Great Plains talk will focus on sports rivalry

Sports rivalries can be a fun, exciting way to support a favorite team but can sometimes become an extreme case of “us vs. them.”

Cody Havard, associate professor of sport commerce at the University of Memphis, will discuss rivalry in sports with a special focus on the Cornhusker State, including conference realignment and responsible promotion of rivalries. His talk, “Us, Them and We: Sport Rivalry in the Cornhusker State and Beyond,” is 3:30 p.m. March 6 at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Center for Great Plains Studies, 1155 Q St.

The talk will feature what fans, organizations and researchers can do to better understand rivalry and address fan behavior. Havard will also discuss the comic strip Adventures with Sport Rivalry Man, which he created to talk to fans about behavior and respectful rivalries.

“Rivalry can cause an increase in fan excitement and participant effort, but it can also lead to unethical, deviant or even violent behavior,” Havard said. “We’ll discuss both positive and negative outcomes of rivalry, and how sport teams can help promote a safe and fan-friendly environment at games.”

The journal Great Plains Research recently published Havard’s work investigating Husker students’ views of the Iowa Hawkeyes and Wisconsin Badgers, along with how knowledge of this group mindset may benefit marketing directors, strategic planners, stadium personnel and public safety officials.

Havard developed the Sport Rivalry Fan Perception Scale to measure the perceptions fans have toward their favorite team’s rival and the Glory Out of Reflected Failure metric to describe the joy fans experience when someone other than their favorite team defeats their rival. He was named the 2015 Emerging Scholar in Sports Marketing from the Sport and Special Event Special Interest Group of the American Marketing Association. He has published work on rivalry in journals such as Sport Management Review, Sport Marketing Quarterly, the Journal of Sport Behavior, and the International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing. Havard has had work featured in pop-culture books and newspapers, is internationally known for his work on the rivalry phenomenon, and runs SportRivalry.com.

The talk is part of the Paul A. Olson Great Plains seminars, an interdisciplinary lecture series from the Center for Great Plains Studies on various Great Plains topics. It is free and open to the public. Learn more.