For several months my husband has been trying to get me to read ESPN The Magazine.  So when he said, “Hey, a sociologist is cited in here,” I thought his ploy continued.  But, as he pushed the magazine across the table, I had to admit I was intrigued.

In the article, Shaun Assael asks, “Why do fans riot?”

You’ve probably heard or read about the uprisings in Buenos Aires over soccer and in Vancouver over hockey. What amazed me weren’t the images of violence that went viral, causing the word “hooligan” to pop as a trending topic. And it wasn’t even the fact that the riots followed historic losses — a playoff defeat for River Plate that demoted Argentina’s version of the Yankees to a lower division for the first time in 110 years, and a bitter Game 7 Stanley Cup loss that left the long-suffering Canucks still searching for a title.

No, what stunned me was the realization that this kind of violence rarely happens in American pro sports. We riot after wins.

To help understand why Americans can be better losers than winners, he turned to sociologist Jerry M. Lewis, who studies outbreaks of sports violence.

…Here are the three warning signs he’s learned to spot: a) a hotly contested championship final; b) watched by lots of young men; c) in a common urban gathering spot with a history of violence.

Lewis mainly focuses on celebratory violence and believes the prevalence of many professional sports and teams in America means that Americans don’t get upset about any particular one.  This contrasts to countries where a single sport, like hockey or soccer, dwarfs all others.

Read the rest here.