Effects of Locality and Success of a Football Team on Fans' Identification, Passion and Well-Being

Abstract

The team identification - social psychological health model (Wann, 2006b) has been proposed to explain the effects of team identification on psychological and social well-being of sports fans. The current study attempts to validate a number of elements of the model by examining the effects of locality of the team and the success of the team on fan's identification, passion, collective self-esteem and well-being. Football fans in Greece were recruited and participated in an online study. Two-hundred seventy male participants provided data for their level of team identification, general well-being, social well-being and passion. Results revealed that locality (local and distant teams) had no significant effect on well-being and passion. On the contrary, success of the team had a significant effect on collective self-esteem, team identification and obsessive passion with less successful team fans showing significantly higher mean in the above measures compared to high successful team fans. Findings validate previous studies that supported the effects of team identification on fans' well-being even when the favourite team was a distant one. In the era of e-communication and proximity that social media and web offer, the chance to be in social connection with fellow fans is becoming more prominent. Additionally, it was found that fans of less successful teams had higher collective self-esteem, team identification and obsessive passion, possibly as a way to protect their own personal status and self-esteem against possible threats to their favourite less successful team and their social identity.