Your brain doesn't know the tribe isn't real
For nearly all of human history, which group you belonged to was a matter of survival — access to food, protection, mates, and status all ran through your coalition. Researchers studying sports fandom argue it's best understood as a byproduct of exactly that ancient "coalitional psychology": modern life stripped away most of the real tribal structures humans evolved to navigate, and sports fandom quietly filled the gap with a low-stakes, socially sanctioned substitute. Your brain doesn't fully distinguish "my actual survival group" from "the team whose colors I'm wearing" — it just recognizes an in-group and an out-group, and runs the same old software.
This is also why rival fandoms get so heated over nothing tangible: the psychology underneath isn't really about the specific sport. It's genuinely ancient in-group/out-group processing, wearing a jersey.
Winning by association: BIRGing
In the 1970s, psychologist Robert Cialdini noticed something specific: students at universities with winning football teams were significantly more likely to wear school apparel the Monday after a win than after a loss — despite having contributed nothing to either outcome. He named this BIRGing — Basking In Reflected Glory — a subconscious strategy for protecting self-esteem by claiming connection to someone else's success.
The flip side has its own name: CORFing, Cutting Off Reflected Failure — the instinct to distance yourself from a team after a loss ("they lost" instead of "we lost"). Both are the same underlying move, run in opposite directions depending on which one protects how you feel about yourself in the moment.
Fandom isn't really about the score. It's a socially acceptable way to borrow identity and self-esteem from a group you've chosen to belong to.
It's not just irrational — it's doing real psychological work
This isn't purely a bug. Research on sports fans, notably by social psychologist Daniel Wann, has found that identifying strongly with a team is genuinely associated with higher self-esteem and a real sense of belonging — the community, the shared ritual, the built-in conversation starter with strangers wearing the same colors are real social goods, not just an excuse to yell at a screen. For a lot of people, a sports team is one of the few remaining large-scale, low-friction tribes left in modern life — one you can opt into instantly, with instant rituals (colors, chants, gathering places) already built.
The part that's genuinely uncertain
Uncertainty is the actual product being sold. A scripted outcome wouldn't hold anyone's attention the same way — the appeal is specifically that nobody, including the players, knows exactly how it ends. That unresolved tension is a big part of why a close game feels different in your body than a decided one: your nervous system is responding to real uncertainty, even though the actual stakes for you personally are close to zero.
Try this
Next time a game grips you more than you'd expect, notice the specific feeling and ask what it's actually connected to — belonging to a group, borrowing a win for your own identity, or just the raw uncertainty of not knowing yet. None of those reasons are embarrassing. They're just worth being honest with yourself about, especially the next Monday morning after a loss.
The takeaway
Sports fandom taps into ancient in-group psychology that evolved for real survival coalitions, not modern entertainment — which is why it can feel so disproportionately intense. BIRGing (claiming a win as "ours") and CORFing (distancing from "them" after a loss) are the same identity-protecting instinct running in opposite directions. It's not just irrational: real belonging and self-esteem benefits come with it. The genuine uncertainty of the outcome is a large part of what makes it gripping in the first place.
Try this: notice the next time a game's outcome affects your mood more than it "should," and name which specific mechanism is doing the work — tribal identity, borrowed glory, or plain uncertainty.
Sources & Further Reading
Sources
- The coalitional-psychology account of sports fandom reflects research by Winegard & Deaner ("The Evolutionary Significance of Red Sox Nation").
- BIRGing and CORFing were documented by Robert Cialdini and colleagues in the 1970s.
- The well-being and self-esteem findings associated with team identification reflect research by social psychologist Daniel Wann.
Go deeper
- 🌐 Search "BIRGing Cialdini original study" for the classic 1976 research
- 📘 Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World — various contributors (academic but accessible overview of fan psychology)
- 🌐 Search "Daniel Wann sports fan well-being research" for the self-esteem and belonging findings in more depth