (Branscombe and Reysen)." What I wanted to know was: Is fan community and connection as important as team identification? This was answered with the quote above, but there is still more you may know. Does having that community of fans make the experience of watching or attending a game better? There are pros to the… middle of the card… and a downside. Even though none of the participants have ever been involved in one of these bad mob moments, they guarantee that cases always arise. Anyone who has ever been to a sporting event, or even watched it from a sports bar, can tell you that all it takes is one or two people to ruin the mood. I imagine that the next topic to explore further would be precisely this. Why and how do people get tricked into committing stupid acts that, figuratively speaking, give a black eye to the fan base they belong to? Can they all be explained by an external ingredient like too much alcohol? Another area worth examining is how sports fans are viewed and treated differently based on their gender. Works Cited Branscombe, Nyla R. and Stephen Reysen. “Fanship and fandom: Comparisons between sports and non-sports fans.” Journal of Sports Behavior33.2 (2010): 176+. Storm power research. Net. 7