As many of you may have seen, the Tennessee Volunteers football team from the University of Tennessee beat the odds this weekend, defeating the Alabama Crimson Tide for the first time in over a decade. It was a crazy sight, with students rushing the field, fraternities stealing goalposts and loyal UT Volunteer families throwing parties. While it may seem that it was all fun and games, controversy ensued following the excitement. Not only did the Southeastern Conference (SEC), the governing athletic association for the region, fine the University over 100,000 dollars for the actions of their fans, but many University of Alabama fans reported that they had suffered violence and cruelty following the win. TikTok is full of videos of fans vandalizing and damaging property. Now, it may be because I have no interest in football or because I attend a northern school that doesn’t even have a football team, but this seems absolutely insane to me. Who in their right mind would rampage an arena, harass students and throw an expensive piece of equipment into the river?
This isn’t the first time rivalry between fans has escalated. While rowdiness at football games isn’t a new phenomenon, in the past decade, universities across the country, especially SEC and Big Ten schools, have been dealing with mass numbers of rowdy fans. In fact, during the 2016 season, “at least 3,778 fans were ejected… and 1,102 fans were arrested” due to misbehavior in the stadium, according to stadium records. These offenses range from public urination and intoxication to assault and sexual harassment.
Many universities have blamed the sale of alcohol in stadiums for unruly behavior, but intoxication likely only accounts for part of the phenomenon. When fans are surrounded by others who are motivated by the same things, a mob mentality takes over. This phenomenon occurs due to “deindividualization,” a process during which people lose sight of themselves and their personal accountability, which often occurs in the context of crowds. In the University of Missouri’s “The Maneater,” columnist Emmett Ferguson explains, “The deindividualization that takes place during sporting events is the same kind of thing that happens in riots. People do things that they would never do in any other situation because they are totally lost in the group. Everyone is just part of the crowd. There is only one group mentality, and that is that there are no consequences.” In other words, when placed in a group, fans are prone to neglecting every behavioral and social skill they’ve learned.
The prevalence of social media, like Instagram and TikTok, only fuels the problem. 9News reports that “Online videos with several thousand views show football fans fighting in stadiums and throwing punches during pre-game tailgate parties.” Posting hate about teams and making TikToks that showcase fans throwing things at rivals encourages this kind of behavior. The fact that this content is frequently posted on social media is representative of an increase in influencer behavior and a craving for social media fame. It’s a lot easier to get millions of views and likes if you’re acting stupid. Not to mention that many of these videos that portray violence toward rivals glorify and normalize this behavior, making it seem fun and just a part of the college experience.
The biggest problem is that the SEC isn’t doing anything to prevent these cruelties. Someone will fine the team, joke about it on Twitter and move on. One extremely concerning example of this was seen at the Tennessee vs. Mississippi game last year. Many fans in the crowd of 100,000 fans gathered in the Knoxville stadium began to throw debris at the Mississippi bench in the last 54 seconds of the game. Instead of enforcing a real penalty on the fans, the SEC fined the school and let them carry on playing for the rest of the season. Being one of the richest schools in the conference, this meant nothing to them. Truthfully, it seems as if money is no object for many schools and that fines are only performative. Instead of truly punishing unruly fans and the athletic programs that encourage, or fail to repudiate their behavior, the SEC is just teaching fans that attacking others and throwing things is allowed and even encouraged.
There are a few solutions to this problem. At the level of universities, stadiums should enact and enforce more rules about fan behavior and violence. There should be more permanent bans enforced on unruly fans or teams, as well as stricter policies that discourage serving alcohol to individuals who are acting too rowdy or intoxicated. On a conference level, the SEC can restrict teams that have a history of inappropriate fan behavior. This could mean anything from not allowing them to play in their Bowl games to forcing them to forfeit games that lead to violence. It is also important that these standards are enforced in professional sports. By allowing professional sports fans to trash cities and flip buses after wins, young people assume that such behavior is acceptable. Professional leagues like the National Football League (NFL) should create similar mandates to keep their own fans in check. This may impact what SEC fans perceive as normal fan behavior.
Overall, fan behavior in college football is out of control and truly a disgrace to the schools and the sport. While it’s important to have some fun, drink and even heckle the other team a little, acting violent, aggressive and outright disgusting is not appropriate. We should be holding these schools, teams and students accountable.
Nicolette Cavallaro is a senior majoring in psychology.