Attendees of a sporting event. Is it a community?

Fraternities and sororities are tail-gating, students are throwing footballs to one another, and there are groups cheering on their sports team. Further in the day, the Georgia Tech versus Clemson football game is about to begin as the roar of the crowd grows louder. The chaos grows as the crowd jumps to their feet, cheering on their team with school songs and phrases as the voices of thousands echo throughout the campus. Nothing but excitement and fear is in the air as the intensity of the game increases in the fourth quarter. The game is then over with Georgia Tech being the victors, the whole school is bursting into cheer for their school and proceeds to exit to celebrate with their community members.

With thousands of Georgia Tech students and faculty attending the game to support their team, games can often appear as a community for all attendees. However, there is a huge split in almost every game among the audience. Games, matches, meets or other sporting events often consist of two teams playing each other, enforcing the idea of competitiveness. As a result, the crowd is often split by the team they support as attendees socialize and cheer with other attendees that are fans of the same team. These groups, which are dictated by the team they support, often tend to avoid communicating with other groups. It is impossible to consider attendees of any game as a community because most crowds lack the necessities of a community. There is a lack in communication, communion, common goal, and acceptance between the groups who go to support their own team.

However, people with the same affinity towards a certain team show most of the characteristics of a community. They display unity in their cheers and support for their team, communicate with each other, and exhibit acceptance as they push aside each others differences in order to accomplish a common goal, supporting their team. As the Georgia Tech community and Clemson community gather to show support to their team, they sometimes show detestation towards each other, simply because they do not support the same team. These communities lack the strength to accept each other in order to transcend into a larger, stronger community due to the divide in team support. With this divide existing in practically every type of sporting event, it is impossible to consider all attendees as a community unless the attendees are a homogeneous group of people that all support the same team.