why so much animosity between fans of different riders?

cheapie

when i'm reading the posts discussion who will win the various tours i'm always struck by the ferocity with which people respond to opinions.

you think ullrich is out of the race??? you must be the biggest f#cktard to ever post or ride a bike!!! he will win and your post is an indication that your country sucks and you don't know sh!t about biking!!! besides, everyone KNOWS lance is coked up 100% of the time anyhow you big fat dumba$$!


wtf? it's just an opinion! i don't notice this sort of animosity when people are discussing football (the american kind) or other sports.

rejobako

Cheapie: I could direct you to some NFL-fan forums that make the discussion in this place look like a seminar on civility.

Seriously, your point is well-taken. I think some of the animosity has to do with something mentioned in your post. Armstrong is the boss of the TdF right now, and he happens to be an American. As such, he has caused a lot of new (some would say "temporary") fans to become interested in the sport. This has generated a lot of disdain by those who've been cycling fans all their lives. I can understand that, to an extent, because some of the nouveau fans reveal a glaring lack of knowledge about the sport, and, in turn, some of them don't take correction too well. On the other hand, I don't particularly care for the attitude that being a cycling fan requires some sort of proof of the longevity of your interest, or passing an aptitude test.

JensCph

Several reasons:

1) While it works as a team sport in many ways, it is still (mostly) an individual sport when it comes to the fans. And when you are judging an individual, you often make more definate statements: "Lance is the best" as opposed to "DSC looks to be the strongest team". Teams change all the time, but people impressions of who an individual is and what he can do gets etched in stone very fast. And when you use definate statements all the time, you are claiming that your opinions are not open to interpretation...they are facts. If you just insert "I think" before most of those statements, you'd cool down the tone enourmously.

2) Cycling is a very international event so
- A) The variety of opinions on the sport is huge.
- B) On the internet, many people think that: "Their opinion" = "Their value as a person" = "Their country" = "Their country's politics"..... So just disagreeing with someone's opinion can easily turn into a huge politics issue or personal issue. And vice versa.
- C) things like expressions, irony, sarcasm are easily lost in translation and culture gaps.

3) Many fans are new to the sport, especially in the US (hello "Lance bandwagon"). And some of the (mostly European) fans who have followed the sport for a long time feel like these 'new fans' are clueless and spend alot of time displaying their 'superior knowledge' in a sometimes derogatory manner.

toa

Well sport-animosity is quite common in European soccer, where every Sunday the different fan-clubs spend hours and hours beating each other up, with countless arrests etc. etc. British fan was killed by Turkish during one of the big pan-European cups. The Heisel-stadium horror stands perhaps, as the most tragic example of a long line of soccer-related holigan insidents

jhuskey

[QUOTE=cheapie]when i'm reading the posts discussion who will win the various tours i'm always struck by the ferocity with which people respond to opinions.

you think ullrich is out of the race??? you must be the biggest f#cktard to ever post or ride a bike!!! he will win and your post is an indication that your country sucks and you don't know sh!t about biking!!! besides, everyone KNOWS lance is coked up 100% of the time anyhow you big fat dumba$$!


wtf? it's just an opinion! i don't notice this sort of animosity when people are discussing football (the american kind) or other sports.



You need to come to a Tennessee/Florida football game.Your opinion will change and I hear the Florida,FSU games are worse.
Cursing,fights,name calling,brass knuckles,knife fights and thats just the Cheerleaders.

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House

I am either a member or a lurker of forums of American Football, NHL, rugby and football and the same animosity exists on all of them. Nothing new here.

cheapie

lol. i know i'm a fairly recent road biking fan and i like lance. actually, i was a bigger tyler fan but that turned out nicely huh?

i guess i'm just surprised by the attitude that seems to say, "if you don't like my guy, you're insulting my intelligence."


and maybe [conceited comment]i just thought cycling fans are more "high brow" than fans of other sports[/conceited comment] and expected the discourse to be more cerebral than otherwise.

MJtje

Lol, discuss soccer in Holland or UK. All the supporters attack each other before AND after the match........even killed each other in the past. This is peanuts on this forum........And it's not THAT bad...........life goes on!

ATM

How about NASCAR? I bet those discussions get crazy.

thebluetrain

Those rednecks can get down right dirty.

Powerful Pete

Interesting how the cycling image is changing. Remember that traditionally here in Europe cycling has been a working class sport... if you are rich and well off why the heck would you suffer like an animal cycling?

In any event, that whole image has changed (don't think that it ever was a working man's sport in the US, but please correct me if I am mistaken), and the recent (past 15-20 years) resurgence of cycling in Europe is driven by yuppies and middle class trying to get off their fat ass and get in shape.

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cheapie

no way working class here in the states would wear spandex or pay $3k for a bike.

homeycheese

r u kidding me? have you seen how much a NASCAR team jacket costs?

the average per customer dollars spent at a NASCAR event dwarfs that of the World Cup, Super Bowl, Baseball All-Star Game or American College Football Bowl game.

that track we have (under water) south of the ATL pumps more $$$$ into the local economy each year with 2 races than the baseball, football and basketball teams combined.

on the subject of animosity between fans, much like the challenges with other sports where individual athletes get transferred around alot, the days of supporting a team are slowly being eroded more in favor of following an athlete and making the debates even more heated. Such as: I like TMO, but think Ulrich is a persistent "underachiever." I'll take LA on any team he rides with. I like Real Madrid, but hate Beckham, and on and on it could go...

all of this points out some interesting marketing efforts going on around the world where athletes are trying to become "the brand" and the team ownership is quite conflicted on how best to market "their product."

cultivating fan animosity is part of the equation...