RAIDER RUFFIANS?

RAIDER RUFFIANS AND FOOTBALL FANATICS

Aaron Hernandez’s name came up during a recent Sports Law class. The former New England Patriots tight end was incarcerated earlier this year and charged with murder. It will take a while for his case to go to trial, as the wheels of justice move slowly in America. But eventually he’ll be convicted and sentenced.

 

Or will he?

What if Hernandez is found “not guilty?” Stranger things have happened. (Can you say “OJ?”)

Would he return to the Patriots? Highly unlikely. So I asked my students, if not the Patriots, then what team would be most apt to sign Hernandez?

“The Raiders!” they responded in unison. 

 

I laughed. An earlier discussion had centered on what will happen to Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick, now that he has been supplanted by Nick Foles. Vick is a convicted felon who did serious prison time for his involvement with dog fighting. If the Eagles release Vick, what team would be most likely to take a chance on him?

 

“The Raiders!” my students responded in unison. 

 

What is it about the Raiders?

Every team has its own culture, and Raider culture is renegade culture. Oakland has long been known to give second chances to purported bad hombres—which is nice, if you’re a bad hombre.

Having spent considerable time in San Diego, I picked up on the cultural differences between Charger fans (chilled) and Raider fans (swilled). San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium always sold out for the annual Raiders game, with many thousands of Raider fans donning their black and silver garb, putting on their eye-patches, grabbing their chains, and heading for the stadium.

 

This is not to say that all Raider fans are outlaws. It’s just that bad 90% that give the good 10% a bad name. Consider the recent Thanksgiving Day game in Dallas, where the Cowboys hosted the Raiders. Dallas’ Channel 11 reported how after the Dallas victory, Cowboy fan Carlos Olivares was leaving the stadium yelling “Go Cowboys!” His next memory was waking up in a hospital bed, unable to open his eyes.

“I woke up in shock,” Olivares said. “I got up real fast ‘cause I didn’t know where I was. Nurses held me down.”

 

Witnesses told police that several men wearing Raiders attire attacked Olivares . Friends found him lying on the ground, unconscious. His cell phone was gone, as was the cash from his wallet. Despite the beating and memory loss, doctors told him he was lucky.

“I’m just glad I was left alive,” Olivares said.

Laid-back San Diegans are familiar with such behavior. So with pro football being a business, the Charger management decided to screw the Raider fans. San Diego was struggling and was not selling out Qualcomm—except for the Raider game, when black-shirted fans bought every available ticket. So the Chargers decreed that anyone who wanted a single ticket to the Raider game had to buy a three-game package. Raider fans only wanted to see the one game, but were incensed at having to pay for three. This did not improve their moods as they tailgated in Qualcomm’s giant parking lot, drinking hard stuff and looking for trouble.

Other Sports Cultures

 

Referring to Raider fans as hooligans overstates the renegade aspect of Raider culture. Hooligans are British soccer followers who are actually criminals who use sport as an excuse for mayhem. But sports fans in certain American cities do take on tribal characteristics.

 

The aforementioned San Diego fans are famously laid-back, whereas Boston Red Sox fans were famously fatalistic—at least until 2004. New York fans are famously obnoxious. Philadelphia fans are famously cruel—known to boo everyone from Santa Claus to Miss Pennsylvania. Cleveland fans are famously morose.

Sport sociologists studied these tribal traits and identified the three most volatile fan segments.  Foxsports.com described an Emory University study that confirmed what many have long purported: Football fans—especially those rooting for New England, Pittsburgh, or Oakland—can be unstable.

 

Pats fans unstable? Say it isn’t so!

 

Marketing professors Michael Lewis and Manish Tripathi devised an algorithm and analyzed data to figure out how various fan bases deal with losses—and they found that fans of the Raiders, Steelers and Patriots do not cope well.

Patriot fans ranked high in terms of instability because they are the saddest fans after a loss, as measured by angry Twitter Tweets. It probably has a lot to do with expectations. Pats fans expect to win.

According to Lewis and Tripathi, the most stable fans are Cowboy fans. Over the last 15 years Cowboy fans have been conditioned to expect disappointment, so when Tony Romo fails them they are not surprised.

So what does all this mean? It means that the Raider Ruffians should be careful about showing up in black and silver the next time Oakland plays at New England. Gillette Stadium is not Qualcomm. Regardless of the outcome, if they’re looking for trouble, they’ll find it—and will likely end up paraphrasing Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.

“We’re not in California anymore!”