Sport fans' self-esteem and supporting the team that won over the favorite

Most often, when their favorite team loses, sports fans are disappointed by the outcome and hostile to the winning team. However, in the tournaments, they also sometimes voice their support for the team that eliminated their favorite. The present study investigates these phenomena and proposes that fans supporting the team that eliminated the favorite in the tournament is a coping strategy. It is used to help fans mitigate the identity threat when direct competition between the team becomes unavailable. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to investigate the psychological mechanisms underlying fans' support for the team that defeated the favorite, from the perspectives of social identification and feelings-as-information theories.

The questionnaire was distributed via an online panel company to Japanese professional baseball fans. The items included team identification, collective self-esteem, and negative emotions. The team's loss was manipulated using the scenario. PLS-SEM analysis was conducted in the R software.

The relationship between team identification, self-esteem, and supporting the team that won was significant; however, there was no support for the proposition that supporting the team that won acts as a coping strategy. The path from team identification to self-esteem was positive, indicating that higher identified fans had higher self-esteem even after the team lost. Furthermore, the path between self-esteem and supporting the team that won was also positive. Perhaps fans extended their support to promote their division. Contrary to expectations, the negative emotions did not mediate the relationship between team identification and self-esteem.