Line #24 SeriousBusiness/Sports


1	->''"If you ask me, the only difference between a sports team and a gang is that gangs don't wear helmets and kneepads."''
2	-->-- '''Fin Tutuola''', ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' ("Gridiron Soldier")
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4	----
5	* Pick ''any'' professional sport. People make a living just from watching it, gambling on it, and writing about it, let alone actually playing it. Beyond that, you have fans who will defend their favorite team/player/sport to their dying breath, even willing to start fights over it. All in the name of people playing a game.
6	** It's to the point that professional athletes are put on a pedestal all year long, even regarding their personal lives: sports media will freak out about the slightest off-season incident even if it can be resolved without interfering with the player's ability to work, and the NFL has gone as far as institute a "Player Conduct Policy" with which the commissioner can punish players over matters not having anything to do with the league.
7	** What one show consistently gets the highest TV ratings in the United States, driving prices for commercial timeslots during its broadcast [[SuperBowlSpecial well over $10 million a minute]]? The UsefulNotes/SuperBowl.
8	* And not just professional sports, or even collegiate ones. In many parts of the U.S. (especially in the South and Texas), ''high school'' football is regarded as more important than life or death. Impoverished towns that can barely maintain their own infrastructure are somehow able to boast state-of-the-art stadiums seating tens of thousands for their high school teams. And they will rabidly defend the spending decisions on the rare occasions when anyone questions their wisdom.
9	* Keep the idea of "stadium justice" in mind when going to another team's arena to cheer for your team. If you cause trouble (and depending on who the opponent is, they ''will'' be unwelcoming!), you're going to be sorry, even the security will pick favorites.
10	* The Rock-Paper-Scissors World Championship in Las Vegas. Oh, the humanity!
11	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukE2rwx7h0U Well...]]
12	* Pick a movie about sports. ''Any'' movie about sports. With the possible exception of ''Film/TheBadNewsBears''.
13	* Australian UsefulNotes/{{cricket}} legend and UsefulNotes/WorldWarII fighter pilot Keith Miller put things into perspective when he was asked how he handled the pressure of international cricket. His reply: "Pressure? A Messerschmitt up your arse is pressure. Playing cricket is not."
14	[[folder:Association Football/Soccer]]
15	* Legendary [[UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball soccer]] manager Bill Shankly ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Shankly link for baffled non-Brits]]) gave the page quote in a 1981 interview. It's also repeated as, "Someone said 'Football is a matter of life and death to you,' and I said 'Listen, it's more important than that'."
16	* In Brazil, there's the phrase "o futebol é como uma religião", "soccer is like a religion", which perfectly describes how passionate are Brazilians (and Latin Americans overall) about soccer.
17	** When Brazil lost the last and decisive match ([[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness there was no final]]) of the 1950 UsefulNotes/FIFAWorldCup, two fans in the stadium committed suicide by throwing themselves off a stand.
18	** A particularly tragic case of soccer being taken far too seriously in that part of the world; Andrés Escobar, a Colombian national team player who was murdered following an accidental own-goal which saw Colombia kicked out of the 1994 World Cup. It's generally agreed that his death was a result of the match; some argue, however, that it wasn't just the work of a particularly ticked-off fan, but committed on the orders of drug dealers who lost out big on bets made on the game. Either way, it's a pretty harsh example of this trope. To this day, Andrés is mourned by Colombian football fans, especially those who support Atlético Nacional - his favorite team in his lifetime.
19	*** To make things worse, the murderer allegedly shouted ''¡Goooooool!'' ("Goal!") for every shot that he fired.
20	** And a new piece of Brazilian lunacy: Player assaults referee for getting a red card. Referee ''stabs'' player, who is hospitalized. Fans take referee hostage: when news comes that player has died in hospital, fans '''''stone referee to death and decapitate the corpse.''''' [[http://www.sportskeeda.com/2013/07/05/football-match-ends-with-two-gruesome-deaths/ Sweet Baby Jesus.]]
21	** In Central America, the [[http://www.onwar.com/aced/data/sierra/soccer1969.htm Soccer War of 1969]] claimed thousands of lives. There was a great deal more at stake than soccer, though.
22	*** [[http://deadspin.com/5827419/chinese-italian-soccer-fans-as-bad-as-italian-soccer-fans Here is a video]] of an AC Milan fan sitting in the Inter Milan fan section, which sparks a fistfight that gets his jersey torn off. Not all that notable. Except this happened between ''Chinese'' fans, at an ''exhibition game'', in '''''Beijing'''''.
23	** Argentina, 16 February 2016. Referee César Flores issued a red card in an amateur league match. Cut to a few moments later, where the player who was sent off [[DisproportionateRetribution has fetched his gun, which he uses to shoot Flores to death]].
24	*** Speaking of Argentina, fans of club football are known to be so batshit '''insane''' that they make even the most hardcore of European Ultras ''look modest'' in comparison. Derbies in the Argentine Primera have caused so many riots and casualties that opposing fans aren't even allowed into the home team's stadiums. The fiercest rivalry in Argentine football, Boca Juniors and River Plate a.k.a. the ''Superclásico'', are said to be incredibly intense affairs that riots are guaranteed to break out regardless of the result. In fact, both clubs made it to the 2018 UsefulNotes/CopaLibertadores Finals that [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Copa_Libertadores_Finals#Violence_and_a_move_of_venue nearly ended in disaster]] because of a riot prior to the second leg, causing THAT game [[WhyFandomCantHaveNiceThings to be played outside of Argentina]], officially due to safety concerns. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIG13KfUSkI COPA90 recently did a Derby Day documentary of the Superclasico during the 2018 Copa Libertadores after massive fan demand]] and [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor ended up getting an event far more intense than they could handle]].
25	** Egyptian soccer fans are equally guilty of this trope. Case in point: In 2012, Al-Masry scored a 3-1 victory against top team Al-Ahly. [[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/01/egypt-football-pitch-invasion-dead?newsfeed=true Cue deadly riots by frenzied fans...]] and the population's disappointment at the police's supposed incompetence at handling the mad football fanatics quickly led to more riots, not over football, but over the assumed failure of the security forces. Easily one of the harshest examples of both this trope and the snowball effect.
26	*** On a lighter note, an Egyptian joke holds that Egypt is a country of three religions: Islam, Christianity, and football.[[note]]Theoretically, Egypt's legal system recognizes Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, but virtually all of the Jews left/were forced to leave for [[UsefulNotes/ArabIsraeliConflict obvious reasons]] in the 1950s and 60s.[[/note]]
27	** Italian fans are quite bad about this the worst of the group. Here's a couple examples:
28	*** In the semi-finals of UEFA Euro 2012, the Italian football team defeated Germany 2-1. Fans have openly quoted the ''Bollettino della Vittoria'', the ''war bulletin announcing the victory in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI''. It happens pretty much '''every single time an Italian team wins an high profile match against a foreign one'''.
29	*** In the 2002 World Cup, the Italian national team was eliminated in the Round of 16 by South Korea, in no small part thanks to bad officiation from referee [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_Moreno Byron Moreno]] (later suspended by the Ecuadorian football association and investigated on charges of favoritism and even falsification of a report in a match between the Liga Deportiva Universitaria de Quito[[note]]at the time Moreno was a candidate in imminent elections for Quito's city council[[/note]] and the Barcelona). South Korean player Ahn Jung-hwan, who scored the decisive goal and at the time played for the Italian team Perugia A.C., was kicked out of the team, and Moreno was invited to Italy specifically to get booed and hit with rotten eggs and dedicated a song chanting for his death and the public toilets of an Italian town.
30	* Up until the early 1990's, English football fans were [[FootballHooligans infamous for rioting]], to the point where individual teams had 'firms' of hooligans, which essentially engaged in gang warfare. This behaviour, combined with high fences to keep fans off the pitch and standing areas, culminated in the Heysel Disaster of 1985 in which 39 Juventus fans were killed (resulting in the ban of English teams from European competition for five years) and the Hillsborough disaster, in which ''97'' Liverpool fans were killed, with the [[TearJerker youngest victim, Jon-Paul Gilhooley, being only ten years old.]] He was also the cousin of a nine-year-old boy who grew up to become legendary Liverpool and England captain Steven Gerrard, lauded by legends of the game as one of its finest players, who later said in his autobiography that he played for Jon-Paul.
31	** Hillsborough, however, can mainly be blamed on poor policing and the police and ambulance service attempted to pass the buck to the fans with the support of the Thatcher government. The ''Sun'' newspaper responded by viciously slandering Liverpool fans with the infamous ''The Truth'' headline, alleging that they attacked emergency services, and looted and desecrated the dead. To this day, despite several apologies of dubious sincerity, the ''Sun'' sells very few papers in Liverpool - decades later, a documentary proved that you quite literally can't even give it away, not even as toilet paper. More recently, journalists from the paper have been banned from the stadium and other club property. When the FA said that Liverpool could host a pre-Euro 2020 warm-up match only so long as they allowed the ''Sun'' on club property, the response was a resounding middle-finger. On a separate note, Everton have also banned the ''Sun'' in 2017 after one of its columnists - the editor who'd come up with ''The Truth'' headline, as it happened - compared a midfielder of Nigerian ancestry to a gorilla. Separately, the sense of injustice sparked a long-running inquiry/political campaign under the banner of 'Justice for the 96' (the 97th victim died in 2021 of his injuries), supported by both the city as a whole and - to one extent or another - by the club itself, and to a lesser extent, by Everton FC (see below about how fans from both teams can come from the same family - even players, in the case of the Gerrard family).
32	** Even these days, football rivalries are taken ''very'' seriously, with derby games such as Liverpool vs Everton/Manchester United, Arsenal vs Tottenham/Manchester United, Manchester City vs [[RuleOfThree Manchester]] [[RunningGag United]], Sunderland vs Newcastle and Aston Villa vs Birmingham City capable of making or breaking a player or manager's career. Accordingly, they tend to be scrappy affairs - Liverpool vs Everton, the Merseyside Derby, has yielded the most red cards in Premier League history, for instance, and heavily policed. Perversely, it should be noted that as 'the Friendly Derby', as it used to be known, it is also one of the few derbies that doesn't enforce total fan segregation and the crowds tend to be relatively well-behaved, since there are usually members of the same family supporting both sides. As recently as the FA Cup Final of 1984, both groups of fans freely mingled, chanting 'Merseyside, Merseyside' and 'Are you watching Manchester?'. Despite the recent intensifying of the rivalry, as recently as 2002, a player called Abel Xavier moved from one team to the other in the middle of the season, playing for Everton in the first derby, then Liverpool in the return match. Astonishingly, he is still alive today. And in 2022, Everton acquired Conor Coady from Wolves, an Everton fan who had come through the Liverpool academy and their first team, before moving on. Heck, they even briefly shared a manager, with Rafael Benitez, a Liverpool manager of legend, returning to manage Everton. This was received with much confusion but general welcome by Everton fans as it was widely acknowledged that he loved the city. Even when Benitez' tenure went horribly wrong (to subdued Liverpool glee), he wasn't blamed too much - being the fifth manager in as many years meant it was widely suspected the owners were the problem. With that notable exception out of the way, wearing the wrong shirt in the wrong stand, for instance, is pretty much like having a massive "beat me up" sign hanging over your head. And let's not even discuss Millwall [[HateSink 'No one likes us, we don't care']] FC...
33	** Connected to above, mocking the Hillsborough Disaster tends to get a horrified DudeNotFunny reaction from almost every team in the League, save a small minority of Manchester United fans that enjoy bringing it up every other match or so. To take one example, before the second leg of a Europa League match at Old Trafford (United's home stadium) which Liverpool were going into as favourites following a decisive win at Anfield the previous week, a Hillsborough themed banner was hung on a bridge crossing over the main road from Liverpool to Manchester. It was accompanied by vile chants of 'the ''Sun'' was right, you're murderers'. This wasn't back in the bad old days of the late 80's/early 90's. This was in ''March 2016.''
34	** Unsurprisingly, the Liverpool-Manchester United derby (considered the counterpart of Spain's El Clásico between Barcelona and Real Madrid) has been nicknamed 'El Vitriol', and it is aptly named. Unlike the more local Liverpool-Everton and (to an extent) the Manchester United-Manchester City derbies, there's no family ties among the supporters and the reaction of the two to one another is best described as pure hatred, and based on an inter-city rivalry that goes back centuries. Even during the recent decline in both sides' fortunes, it was vitriolic - and when Liverpool recovered, they made a point of whipping United (including at Old Trafford in a 5-0 victory [[JustToyingWithThem in which they spent the last 40 minutes making United chase the ball around]]), even though the general consideration was that Manchester City were their real rivals. Whatever the circumstances, it is still one of the most fiercely contested match-ups in world football, watched by hundreds of millions of fans worldwide.
35	** The Liverpool/Manchester City rivalry ''used'' to be a fairly friendly derby, with City being the up and coming team and Liverpool being the fallen-giant-in-recovery, and even after Liverpool started being City's main (and only) serious challengers for the league title. Part of this was a lack of any history of antipathy, and part of it was that both of them enjoyed putting the boot into Manchester United. As recently as 2018, one City fan actually suggested a combined Liverpool-City chant before a Champions League match serenading their players and raising the middle finger to United (since [[CrowdSong chants]] are very rarely shared, this went down like a cup of cold sick and was the source of much mockery). However, the intensification of the rivalry has gained an ugly streak, with the City team bus being vandalised twice, and Hillsborough related slogans being chanted and graffitied at the away end of Anfield, Liverpool's home stadium.
36	* Russian fans are infamous for violence and racism, with black players frequently being on the receiving end of monkey chants. In fact, they're so bad that this was brought up as a reason why Russia shouldn't be awarded the 2018 World Cup by FIFA. [[CorruptCorporateExecutive FIFA's non-existent ethics policy, however, meant that this cut no ice.]]
37	** Spanish fans are less violent, but still fairly racist - Barcelona fullback Dani Alves, a black Brazilian, had a banana thrown at him. [[InsultBackfire He picked it up, peeled it, and took a bite, before chucking it off the pitch.]]
38	*** The notably vicious Barcelona-Madrid rivalry, culminating in the 'El Clásico' derbies watched by hundreds of millions worldwide, is rooted in what can be politely called political disputes going back decades, or arguably centuries. FC Barcelona is based in the city of Barcelona, de facto capital of Catalonia, a part of Spain with its own language and fearsomely independent identity (it frequently attempts to secede, for one thing). Real Madrid is based in Madrid, capital of Spain as a whole and the region of Castile, which ended up dominating the rest, and was also the favoured club of military dictator UsefulNotes/FranciscoFranco, who ruled until his death in 1975, and therefore seen as a tool of his regime and representative of his harsh repressive measures taken against the Catalonian language and identity. In this context, it is perhaps unsurprising that Portuguese winger Luís Figo, who moved from Barcelona to Real Madrid, had a ''pig's head'' thrown at him on his first return to Barcelona.
39	* The earliest known reference to a game called "football"[[note]]Likely referring to a game that can best be described as a mixture of "capture the flag", [[RugbyIsSlaughter the worst things you ever heard about Rugby]], soccer and all other sports ever called "Football" by anybody rolled into one with no limits on the number of players or the playing time and rules that were - if any - subject to mob approval rather than written down before hands[[/note]] is a decree by the Mayor of London banning it for being a source of violence... in 1314. No wonder the FootballHooligans are such a popular trope.
40	* ''Recreational'' soccer is a huge deal in affluent suburbs -- usually more to hyperactive parents than the actual kids playing. Little League baseball is the same.
41	* The notion of football as ridiculously important was spoofed in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYvW3GlCe2Y a Visa commercial]] aptly titled "United in Rivalry." Visa invited four Nobel Peace Prize winners--David Trimble of Northern Ireland, Lech Walesa of Poland, Leymah Gbowee of Liberia, and Oscar Arias of Costa Rica--and one Nobel Peace Prize candidate--Bob Geldof of Ireland--to talk about their love for the sport, and all of the laureates happily discuss how much they want their own country to win and demolish the other competitors (although it's clearly all in good fun). Geldof jokes that "Football isn't life and death--it's ''much'' more important than that!," while Gbowee sums the entire philosophy up when she comments "We pride ourselves in being united...except when football is involved."
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44	* Melbourne Cup Day, a holiday in Australia celebrating a horse race. It's only a public holiday in Victoria, but the rest of Australia shuts down while the actual race is running. And that's all seven states and two territories - New Zealand included.[[note]]Seriously - the Australian Constitution names the states of Australia as New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, Western Australia and New Zealand![[/note]]
45	** It's called "The Race That Stops a Nation" [[NotHyperbole for a reason]]. But as it's held on a Tuesday and public holidays are {{Serious Business}} in Australia, most people try to skip Monday too.
46	* Australians as a nation are, for the most part, utterly ''mad'' about almost all forms of sports (but especially the ones they're ''really'' good at, such as UsefulNotes/{{cricket}} and UsefulNotes/{{Australian rules football}}). Here's a fun exercise; watch any Australian commercial TV news broadcast and make note of how many of the stories relate to sport in some way. Bet it's over half. If you happen to live in Australia and ''aren't'' particularly interested in sport, it makes an otherwise wonderful country somewhat less wonderful to live in. It doesn't help that when they ''lose'' something that they normally win (as happened a couple of years ago, when England unexpectedly won the Ashes (a cricket Test series), or with recent grumblings about their winning less gold medals at the Beijing Olympics than expected), they can be pretty bad losers. Although strangely, unlike other places in the world with strong team loyalties, it's possible to wear shirts with slogans like "I support two teams: Collingwood and whoever is playing Brisbane" without being shanked. Try wearing a shirt saying "I support two teams: Manchester United and whoever is playing Liverpool" and see how long you last anywhere where the English Premier League is followed.
47	** UsefulNotes/TheAshes. It's one of the most fiercely contested (and smallest) trophies on the planet and it can be guaranteed that the supporters of whichever side wins will gloat about it incessantly until the next set of fixtures.
48	* America doesn't have a holiday for the Triple Crown races, but there's still a heck of a lot of hoopla that goes into them, particularly the Kentucky Derby. The ladies with their elaborate hats, the parties around the area, the celebs and sometimes dignitaries that come... And it can escalate if the same horse wins the Preakness and has the Triple Crown on the line at the Belmont Stakes.
49	** All this for a race that lasts about ''two minutes''.
50	* Red Sox Nation
51	** Specifically, the Red Sox v. Yankees rivalry. You do ''not'' want to wear even the smallest, most trivial item of Sox paraphernalia in Yankee Stadium during a game between those two (and vice versa).
52	*** During the Summer of Punk storyline in 2011, the RAW before ''Wrestling/MoneyInTheBank 2011'' was in Boston. Wrestling/CMPunk had a contract negotiation with Wrestling/VinceMcMahon that was interrupted by hometown hero Wrestling/JohnCena, who confronted Punk over what a hypocrite he was. Punk fired back about how Cena was just as big of a hypocrite, pretending he was still an underdog when in reality he was now a dynasty, and said he, just like the Red Sox, [[YouAreWhatYouHate were now the New York Yankees]]. At that very moment the Boston crowd, which had been cheering wildly for Punk all night, promptly turned on him and gave him insane amounts of heat.
53	** Martha Coakley found out the hard way just what Serious Business this was, when it cost her a US Senate seat... [[EpicFail to a Republican, costing the Democrats a supermajority]]. One particular problem was how adverse she was to actually campaigning for the election, which her opponent was quite comfortable doing. This trope tends to get play about one of her famous quotes regarding her loss - "What, did they expect me to shake hands outside of Fenway Park in the cold?" While the quote is more about her aversion to meeting with voters, the venue choice leads some to think that her disdain for the Red Sox caused her defeat. Compare with Massachusetts' other senator at the time, UsefulNotes/JohnKerry - while he has proven to be less than knowledgeable about the team itself, he does claim to be a fan, and usually gets a pass on his lack of knowledge.
54	* "Titletown, USA" is written into the official political seal of the city of Green Bay, Wisconsin.
55	** They got the Green Bay Packers logo in their seal.
56	** There are also over a dozen streets named after former Packers in Green Bay, and that's not even including other civic entities such as the Ray Nitschke Bridge or Vince Lombardi Middle School. Granted, it's not like Green Bay is known for much else. Without the Packers, they'd be just another DyingTown in the Rust Belt.
57	** In New Jersey, where the New York Giants, the first NFL team that Lombardi coached, now plays, the only thing named after him is a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike. Actually not all that surprising; Lombardi was from Brooklyn, and the Giants didn't play in New Jersey during Lombardi's lifetime.
58	* Philadelphia... Good Lord, Philadelphia! The city is infamous nationwide for its fanatical, insanely devoted fanbase when it comes to sports, ESPECIALLY where their football team, the Eagles, is concerned. Public support for the Eagles can be seen everywhere in the city during football season. Eagles fans have been dubbed the meanest fans in America as well as the scariest and most intimidating. Every year there are multiple cases of sports-related violence and destruction of property. People will attack each other, especially opposing fans, break store windows, tip cars, and climb poles with such frequency that the city has had to grease them up to try and curb this behavior (it doesn't always work). And this can be whether the fans are angry about a loss, or giddy about celebrating a victory, the latter being most notable in the Eagles' victory in Super Bowl LII. And if you're foolish enough to put down the Philly teams or the sports they play for in front of a fan, well, it was nice knowing you.
59	** Philly fans have thrown batteries at players, and ''booed Santa Claus''. They had a ''judicial court'' under Veterans Stadium, their old stomping grounds, they were so bad.
60	* Other sports teams where it didn't get quite so ridiculous:
61	** [[http://img37.imageshack.us/i/gorillarillafans55.jpg/ Raider Nation]].
62	*** [[UsefulNotes/CanadianFootballLeague RIDER]] Nation.
63	*** Raider Nation was the first with the Nation name, though, circa sometime in the 1970s, definitely by the beginning of the '80s.
64	** Even better: Steeler Nation. (Which was given its name in 1975, as the Other Wiki documents. You may note that's before "the beginning of the '80s.”)
65	** The Dallas Cowboys are called "America's Team". No matter how mediocre they perform every year, the Cowboys still draw ratings.
66	*** On the flip side, they have such a large hatedom, it is almost hard to believe there is a single American who follows Football and does ‘’not’’ care about them. Double both when they actually have a chance at winning something.
67	*** The fallout over a catch being declared incomplete costing them a chance at Super Bowl XLIX actually made a new rule. And then that rule was called into question when the Eagles won Super Bowl LII. One diehard fan had ‘Dez caught it’ in his epitaph.
68	** Cardinal Nation, but not about baseball itself. They take fan behavior pretty seriously--fans acting like jackasses get yelled at and piss everyone off. Only one player has ever been booed (Jason Isringhausen, a relief pitcher). Cardinal fans take pride in their classy attitude and good reputation.
69	** After the New Orleans Saints got screwed over in the 2018 NFC Championship Game by a blatant cheap shot by Los Angeles Rams cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman against Saints wide receiver Tommylee Lewis, which went uncalled by the referees, Saints fans staged a boycott against Super Bowl LIII by not watching the game, and even held anti-Super Bowl parties in New Orleans. The end result is that overall ratings for Super Bowl LIII had tanked, with New Orleans becoming the least watched market. The 2018 NFC Title Game has been since dubbed the "NOLA No-Call" by Saints fans.
70	* The Serious Business of sports was mused upon in a Sunday(?) comic of ''Frazz'', wherein Frazz and his cycling partner concluded that the ‘’un’’importance of sports made them ‘’the most important thing there is.’’
71	* UsefulNotes/IceHockey. People who think Canadians are always polite and well-behaved have clearly never been in Vancouver during a Canucks game.
72	** ...Or seen them [[http://www.policeone.com/police-products/vehicles/articles/1688149-16-cruisers-damaged-in-Canadian-hockey-riot/ burn squad cars]] over the results of a Montréal Canadiens game.
73	*** While this is still speculation, it was believed that those who burned squad cars had little interest in the game and merely took advantage of the Canadiens' victory, however given how fans react in Montreal who knows...
74	** ...Or been on Whyte Avenue during the Edmonton Oilers' Stanley Cup run in 2006.
75	** ...Or spent a week in Calgary during hockey season. Hockey isn't a sport: it's a cult.
76	** In 1994 the Canucks lost Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals to the New York Rangers. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Stanley_Cup_riot Cue riot]].
77	*** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Stanley_Cup_Riot It got repeated]] when the Canucks lost Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals in 2011 to the Boston Bruins.
78	** Oh, 1955. Maurice "The Rocket" Richard gets suspended for the rest of the season and the playoffs for hitting an official. Cue the riot at the next Canadiens home game.
79	*** Incidentally, he received a ''16-minute'' standing ovation in 1996, and when he died in 2000 he received a state funeral broadcast across the country, with the Governor-General and prime minister attending. In Quebec, Richard was truly Serious Business.
80	*** Even more food for thought, this riot cost the city of Montreal an estimated five hundred thousand dollars. One wonders how the city has survived this long.
81	*** The riot had ethnic and nationalistic undertones, as Maurice Richard's suspension largely divided hockey fans on language lines between English- and French-Canadians, with the former largely seeing the suspension as deserved and the later largely viewing it as unjust and overly harsh because of Maurice Richard's ethnicity.
82	** Or the hatred of the "Leafs Nation" by everyone else in the country.
83	** Ottawa city council once passed a resolution banning anyone from wearing a Leafs jersey to attend a playoff game, unless said Leaf-jersey wearing fans ponied up a canned donation for the Food Bank.
84	** [[http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2002/01/11/junta020111.html This]].
85	** You should have seen some [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv2A4o47too&feature=related reactions]] when United States tied the men's hockey game. Then when Canada won, this was the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuJH2WXJGHI&feature=player_embedded reaction.]]
86	** In Spring of 2011 there was yet another election in Canada caused by the Liberals and other non-ruling parties triggering it. Said Election promptly took a back seat because both Canucks and Canadiens were in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Yes, our hockey is more important than our Politics. And nastier too.
87	** A political debate between all four party leaders were rescheduled because of hockey. [[http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110410/wl_canada_nm/canada_us_politics_election I kid you not]].
88	* OlderThanPrint: Chariot Racing in the Roman, and later, the Byzantine Empire. The hatred between the Reds, the Whites, the Greens, and the Blues was both comparable to modern day events like soccer riots. But then, in 532 AD Constantinople, an incident involving a botched execution of Blue and Green leaders for the murder of a citizen resulted in the two factions unifying and attempting, and almost succeeding, in ''overthrowing the Byzantine Empire itself''. The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nika_riots Nika Riots]] were so bad that Justinian I attempted to flee the capitol, but his wife Theodora (a [[TheHighQueen High Queen]] who was born a low-class woman) stopped him at the last minute. The riots only stopped when his clever resident hawk, [[MagnificentBastard Flavius Belisarius]] no less, was recalled from retirement, along with two generals and several army divisions, lured the rioters into the Hippodrome, convinced the Blues to walk out, and killed ''thirty thousand'' people.
89	** There were two things that could trigger a riot in Rome: [[BreadAndCircuses the corn dole]] being interrupted and a bad outcome at the Circus Maximus. It was a well-known aphorism that while your loyalty to the Emperor might change, your loyalty to your chariot faction was forever.
90	* Bengals wide receiver Chad Johnson recently legally changed his last name to "Ocho Cinco," his nickname, just so he could put it on the back of his jersey. This despite that "ocho cinco" means "eight five"; "ochenta y cinco" is eighty-five. It was also mostly due to his ego. He later changed his last name again... back to Johnson.
91	* UsefulNotes/CollegiateAmericanFootball is a religion in many, many parts of the United States. In many cases, it is a state religion; since many of the great football universities are public schools, most coaches are ''government employees'' (typically the highest paid in the state by a huge margin) whose programs are bolstered by taxpayer dollars. The greatest rivalry in all of sports, according to ESPN, is [[http://espn.go.com/endofcentury/s/other/bestrivalries.html that]] between the Ohio State University [[note]]to be exact, it's The Ohio State University - [[SpellMyNameWithAThe the "The" is part of the name and don't you forget it]][[/note]] and the University of Michigan. Other college blood feuds include Alabama/Auburn, Florida/Florida State, Oklahoma/Texas, Georgia/Georgia Tech, Notre Dame/USC, Army/Navy, Mississippi State/Ole Miss, Oregon/Washington and Clemson/Wake Forest (that last one is one sided, but very, very ''nasty''). North Carolina/Duke and Kentucky/Louisville, while hard-fought on the football field, are far better-known (and more intense) in men's basketball.
92	** The mania is even more intense for Ohio State fans than Michigan fans. I wouldn't be too concerned wearing OSU garb in Ann Arbor, Michigan, but I would never dare to wear blue and maize on the streets of Columbus, Ohio... just thinking about it is scary.
93	** During one of the matchups, the city of Ann Arbor sent their own police officers along to protect their fans in Columbus.
94	** Legendary coach Woody Hayes reportedly went on a recruiting trip to Michigan with an assistant coach, who noted that they were about to run out of fuel. Woody was adamant that they would NOT fill up in Michigan or spend a dime there, and they had to coast across the state border, barely making it to the first gas station on the other side.
95	** In tribute to Hayes and his absolute hate for all things Michigan, Ohioans will often say "That Team/State Up North" instead of Michigan. Even the school and team's Facebook pages do this, along with covering ANY "M" on campus the week before "The Game".
96	** Mocked in ESPN commercials. One showed a man in OSU gear passionately making out with a woman in Michigan clothes. The caption was "If it wasn't for sports, this wouldn't be disgusting."
97	** [[http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=5657989 This article says it all.]] Big Ten football really is a life-or-death situation.
98	** In Texas, we say football is the state religion. We're only half joking.
99	** Then there's the old saw, "There are two sports in Texas: football, and spring football."
100	** The Fight Song for Texas A&M calls out and mocks the University of Texas by name.
101	*** Officially, Texas A&M's Fight Song is referred to as the War Hymn. Serious business, indeed.
102	** And Texas' fight song calls out A&M, even though their main rivalry is with Oklahoma.
103	*** On the subject of Oklahoma, [[http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2010/10/27/convicted-killers-last-words-boomer-sooner/ their fans are loyal to their last breath as well.]] The first comment on this article is "[[Website/FourChan Somebody alert 4chan.]]"
104	** There was a great line written about a Texas coach: "He hates using war metaphors for football, because to him, there has never been a war fought with the intensity that he expects from his defense."
105	** The Nebraska Cornhuskers football team are a ''huge'' deal among the people in the state, especially when the team was in their heyday during the '90s. Regardless of the team's record, the fans will show up to cheer on their Huskers.
106	** In 1997, Tom Osborne retired from the position of head coach of the Nebraska Cornhuskers football team. That single story took over the ''entire front page'' of most newspapers in Nebraska, plus large chunks of the rest of the news sections, plus a good chunk of the sports sections. And then he later became a U.S. Representative for six years. At one point a lot of people were hoping he'd run for governor as well[[note]]He ran in the 2006 Republican primary for governor, but lost to incumbent Dave Heineman, who was running for a full term[[/note]]. Subsequent head coaches have been summarily fired for not quite measuring up. In Nebraska, Tom Osborne is approximately on a level with ''Jesus'' in terms of general popularity.
107	** The Iron Bowl has always been huge in the state of Alabama, but when you add to it SEC (and even national) title implications? [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uT_3JbGX1w You get the 2013 Iron Bowl]] (Entire game is posted). We do not exaggerate when we say that the state infrastructure ''shut down'' to watch the game, and it lived up to every bit of the hype.
108	*** It gets worse. Following the [[WhoNeedsOvertime final play]], there was an incident of a murder in Birmingham. [[NoTrueScotsman Apparently a Tide fan didn't think her friends were real fans because they didn't really mind the loss.]] [[http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/12/03/woman-shot-dead-after-iron-bowl-game-sister-says-person-charged-was-upset-over/ Story here.]]
109	*** And then the next day, some Bama fans stayed in Auburn for church. At a restaurant early that afternoon, a Tide family scratched out the 15% gratuity tip and replaced it with the words "Roll Tide," just because they were in Auburn and heard their waitress talking about the game (note, not the Tigers, but the game itself), and just assumed she was a Tiger fan.
110	*** Even after these happened, the Bama fans started making petitions, begging the NCAA to review the play, claiming Chris Davis Jr. was out of bounds during the run (some of them were very obviously photoshopped), but even in several reviews, there was green between Davis' feet and the white sideline.
111	*** The Iron Bowl as a game has always been huge in Alabama (consistently rated one of the Top 3 College Football rivalries in the USA with Ohio State/Michigan and Oklahoma/Texas), even to the point where, following a past Iron Bowl (2010, to be exact, where Auburn led a comeback to win), one Alabama fan, dissatisfied with letting Auburn gloat, decided to poison the trees at Toomer's Corner (a drugstore and surrounding property near Jordan-Hare where Auburn fans used to throw toilet paper on the trees whenever something good happened). The poison ended up killing the trees. The man bragged about it and quickly found himself arrested and charged with a slew of felonies, finally pleading out to several counts that put him in jail for several years ([[http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/9360611/harvey-updyke-freed-ending-toomer-corner-tree-poisoning-case he was let out after six months]] for good behavior). The poisoning was so over-the-line that a lot of 'Bama fans publicly condemned the act.
112	*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_4tKBcaVdc Then there was Cam Newton's reaction following Carolina's game the next day.]]
113	** The Army/Navy rivalry is just as intense in its own way, combining a long-running college rivalry with InterserviceRivalry. When the two universities allowed the students (and graduates) to start making "spirit message" videos to boost their side or put down the other, for many watchers it became something akin to Super Bowl Sunday, with people watching for the spirit messages as much as for the game itself.
114	* High school basketball in Indiana, at least back in the day. Showcased well in the movie ''Film/{{Hoosiers}}'' where the ''entire'' town came out to all the basketball games and followed the team everywhere they went. This was very much TruthInTelevision back when there wasn't much to do around a small town.
115	** Since the [[NiceJobBreakingItHero introduction of class basketball]] to the state in 1997, well over half the former obsession is gone. That's communism for you. Down in Kentucky, where universal equality to all high schools still reigns, the obsessiveness remains as strong as ever.
116	* Another college sport example, the Oxford/Cambridge Boat Race. No cash prize, few of the participants go on to row professionally, and it's not even a championship (no one claims the two university crews are necessarily the best in the country, though they do train extremely hard). Still very Serious Business, and with a huge TV audience in the UK.
117	* ''Kite flying'' in Pakistan, where competition has led to kite-fliers impregnating their kite-strings with glass in order to cut opposing kite-strings and attack rival kites. This has resulted in numerous ''deaths'' each year, despite the government attempting to ban it.
118	** Metal kite strings add an extra fatality factor when you figure in power lines.
119	** Also the case in Afghanistan. In fact, it's a big part of the novel and film ''Literature/TheKiteRunner''. The protagonist is so desperate for the winning kite, and thus his father's love, that he [[spoiler: lets his best friend get raped]]. Drama ensues.
120	** The practice is so ingrained into kite culture that a kite festival in the US has to explicitly state that no glass or metal may be used in the kite's line in a kite battle.
121	** Every year, come late August, with the kite season coming up (kite-flying being part of the traditional sports played during National Day in September), Chilean authorities have to repeat the same message: ''Do not use glass-coated string, do not fly a kite near power lines...''
122	** The city of Toronto [[http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/toronto-kite-flying-ban-flies-in-face-of-traditions/article1676619/ banned kite flying from a park]] because of complaints about metallic and glass kite lines. Outrage from citizens shocked that a city would ban something as mundane as kites collided with shock from learning that people would weaponize something as mundane as kites.
123	* Rugby tends to ascend to this level in New Zealand. They have every right to take rugby seriously; their national rugby team has a winning record against every team it's ever played.[[note]]Their worst winning record is against South Africa, with a 57.8% win rate.[[/note]]
124	** When the country switched from [[OldMoney pounds shillings and pence]] [[MemeticMutation to dollars and cents]] in 1967, one of the proposed designs for 20 cent coin was a rugby player.
125	** When anti-apartheid protesters clashed with rugby fans over the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_South_Africa_rugby_union_tour_of_New_Zealand_and_the_United_States 1981 Springbok Tour]] it [[PowderKegCrowd sparked off the bloodiest rioting]] in the country's history. New Zealand subsequently didn't play South Africa again until August 1992, by which time apartheid was in the process of being dismantled.
126	** It's said that the All Blacks (New Zealand's national rugby team) winning the 2011 Rugby World Cup [[note]]for the first time in since the inaugural 1987 competition, [[EveryYearTheyFizzleOut even though they were the favourites pretty much every single time]][[/note]] was a factor in that year's election results. The euphoria from the win negated the frustration about economy, and the incumbent National Party managed to win it.
127	*** Unfortunately for National, the euphoria didn't last as long as they hoped; by the end of the year they had dropped six percentage points!
128	** The government has been known to change laws and rules to accommodate the Rugby World Cup.
129	*** For the 2011 World Cup, hosted in New Zealand, the government ''rearranged school timetables'', moving each of the school holidays back two weeks in order for the spring holidays to coincide with the finals. It didn't go down well with high schools coming up to end-of-year exams.
130	*** For the 2015 World Cup, hosted in England and Wales, most of the All Blacks matches fell during the 4am to 8am period where bars cannot sell alcohol. The government ''changed liquor laws'' to allow bars to open and serve alcohol for games during the tournament.
131	** At the 2013 Halberg awards (the NZ sportsperson of the year awards), the Rt Hon John Key and All Blacks coach Steve Hansen presented an award together. They were introduced by the host as "the man with the most important job in the country, [[BaitAndSwitchComparison and the Prime Minister.]]"
132	* The Welsh treat rugby and rugby players with a similar reverence, with football coming a very distant second to rugby in the otherwise football mad British Isles (though this might be changing, somewhat, with the unexpected recent success of the Wales football team, which broke into the top 10 of the World Rankings in October 2015). And while Wales isn't quite as absurdly successful as New Zealand, they are always considered to be contenders for the Six Nations title [[note]] The Six Nations is an annual competition comprised of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg and Italy]], generally considered to be the best teams in the northern hemisphere - though Italy, while much improved, [[ButtMonkey is still considered to be an opportunity to rack up the points by the other teams]] [[/note]] and are frequent winners of the Grand Slam, achieved only by beating every other team in the Six Nations, including 2003 World Cup winners and 2007 finalists England, and 2011 finalists France, being the most frequent winners in the 21st century.
133	** Basically, insult rugby in Wales if you want to die a quick and painful death.
134	* UNC and Duke have one of the greatest college rivalries in history; it extends to every sport (with the notable exception of football, because both teams are horrible - Duke didn't have a winning season in over a decade until going 10-2 in 2013), as well as academics and facilities. Depending on who wins their big rivalry basketball games (they always meet twice in the regular season), there is likely to be some sort of spontaneous celebration in either Durham or Chapel Hill that involves burning things in the streets and occasionally flipping cars, but it's usually too tame to be considered a true "riot".
135	** In 2012, a U.S. Representative who was a diehard Carolina fan said, "I have said very publicly that if Duke was playing against the Taliban, then I'd have to pull for the Taliban."[[note]]He had already publicly announced he wasn't running for re-election.[[/note]]
136	* Also from College football USC and UCLA fans consider their games to be serious business. Not helped as the schools are close enough for fans of each team living next door to each other. Not helped at all.
137	* The NCAA basketball tournament is '''VERY''' Serious Business. Commonly referred to as "March Madness", it seems like the entire United States gets sucked into it; people constantly discuss their bracket picks and skip work to watch games. Needless to say, a lot of money is involved in this whole song and dance.
138	** Just to hammer the point home for non-Americans, even President Obama thinks that this is Serious Business, as shown [[http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/ncaatourney09/columns/story?columnist=katz_andy&id=3991859 here]]. He even tells the team he picked to win the championship not to "embarrass [him] in front of the nation".
139	** Connected to the previously-mentioned rivalry, it is Serious Business for people to outright '''''HATE''''' the Duke men's basketball team... ''[[http://www.spartantailgate.com/forums/3686560-post21.html across]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYOgC2Qbqh4 the]] [[http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/sports/basketball/college_basketball/villanova/Duke-Hate-Guide.html?corder=reverse entire]] [[http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=355217 United]] [[http://atleagle.blogspot.com/2005/03/let-duke-hating-begin.html States]] [[http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/23258333/ of]] [[http://www.snakesinmypants.com/2007/03/19/on-duke-hating-the-yankees-notre-dame-and-even-sort-of-the-cowboys/ America]]''.
140	** What was one of the first signs COVID-19 was truly as serious as people were saying? March Madness being ''cancelled.''
141	* While on the topic of college basketball, can we point out how serious of a business it is when it comes to the University of Kentucky? The men's team is considered the uniting factor of the state (at least outside Jefferson County, where loyalties are divided between UK and the local University of Louisville). When the team was having a subpar (by its standards) season, the president of the university was said to be feeling the hot seat because the coach wasn't fired. Attack ads in the Republican Senatorial campaign were created because one candidate claimed to be a Duke fan over a UK fan.[[note]]That candidate—UsefulNotes/RonPaul's son Rand—won anyway. It should be noted that he never lived in Kentucky before completing his residency in ophthalmology, and had earned his MD at Duke.[[/note]]
142	* For professional hoops, Usefulnotes/{{Lithuania}}. It's been described that basketball [[https://web.archive.org/web/20111010052029/http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1189174/index.htm is the second largest religion among its 3.6 million residents, behind only Catholicism.]] Helped by great players (the country has three European championships, three Olympic bronzes, and a World Cup bronze), Lithuanian fans are fiery [[http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/5205/the-wild-fans-of-lithuania and travel everywhere for the national team]].
143	* Although football doesn't have the same level of support in Canada as it does in the United States, the various UsefulNotes/CanadianFootballLeague teams and their fans still have passionate rivalries. Canadian football fans tend to go especially crazy around September, when the Labour Day Classic is played and the various teams play their most hated rivals in home-and-home games.
144	** Winnipeg Blue Bombers vs Saskatchewan Roughriders - case in point: at a Music/GreatBigSea concert, the lead singer mentioned that their next stop would be Saskatoon - cue the ''entire'' arena booing. (The Riders aren't even from Saskatoon, they're based in Regina.) Alan: "You boo Saskatoon?!"
145	** The CFL is especially important in Saskatchewan, mainly because we don't have a hockey team to root for. 65% of CFL gear sold is Rider gear... and God help you if you like the Winnipeg Blue Bombers!
146	* Currently, in Turkey, mentioning the victory of Beşiktaş against Fenerbahçe is a possible threat to your perpetual well-being. You have been warned.
147	* This [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-6Tn0Ie-AQ New York Giants fan]] after the Giants lost to the Eagles in the 08/09 playoffs. And it was probably even worse for him after the [[ButtMonkey Arizona Cardinals]] beat the Eagles and went to the Super Bowl instead of them.
148	** Said Giants fan was eventually brought on Series/{{Tosh0}} to be told to lighten up.
149	* In a less funny example, junior tennis. There was once a player who got poisoned by the parents of another player. Those crazy tennis parents.
150	* It was said on another Trope page, but calling football "soccer" in some places is grounds for murder.
151	** At least several Americans feel the same way about people from "[[ButNotTooForeign those other fruity nations]]" calling The Boring Game "football".
152	*** As well as when they say that pads are for sissies. Even though pads do lessen the odds of serious injury, there are still people being ''killed'' to this day in American football.
153	*** Quite a lot of fans of other sports are aware that American football is dangerous despite its padding, but enjoy bringing it up simply to annoy American football fans.
154	* In Japan, baseball is serious freaking business. A common phrase associated with high school and college baseball is "Practice until you die."
155	* At least in all these instances, there are actual games to get worked up about. If you want to see complete abandonment of good sense, watch the coverage of the NFL draft. All the drama, all the overanalysis, mock drafts, urgent updates from the various "war rooms", speculation, prognostication, hand-wringing, head scratching, elation, outrage, and fans sitting in and both cheering and booing the picks as they happen. All for a bunch of guys who have not played one single NFL game! (It gets even more ridiculous when you consider that you can't even ''begin'' speculating on their worth to your team until they get signed to a contract, which might not even happen at all.) Mel Kiper Jr. essentially has analyzing and predicting the draft as his ''entire career''. Tell me there isn't something seriously messed up with that.
156	** The hype is rarely if ever lived up to. The aforementioned draft expert Mel Kiper Jr. and dozens of others said to be in the know praised [=JaMarcus=] Russell as "John Elway-like" and fully expected him to throw up huge numbers in the NFL. Russell actually did get drafted first, but... let's just say all those experts have quite a bit of egg on their face; Russell is likely to be remembered as the single biggest draft bust in NFL history, never performing with even moderate skill in spite of his illustrious college career. Conversely, one of the most enduring and successful NFL stars of the last decade, Creator/TomBrady, was a ''sixth round'' pick.
157	* The Heisman Trophy. There is no award in college football that is more utterly meaningless in every way imaginable, and that includes the [[OverlyLongName College Football Playoff National Championship]]. Yet every year, there are massive campaigns, a lavish awards ceremony, and firestorms of controversy over who won and who didn't. We even find out who finished second and third, for crying out loud!
158	** And then there was the controversy when former University of Southern California Trojans running back Reggie Bush, who had without a doubt the most electric season the year that he won the Heisman (had 2,600 all-purpose yards (rushing, receiving, returning, and passing), and 18 touchdowns (15 from rushing, two from receiving and one as a punt returner) and broke out runs of ''Series/SportsCenter'' Top 10 Plays quality almost every game) was declared retroactively ineligible as a player for the year he won the award over accepting illegal benefits. Bush and USC airmailed both copies of the trophy they received back to the Heisman Trust, who decided not to declare a winner for 2005. But this didn't stop sports journalists from awarding former Texas Longhorns and Tennessee Titans quarterback Vince Young, who ironically tore Reggie's Trojans a new one in the 2006 Rose Bowl the next month to decide the national championship, the trophy. And to make things worse, [[UnPerson Reggie's name has been stricken from all record books that he is mentioned in, all awards he received that year were taken away, and any images or mentions of him in USC's athletic facilities have been removed.]]
159	* The President of France personally held an inquest into the French football team's failure to progress past the first round of the 2010 FIFA World Cup... the sports minister was on record as saying that "those responsible for this disaster must accept the consequences, first the players, then the team management and after them the football federation," amid whispered campaigns by players that the French people "need to know the truth" of what happened at the camp.
160	** Even better, the President of Nigeria suspended the ''entire'' Nigerian national team for failing to get out of the group stage. Which means they won't be able to play any matches for two years.
161	*** This has since been reversed because - get this - FIFA (the world's governing body for the sport) threatened suspension of Nigeria's team from FIFA because the above constituted government interference in the country's program.
162	* Even within the game itself. There is a gentleman's agreement that when someone is injured and needs attention, whichever team has the ball will kick it out of play so he can be treated, despite the fact that this will result in a throw-in for the other team. When play resumes, the other team will throw the ball in, and simply kick it down the field to the team who originally had the ball. This is taken very seriously by some, however, sometimes to the point of protesting to the referee when the other team don't kick it back. Despite the fact it's not actually a rule of the game.
163	** Here's how seriously it's taken: In a 2019 EFL Championship match between Aston Villa and Leeds United, with both teams battling for position in the promotion playoffs, ''and'' Leeds still having a tiny chance for automatic promotion to the Premier League, Leeds scored a goal while a Villa player was hurt, leading to a brief scuffle between players from both teams. Leeds manager Marcelo Bielsa, after a brief discussion with his opposing number Dean Smith, ordered his team to let Villa score unopposed. The game ended 1–1, with Sheffield United clinching the final automatic promotion spot. Bielsa and Leeds would receive that year's FIFA Fair Play Award for this action.
164	* A sports team losing their best player to free agency. When UsefulNotes/LeBronJames left the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2010 to sign with the Miami Heat, [[http://www.nba.com/cavaliers/news/gilbert_letter_100708.html the reaction]] [[http://deadspin.com/5582399/cleveland-fans-react-with-usual-grace-and-tact was about on par]] with expectations.
165	** When [=LeBron=] returned to Cleveland four years later, Cleveland and its surroundings celebrated. [[http://deadspin.com/is-this-for-real-cleveland-media-react-live-on-air-1603647613 This is how the local media reported, and reacted to, the news.]]
166	** And when [=LeBron=] left for Los Angeles in 2018, Cleveland fans were undeniably disappointed, but were far more generous to him than in 2010.[[note]]For several reasons. First, [=LeBron=] announced his 2010 departure via a widely-criticized hour-long Creator/{{ESPN}} special, without letting anyone else know beforehand. Second, after he came back, he willed the Cavs to the 2016 NBA title, the city's first in a major pro sport in over 50 years. Finally, he handled his departure for L.A. with ''far'' more maturity and class. On top of that, it was clear to everyone, even in Cleveland, that the Cavs' title window had closed.[[/note]]
167	* UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball/Soccer vs [[UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball American Football]] [[AmericansHateTingle debates]] are very serious at least on the internet. Both sides [[strike:are rather respectful in their debate and employ eloquent and well-researched arguments]] have {{Flame War}}s about each other's favored "football" with absolutely pathetic and not researched arguments to why their sport is better. It would be easier if both sides just said "I just don't like that other football" and be on with it, but that's why it's here in the first place. Calling the former sport "soccer" is a BerserkButton to Association Football fans. Ironically, in a research mistake by these two sides, [[AwfulTruth the word was actually coined by a Brit and not an American]].
168	* Washington Commanders (né Redskins) on Dallas Cowboys. America's team my ass.
169	* In Puerto Rico, women's volleyball is serious business. Boxing too.
170	* Creator/KenBurns' first sweeping, epic, 9-part documentary dealt with UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar, a conflict that claimed the lives of over half a million Americans and forever altered the course of the nation. So what did he make his second sweeping, epic, 9-part documentary about? Baseball.
171	* If you ever get the chance, go to a Notre Dame Fighting Irish football game. You will be amazed at how much they love that team in South Bend, Indiana. There is a huge mural of Jesus with his arms outstretched visible from Notre Dame's home stadium. It is called "Touchdown Jesus" by fans.
172	* High school wrestling. Parents in some places have been known to shout things like, "Break his neck!" about teenage boys wrestling. In one case, a parent who said this, when called out on it afterward, repeated that yes, she really did want the kid on the opposing team to get his neck broken. Wrestling in general is pretty intense at any level. You'll find many otherwise nice parents turn into monsters as soon as their little Timmy steps onto the mat. And god forbid the referee makes a decision they don't like.
173	* The whole thing about taking games seriously can be placed thus:
174	-->"Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing." - Former UCLA Bruins football coach Red Sanders
175	* Los Angeles Lakers basketball. When the Lakers are in the finals (which used to be pretty often, but not in the last few years, with the team entering its AudienceAlienatingEra) the fans tend to riot in the streets of Los Angeles whether they win or lose.
176	* Fandom in general is getting pretty ridiculous. Many have gotten to the point where being a fan of a team makes them think they are part of the actual team, referring to them as "we" and "us" when they talk about them. This is despite the fact that said fans have no control over anything that happens on the field, they don't decide who plays, nobody on the team knows them, and often don't give them any money. Even if they do attend games and give them money, they're just spectators. Worse yet, if you bash their team, they take it personally. And don't ever mention to them that they're not part of the team.....
177	** Not only that, but fist fights can break out just because some twit criticized the other idiot's team. Non-Sports fans cannot help but {{facepalm}}
178	*** Devoted fans of a team can really impact performance, so in many instances, it is a "we" moment. When the crowd is behind an American football defense, you'd better believe it's firing the players up that are about to run over the other team. When a team's supporters are chanting loudly at an Association Football match, not only does it embolden the team they're supporting, but it can also get into the heads of some opposing players and affect their playing. In basketball, Oklahoma City's fans in particular are some of the loudest and most devoted fans of a team you will ever see, and their constant knack for getting behind their team spurs them to victory. And possibly one of the most underrated moments is when you're standing at the plate, with three balls (if you're the home team batting) or two strikes (if you're the home team pitching), where the fans will get on their feet. This actually can amp up the pressure and cause both wild pitches or swings at pitches that have no business being swung at.
179	* Running. The vast majority of runners are only in it for their own fitness, and many marathons are held as charity fundraisers, but God help you if you call them "joggers"...
180	* Scuba diving. Yes, really. You start out thinking, oh this is fun, but then you see the different certification cards. The Gold 500, the platinum 1000, the Pro 5000, it's scary for a poor, rec diver. And that's not going into the gear debates (want to see scuba divers come within inches of murder? Ask about rebreathers).
181	* The Australia vs New Zealand SiblingRivalry is usually just a friendly joke... until sports come into the picture. Although rugby union, rugby league, netball and cricket are the big four, it really doesn't matter what sport is being played.
182	* Chicagoans often take their Cubs vs. White Sox rivalry very seriously.
183	* In many parts of the South, the Holy Trinity is God, Jesus and Dale Earnhardt.
184	* Surfing. In Polynesian culture, surfing has deep cultural and spiritual associations, and many surfers find it annoying when tourists treat it as a mere pastime, though this only makes the locals seem arrogant and ignorant of the fact that just because they associate it with spirituality doesn't mean tourists have to (it's perfectly reasonable to treat it as a pastime if you're not Polynesian). In Hawaii in particular, there are "locals only" beaches, and informal clubs and gangs that make sure they stay that way. In Southern California localism has even led to violence on occasion.
185	* High school lacrosse in private schools is on par with a cultural movement.
186	* Gaelic football and hurling in Ireland.
187	* In some parts of England, cricket is virtually a religion unto itself. The talk show host Michael Parkinson, in his autobiography, related how his pregnant wife was virtually abducted by his father to ensure the child was born in Yorkshire and thus eligible to play for the Yorkshire cricket team.
188	** Former Australian prime minister John Howard once said that the man with the most important job in the country was the captain of the Australian cricket team.
189	* Race relations are ''extremely'' serious business in the world of basketball. The NBA expelled one of its team owners[[note]]Donald Sterling, former owner of the Los Angeles Clippers[[/note]] for a racist rant towards his mistress that was recorded on audio and leaked by TMZ, and that's just one of his alleged crimes against race relations, but perhaps the most vicious of all as it directly threatened to undermine the NBA itself. This ended up setting a precedent which resulted in another team owner[[note]]Bruce Levenson of the Atlanta Hawks[[/note]] voluntarily giving up control of his team after it came out that he had sent an internal office email expressing concern that white fans might be reluctant to attend games alongside too many black fans, and a WNBA team owner also selling her team following a high-profile feud with its players over their support for social change in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd and the Senatorial election loss that resulted. Also, the usage of the old idiom "chink in the armor" as a headline on the ESPN website to refer to a slump being undergone by a Knicks player who just so happens to be Chinese-American[[note]]Jeremy Lin[[/note]] severely TARFU'd, if not outright FUBAR'd, the idiom's reputation (previously, the phrase had been used without controversy to refer to other sports-related slumps). The editor who committed that boner? Fired. It just goes to show how much of a champion the sport is in terms of race relations.
190	* In (most of) FlyoverCountry, high school football is treated with the same intensity as the Super Bowl. Seriously. Insult your home team? Congrats, you just committed suicide by mob, especially in Texas. The same can be said for the states in the southeastern states like Alabama and Georgia. In Indiana and Kentucky, substitute "basketball" for "football".
191	* And now, fantasy sports are Serious Business. Not just the local office pool or online fantasy sports league, but with the introduction of one-week fantasy football gambling entertainment sites like [=FanDuel=] and [=DraftKings=] where people can put up real money and get real money back in return.
192	* In Europe, especially the Nordic countries and Germany, handball is extremely popular. As Germany is one of the biggest markets, the world governing body for Handball changed their own rules to allow Germany to participate in the world cup even though it had not qualified. Go to Schleswig-Holstein (the northernmost state of Germany) and go to a Handball game. Serious Business indeed.
193	* Basketball and boxing are notoriously Serious Business in the Philippines. The Philippine Basketball Association, formed in 1975, is the second oldest professional basketball league in the world, only behind the UsefulNotes/NationalBasketballAssociation; the PBA came out from a league that started in the [[OlderThanTheyThink late 30s]]. It also helps that you can find a basketball court (full or half) on just about everywhere - from the streets to construction sites. Barangays (the smallest administrative unit in the country) are also known to hold basketball leagues every summer that draw in hundreds. "Multi-purpose halls", which are basically glorified basketball courts are the favorite projects of most city and town mayors, often [[ItsAllAboutMe bearing their name]] on the roof or on the backboards. That's how serious basketball is in this country; if it were a religion, it would easily upstage Roman Catholicism as the biggest one.
194	** In regards to the boxing part, a Creator/MannyPacquiao fight was a surefire guarantee that the crime rate in the entire country would drop to virtually zero. Yes, everyone loved to watch him so much that even lawless elements stopped doing their business just to see Pacquiao fight in the ring.
195	** Another sport taken seriously in the Philippines is billiards. Like basketball, one can easily find a place where a billiard table can be rented, and fights have broken out because of games. It is more likely that Filipinos would know the names of legendary billiards players like Efren "Bata" Reyes and Francisco "Django" Bustamante than any current political figure.
196	** In fact, there's a saying in the Philippines that goes kinda like this; There are three B's in Philippine sports: Basketball, Boxing, and Billiards.
197	* Surprisingly enough, cycling is rather serious in Italy-enough so that Gino Bartali's 1948 UsefulNotes/TourDeFrance victory played a part in ''averting a civil war''.[[note]]Tensions in Italy were high after Palmiro Togliatti, leader of the Communist Party, had been shot and was comatose, the country was on the brink of civil war, and then people calmed down when Bartali won three stages in a row, gaining enough time for Togliatti to wake up and calm everyone down.[[/note]]
198	* Brazilian canoeist Isaquias Queiroz named his son Sebastian after [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Brendel a rival]], because he wanted not to forget who he needed to beat. (it eventually worked, as in the next Olympics Queiroz easily surpassed his rival in a semifinal, and next went home with the gold!)

Context SeriousBusiness / Sports